On-line debate.

[jonny jeez]

Jump in, lads!

What, shall we just tell the ladies to "wait by the kitchen sink" untill we are finished...or are they invited too.

Ahem....I suspect an apology may be in order.

 

[marinyork]

The trial isn't necessarily asking for more contraflow cycle lanes. It is asking for exceptions. We have these in Sheffield. There aren't enough of them. It's like Jonesy said, you need more of the roads returned to being two way. Where they aren't the exception system works perfectly well, there just aren't anywhere near enough of them.

 

[manalog]

I personally wouldn't be riding the wrong way down a One Way Street, its asking for trouble. I'll rather go round the long route.
If a Cyclist is killed/injured on one of these "Cycle provisisons" the m0r0n in the car will say, "sorry I didn't see you" and get 6points on their Licence. Better to have a dedicated cycle lane wide enough with kerbs so that any m0rons who wants to have a go will hit the kerb 1st.
I have a gut feeling they would do this on the cheap, no cycling lanes, nada.

 

[marinyork]

I personally wouldn't be riding the wrong way down a One Way Street, its asking for trouble. I'll rather go round the long route.
If a Cyclist is killed/injured on one of these "Cycle provisisons" the m0r0n in the car will say, "sorry I didn't see you" and get 6points on their Licence. Better to have a dedicated cycle lane wide enough with kerbs so that any m0rons who wants to have a go will hit the kerb 1st.
I have a gut feeling they would do this on the cheap, no cycling lanes, nada.

I'm not sure you actually get what these are like. The joy of them is there is less wasteful red paint. They actually work fairly well. Also I'm not sure you would be willing to cycle that extra half a mile/go through a very treacherous roundabout. Often the short cuts are substantial.

 

[manalog]

I'm not sure you actually get what these are like. The joy of them is there is less wasteful red paint. They actually work fairly well. Also I'm not sure you would be willing to cycle that extra half a mile/go through a very treacherous roundabout. Often the short cuts are substantial.

What are they like where you are as I havent seen any in Central London, I only see lodds of Cyclist going the wrong way down One Ways illigally, very scary specially on a bend. Have you got a location on Google map so I can see what this particular provision is like?

 

[John the Monkey]

It seemed to be quite a common practice in Belgium - the centre of Brugge in particular is awash with exemptions to "No Entry" for pedal bicycles and mopeds.

We didn't see carnage on the streets, and civilisation seemed not to have collapsed (although I'll grant you, we were only there for a few days). The signage was a large picture of the exempted vehicles (pedal cycles, mopeds - the latter having an "A" symbol under it) with the Flemish for "EXEMPTED" under it. I suspect if it doesn't work here, the cause will be the idiocy, intolerance and lack or awareness of the road users in question, rather than any inherent weakness in such a system of exemptions.

 

[Fab Foodie]

It seemed to be quite a common practice in Belgium - the centre of Brugge in particular is awash with exemptions to "No Entry" for pedal bicycles and mopeds.

We didn't see carnage on the streets, and civilisation seemed not to have collapsed (although I'll grant you, we were only there for a few days). The signage was a large picture of the exempted vehicles (pedal cycles, mopeds - the latter having an "A" symbol under it) with the Flemish for "EXEMPTED" under it. I suspect if it doesn't work here, the cause will be the idiocy, intolerance and lack or awareness of the road users in question, rather than any inherent weakness in such a system of exemptions.

Unfortunately, the good people of Brussels don't have the intelect of the average Daily Wail 'reader' to realise the amount of damage death and destruction the system is causing in their city...

 

[fossyant]

I'm personally not sure it's a good idea in this country with 'certain attitudes' towards cyclists to start with. Lot's of 'scraping the cyclist off my 4x4' comments. It might work on a sufficiently wide road with dedicated lanes.

LINF 4x4 alert....

 

[jonny jeez]

I'm personally not sure it's a good idea in this country with 'certain attitudes' towards cyclists to start with. Lot's of 'scraping the cyclist off my 4x4' comments. It might work on a sufficiently wide road with dedicated lanes.

LINF 4x4 alert....

"INCOMINGGGGG!!!!"

 

[Lazy-Commuter]

Strangely, a lot of the more rabid comments seem to be getting marked down on the old green / red arrows thing. Or is that our influence?

I did like this one though ..

"Who wants to cycle to work in the rain and the snow? Who wants to show up to work sweaty and tired because they've had to cycle 3 miles? "

3 WHOLE miles? Is Zara, UK having a bit of a laugh?

 

[ComedyPilot]

Strangely, a lot of the more rabid comments seem to be getting marked down on the old green / red arrows thing. Or is that our influence?

I did like this one though ..


3 WHOLE miles? Is Zara, UK having a bit of a laugh?

I am maybe being a bit presumptuous, but Zara could be a fat minger that, due to her bloated burgers & drive 100 meters in the car dependancy lifestyle, would sweat writing a text on her phone. Of course 3 miles seems a lot. I thought it was a few years ago. Now I think nothing of doing 70+ miles, and 3 miles is just a nice little warm-up.

 

[Lazy-Commuter]

I am maybe being a bit presumptuous, but Zara could be a fat minger that, due to her bloated burgers & drive 100 meters in the car dependancy lifestyle, would sweat writing a text on her phone. Of course 3 miles seems a lot. I thought it was a few years ago. Now I think nothing of doing 70+ miles, and 3 miles is just a nice little warm-up.

That was my first thought. Then I wondered if she was taking the "p".

I have to admit that it took me a couple of months to build up to my 7 mile each way commute, but I think that - as someone that walked a fair bit - even then I was aware that plenty of people would look on 3 miles as a warm up.

 

[summerdays]

What are they like where you are as I havent seen any in Central London, I only see lodds of Cyclist going the wrong way down One Ways illigally, very scary specially on a bend. Have you got a location on Google map so I can see what this particular provision is like?

Here is one I use regularly Elton Road just off the A38 - but not the best in the world - narrow but then not many cars come up the one way route.
http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.470838,-2.593817&spn=0.001292,0.00287&t=h&z=19

St Mark's Road in Easton - again narrow and this time well used by cars in the opposite direction but somehow it works in a sort of chaotic manner that sums up St Mark's Road.
http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.467864,-2.564551&spn=0.001292,0.00287&t=h&z=19

Arley Hill - looks like the photo was taken at the time they were installing/changing the junction.
http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.465849,-2.591094&spn=0.002583,0.00574&t=h&z=18

And a bigger one - contraflow bus lane at Parson Street:
http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.432934,-2.606528&spn=0.001293,0.003892&t=h&z=19

There are some others but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[marinyork]

What are they like where you are as I havent seen any in Central London, I only see lodds of Cyclist going the wrong way down One Ways illigally, very scary specially on a bend. Have you got a location on Google map so I can see what this particular provision is like?

The provisions vary from contraflow cycle lanes to just exceptions right through to our totally nuts retro style cobbled cycle lane (in red cobbles which must be fairly unusual), to sneaky little ones through car parks (for example to bypass one of the worst roundabouts in the city).

It's fairly hard laying down examples, because you can't see them that well on streetview or aerial shots and they tend to be paired up with road blockages. Sheffield's not like London, we don't have linear main roads, we have a tree branching structure. This means that not only do you have to cycle further but there's a traffic funnel effect on many main roads (which cyclists other than me complain about).

That said Brunswick Street in Sheffield would be the typical example. Say you're a student at the university of Sheffield and want to pop home. With two exceptions cycle 0.5 miles. Without various other routes including 1.2 miles of dual carriageway, the worst roundabout in the city and another not ideal one. The vehicles that break one way systems routinely are cars and they always seem to manage to avert accidents.

If you look at Sheffield City Centre proper it would be impossible to sanely navigate around on a bike without exceptions either in the form of contraflows or other things. It's bad enough as it is now, without them it would be a waste of time cycling at all. As Jonesy says, more streets need to be two way or just lay on the exceptions for cyclists.