Discussion
This was inspired by the cars getting bigger thread. When I first started driving, in 1991, most main roads in and out of towns were 2 lanes wide (2 lanes each side, overall 4 lanes wide) and people managed easily with it. However, over the years, these have been whittled down to 1 lane each way or 1 each way with 1 side having extra space for a bus lane.
I know we have bus lanes, and cycle lanes have grown too, but I have a sneaky suspicion that councils have sneakily widening pavements over the years.
I might be a wierd conspiricy theorist sitting here in my underpants, in my tinfoil hat and muttering gibberish about how much better things were, but the whole concept of the restriction in our roads does annoy me.
I'm all for cycle lanes. But why have the most vulnerable road users in the gutter battling with buses and heavy vehicles? Surely the cyclist should share space with pedestrians?
It would be a worthwhile investment to allocate split pavements to pedestrians and cyclists, possibly with a simple barrier? Surely it would encourage cyclists due to added safety and reduce congestion due to weaving to give space, plus less cars on the road.
By the way, I know that such a scheme would cost hundreds of millions, and would take years to implement. I think it would however offer a lot of benefit to our less than ideal roads space situation - who knows if could work, we might get our 2 lane main roads back, but I won't hold my breath on that one.
(Dons flame suit and waits for the abuse)
I know we have bus lanes, and cycle lanes have grown too, but I have a sneaky suspicion that councils have sneakily widening pavements over the years.
I might be a wierd conspiricy theorist sitting here in my underpants, in my tinfoil hat and muttering gibberish about how much better things were, but the whole concept of the restriction in our roads does annoy me.
I'm all for cycle lanes. But why have the most vulnerable road users in the gutter battling with buses and heavy vehicles? Surely the cyclist should share space with pedestrians?
It would be a worthwhile investment to allocate split pavements to pedestrians and cyclists, possibly with a simple barrier? Surely it would encourage cyclists due to added safety and reduce congestion due to weaving to give space, plus less cars on the road.
By the way, I know that such a scheme would cost hundreds of millions, and would take years to implement. I think it would however offer a lot of benefit to our less than ideal roads space situation - who knows if could work, we might get our 2 lane main roads back, but I won't hold my breath on that one.
(Dons flame suit and waits for the abuse)
Edited by Hell27 on Tuesday 5th April 20:25
putting bike lanes on the pavement is in interesting idea, and I've seen and tried them, my opinion is... great if you're teaching the little ones to ride, useless if you want to get anywhere on time.
Firstly, every t-junction changes from you having priority to you not, so you have to stop. I've seen a couple where the bike lane is *supposed* to have priority over the road, but with the extremely limited visisbility and the fact you're not expected you'd be suicidal to act on that idea.
Secondly, pavement paths are often just wide enough for two bikes, if that. So if there's a pedestrian and someone coming the other way (and let's face it pedestrians have a hard time spotting cyclists on the road let alone a pavement - pedestrians routinely boil my piss with their idiotic cries of suprise, it's a road you f
king idiot 
), or a family riding two abreast, you're back to virtually stopping again. Their safe but really not conducive to 'making progress'. Amsterdam's model is good 
on a side note, I'm happy I got to use the smiley
Firstly, every t-junction changes from you having priority to you not, so you have to stop. I've seen a couple where the bike lane is *supposed* to have priority over the road, but with the extremely limited visisbility and the fact you're not expected you'd be suicidal to act on that idea.
Secondly, pavement paths are often just wide enough for two bikes, if that. So if there's a pedestrian and someone coming the other way (and let's face it pedestrians have a hard time spotting cyclists on the road let alone a pavement - pedestrians routinely boil my piss with their idiotic cries of suprise, it's a road you f
king idiot ), or a family riding two abreast, you're back to virtually stopping again. Their safe but really not conducive to 'making progress'. Amsterdam's model is good on a side note, I'm happy I got to use the
smileyI wouldn't dare to cycle in London or Essex due to the piss poor driving skills and if you go to Berlin they have awesome cycle lanes set apart from the road, usually with grass verges as well. The pavement is split into cycle and walking and it's great.
Oddly enough their roads are less stressy, perhaps due to the lack of stupid road lane splitting with lane upon lane upon lane where there once was only one lane.
Even my home town oop north has started - a road which was a wide 2 way road now has: 1. Parking "lane" then 2. cycle lane then 3. car lane and the same for the other side. It's all total bks and the only way they could fit it all in results in wonky middle markings which if followed would cause head-on's every 50 metres, so they are now ignored, so what was the point in all that? The answer is it kept the council highway "engineers" and workers in jobs spending our taxes on pointless ste (thanks Socialists - really appreciate it!)
Oddly enough their roads are less stressy, perhaps due to the lack of stupid road lane splitting with lane upon lane upon lane where there once was only one lane.
Even my home town oop north has started - a road which was a wide 2 way road now has: 1. Parking "lane" then 2. cycle lane then 3. car lane and the same for the other side. It's all total b
ks and the only way they could fit it all in results in wonky middle markings which if followed would cause head-on's every 50 metres, so they are now ignored, so what was the point in all that? The answer is it kept the council highway "engineers" and workers in jobs spending our taxes on pointless ste (thanks Socialists - really appreciate it!)Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff