London centric, they talk about cycle super highways and quietways. Where other than that London have such things?
Cycle superhighways are AFAIK only in London (perhaps also Manchester?) but the Quietway name and concept are more widespread. Certainly we've had some in Bristol for ten years or so. I think the Quietway name was only recently adopted here, previously they were known as Greenways and Link routes (still are, I'd say, in general terms) but the routes were here already.
Greenway makes me think of greenlane, or a rutted mess only passable to progressively more offroad capable 4x4 as the season goes on.
Yes. Well I'd look beyond cycle paths, including ways of making the roads we have more pleasant and usable for everyone. Bear in mind that any solution taken from one place to another changes a little in translation, because traffic and travel aren't just engineering, they exist within a cultural and behavioural environment.
Yes, This is something I've been talking about with people who pick up Dutch infrastructure, copy it physically, but fail to understand the cultural and legal structures that go with it.
That's a good example of the kind of thing they didn't look at all. An interurban or rural route.
My experience of sustrans interurban or rural routes is that they are not designed as transport, but rather as a nice place to take the kids for a bike ride on a Sunday afternoon. This really annoys me, as once built, people seem to think they are the only ones you should use. In Canterbury they built a cycle route along the river from the village upstream of Canterbury all the way to the edge of the city. Only problem is, for about 3 months of the year it's only suitable for kayak or possible fat bike. The same is true of the length that goes down stream of the city, the first part is through unlit dark woods that most people find too scary to cycle through at night, and then onto the flood plane at Fordwich, I had to repack all the bearings on my Brompton after cycling across this section in the dark, what I thought was about 50mm of water over the path turned out to be deep enough to cover the bottom bracket. Having reached Fordwich, if you wanted to continue to follow NCN 1 to Sandwich, it takes a very indirect route down pot holed country lanes. It's very beautiful on a sunny Spring afternoon, but the rest of the time it's just an indirect mess. If you use a cycle route planner like cyclestreets, it's really hard to it to plan a route using NCN1 from Canterbury to Sandwich as it's just so damn indirect. Head north from Canterbury and you have the crab and winkle way, This isn't a bad path, it's kinda direct (for values of), but it's unlit, so not something most people want to use for their commute. Fall off on a corner in the dark and you've got bugger all phone reception, and you're half a km from the nearest road. Head south and you're on RCN 16, this uses parts of the North Downs way, and has sections that aren't ideal for road bikes. Part way to Dover RCN 16 forks off RCN 17 towards folkestone, this has a fancy new bridge over the A2, but it follows a pretty remote country lane down through the Elham valley, past Pett Bottom (nice pub). It's a nice route for a Sunday ride, but I'd hate to have to commute on it in winter in the dark.
Oh, and you can be reasonably certain all of the above are not gritted, meaning they are impassible when the temp drops.
So yes, I feel my cynicism about sustrans has some basis in reality. I'm sure there are people there who are good people working hard in difficult circumstances, not helped by nimbys and local authorities. But the quality of what they produce is pretty damn poor, so calling them designers of the ultimate cycle path, pah.
J