Author Topic: Silly cyclepath obstructions  (Read 44097 times)

Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #25 on: 15 January, 2015, 11:15:47 pm »
Heading into Birmingham.



I've done a 57-point turn to negotiate that one on the ICE trike.  While being glared at by pedestrians.

Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #26 on: 25 January, 2015, 12:15:43 am »
As for the problem of motorcycles on cycle paths, if these are really a problem* then why not adopt the design used on rural bridleways of the muddy, horsey type: a padlocked gate which can be swung open for maintenance access, but in its closed position has a large cutout with a lip a few inches high. Just high enough to stop a motorbike (or other wheeled vehicle) crossing it, but easy for a horse to step over. Obviously, you can't cycle over this - but it's quite easy for most people to lift most cycles over, even a tandem. It would, of course, still be a problem for many disabled people unless they had an able-bodied companion, and might require unhitching a trailer. It's far from perfect, but it's got to be a lot better for cyclists (and cheaper to install) than those spirals (or even lots of bollards and chicanes currently in use).


Silly Sustrans Gate by Nikki Pugh, on Flickr

Whoever is the barmy bxxgxxr who thought that one up? Any bored kid on a trailie or illegal un-taxed, uninsuredetc crosser would have a field day with that - stoppies, wheelies, bunnyhops, 180s on the backwheel in the lane to come back for another go - then he'd get a few mates to join him!! What the hell do the people who think up these things know about kids on crossers? Even a scooter could have fun on that thing!


Pancho

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #28 on: 14 March, 2016, 08:07:11 pm »
From that report, Kim: "Cardiff Council say that the barriers are intentional, and were put in place to limit the speed of two wheeled cyclists. "

I remember being gobsmacked the first time I discussed barriers with the traffic engineer responsible for cycle lanes. I pointed out that they severely degraded the cycling environment and slowed journeys massively. He replied "that's the point".

Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #29 on: 14 March, 2016, 08:09:43 pm »
Yep.  It's because we don't build cyclepaths.  We build shared-use paths, and pedestrians get upset (sometimes reasonably) at people cycling on them.

Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #30 on: 15 March, 2016, 08:16:34 am »
It takes a bike around 50 m to get to very near its maximum speed. Surely to have effective speed limiting, barriers would have to be every 100 m or less. Is that what is being done?
Quote from: Kim
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T42

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #31 on: 15 March, 2016, 08:49:07 am »
It takes a bike around 50 m to get to very near its maximum speed. Surely to have effective speed limiting, barriers would have to be every 100 m or less. Is that what is being done?

Oh gawd.  If you ever ride from Remiremont up to the Col de Bussang stick to the road.  The cycle path follows the old railway track and crosses around 50 roads in its 30k length.  Each intersection is "protected" either side by overlapping half-barriers at gut height: these are made of tree-trunks about 8" in diameter, some of which have splintered ends.

It's a beautiful ride, but doing a double zig-zag every few hundred metres while watching for road traffic and and the dandering/dawdling populace is nerve-racking, and accelerating again every time is killing.

While I'm on the topic, a new cycle path near here has a red & white double barrier at the end.  It's in the edge of the forest, and when the sun's shining the barrier as good as disappears in the dappled light.  Two of my friends have hit it at full bore.
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Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #32 on: 15 March, 2016, 12:44:52 pm »
It takes a bike around 50 m to get to very near its maximum speed. Surely to have effective speed limiting, barriers would have to be every 100 m or less. Is that what is being done?

Don't give them ideas.

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #33 on: 15 March, 2016, 12:53:15 pm »
Salvaging something positive from the write up:
Quote
He uses a three wheeled bike, which is low to the ground and has a large turning circle, ...
What a sensible description. You might think it was written by a journalist who actually wanted to impart information in a way that everyone would understand!
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #34 on: 15 March, 2016, 01:06:16 pm »
Salvaging something positive from the write up:
Quote
He uses a three wheeled bike, which is low to the ground and has a large turning circle, ...
What a sensible description. You might think it was written by a journalist who actually wanted to impart information in a way that everyone would understand!

My first thought was "if only there was a word for 'three-wheeled bike'", but the point about the turning circle is important.  It also occurred to me that while barakta (whose turning circle is worse, due to handlebar adjustment for short arms) would probably negotiate those gates with a multi-point turn in order to avoid getting out of the trike, multi-point turns may be problematic for someone with dyspraxia.

It's a shame they couldn't get some other users to demonstrate the problem.  A family with a child trailer or a mobility scooter user, for example.

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #35 on: 15 March, 2016, 01:20:07 pm »
My thought was that it explains in a way everyone can understand what's different about a "recumbent tadpole trike" and why he rides it. I didn't watch the video but yes, other users with other needs, problems and solutions would be a good demonstration, even – maybe especially – people on normal bikes with no disabilities but just the right side of clumsy to have to foot it round those barriers.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

T42

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #36 on: 15 March, 2016, 01:40:26 pm »
You can imagine how these things are planned:

- how wide's a bike?
- about 18 inches?
- yeah, but that's just the straight bit you hold onto. How wide's the rest?
- about a foot?
- OK then...
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Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #37 on: 15 March, 2016, 02:02:13 pm »
My thought was that it explains in a way everyone can understand what's different about a "recumbent tadpole trike" and why he rides it. I didn't watch the video but yes, other users with other needs, problems and solutions would be a good demonstration, even – maybe especially – people on normal bikes with no disabilities but just the right side of clumsy to have to foot it round those barriers.

The video show him picking up the trike and carrying it through the barriers.  Not a technique most recumbent trike users would use, or even be capable of unassisted.  Most would likely dismount, lift the rear wheel and pull it through, others would do a multi-point turn or give up.  So in that sense it showed the barriers as less disabling than they might be.

A parent unloading a couple of toddlers, unhitching the trailer and carrying it through would make the point nicely, I think.  Perhaps a tandem too, which is towards the normal end of the weird bike spectrum.


Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #38 on: 15 March, 2016, 02:03:23 pm »
You can imagine how these things are planned:

- how wide's a bike?
- about 18 inches?
- yeah, but that's just the straight bit you hold onto. How wide's the rest?
- about a foot?
- OK then...

There's some sort of theoretical child's mountain bike (with road tyres) that gets used for this sort of thing, I'm sure.  Like the lightweight manual wheelchair people design building access around.

T42

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #39 on: 15 March, 2016, 05:32:38 pm »
Couple of years back a friend accompanied two disabled people on tadpoles with trailers down the cycle path from Strasbourg towards Basel. Neither of them could walk: they had wheelchairs on the trailers and their drill on stopping was for A to get B's wheelchair down and help him in, then B would do the same for A.  Each tadpole+trailer combo was 3-4 metres long.

Of course, they came across overlapping ¾ barriers about a metre apart across the 3-metre-wide track.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Andrij

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #40 on: 15 March, 2016, 06:01:45 pm »
From that report, Kim: "Cardiff Council say that the barriers are intentional, and were put in place to limit the speed of two wheeled cyclists. "

I remember being gobsmacked the first time I discussed barriers with the traffic engineer responsible for cycle lanes. I pointed out that they severely degraded the cycling environment and slowed journeys massively. He replied "that's the point".

As 'people' seem to hate speed cameras I think we should employ the cycle path barrier method to slow down cars.  I was going to suggest as an alternative to cameras and/or speed bumps/humps/cushions/whatever, but no - drivers of motor vehicles should get the same level of facility as cyclists.  It's only fair - why should be get special treatment?
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

SoreTween

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #41 on: 15 March, 2016, 06:03:29 pm »
Is it really necessary to slow cyclists on a path that wide?
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Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #42 on: 15 March, 2016, 06:05:43 pm »
Is it really necessary to slow cyclists on a path that wide?

Presumably it's about political will from non-cyclists.

I expect barriers are effective, as they discourage cyclists from using the path.

Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #43 on: 15 March, 2016, 06:43:55 pm »
Oh gawd.  If you ever ride from Remiremont up to the Col de Bussang stick to the road.  The cycle path follows the old railway track and crosses around 50 roads in its 30k length.  Each intersection is "protected" either side by overlapping half-barriers at gut height: these are made of tree-trunks about 8" in diameter, some of which have splintered ends.
I rode that 2 years ago to see the TdeF.  I thought it was fabulous, bearing in mind I am comparing with the UK.  The barriers are set at just the right height and spaced apart just nicely so I could run a trike wheel (upright) underneath and barely slow down.  Sight lines were good, so the only places I had to look hard were the few place where the track crossed real roads as opposed to local access to fields etc.  On the way down I was trudling along nicely at 20mph, calling out to the few pedestrians who neatly sidestepped to make room.  A real contrast to the very very few times I've used comparable tracks in the UK.  The road itself is not to be recommended except at weekends because it is a major access road into Germany.  If anybody goes there, there is an absolutely stunning boulangerie in Ramonchamp, and a very nice very basic campsite too - 4 Euros a night.

SoreTween

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #44 on: 15 March, 2016, 07:24:52 pm »
Presumably it's about political will from non-cyclists.

I expect barriers are effective, as they discourage cyclists from using the path.
A few of these decisions need to be properly challenged.  E.G. Reading Broad Street, two polls in favour of making the whole road mixed use then after the event it's declared not a clear majority - no requirement for a winning margin stated before the poll.  English law is founded on what is reasonable, is that?  Woking town center was made entirely shared use off the back of 'Cycling Towns' funding.  This has now been reversed in some places off the back of.... I don't know what, certainly nothing in the public domain.  I suspect there may have been a few complaints, I would like to see the Council required to justify their action in response to those few complaints vs the number of foot and cycle journeys not resulting in a complaint.  This one in Cardiff looks bloody hard to justify, were any other measures considered or was 'slow the cyclists' a knee jerK?

Declaration of bias:  I used to be able to cycle commute traffic free door to door (Woking), I now cannot.
2023 targets: Survive. Maybe.
There is only one infinite resource in this universe; human stupidity.

Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #45 on: 18 March, 2017, 05:47:01 pm »
The anti-tricycle bollards in King[']s Norton Park have been upgraded[1]:



Gap is approximately (I measured in shoe-lengths) ~870mm to the edge of the tarmac on the left, ~725mm between the bollards, and the same to the edge of the tarmac on the right.  It's a good thing nobody would want to take children to the park in a trailer on Birmingham's best off-road cycle route, isn't it?


[1] The previous incarnation were rotten wooden posts in metal bases, which had been kicked in by yoof to the point where they were only a hazard to unlit cyclists at night.

barakta

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #46 on: 18 March, 2017, 07:03:46 pm »
How wide is my trike? We should measure that so I know.

Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #47 on: 18 March, 2017, 07:09:01 pm »
How wide is my trike? We should measure that so I know.

Track width of the Sprint is 750mm.  Call it 800mm with the thickness of the tyres and no fudge factor whatsoever.

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #48 on: 26 March, 2017, 01:41:52 pm »
Yeah, thankfully children aren't allowed in parks now that running, laughing and shouting have all been outlawed. Scares the respectable middle-aged citizens.

At least they've got reflective stripes, though.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

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Re: Silly cyclepath obstructions
« Reply #49 on: 27 March, 2017, 04:11:54 pm »
Meanwhile, here's an alternative take on the theme.

The temporary closure of this section of road to form a short section of segregated cyclepath was deemed to be an inconvenient obstruction by these motorised road users, who have made the most of Persons Unknown (presumably a team of drunken rugball zombies) shifting the barriers out of the way:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/846269549364363266

(It's not clear in the photo, but that's a cycle-only traffic light where you have to press a button (on the left) and wait six million years to get a short period of green.  I suppose it answers the old question of whether motorists would get out of their cars to press a button at pedestrian crossings.)