thirdcrank wrote:More generally, I'm amazed that so much effort has gone into this discussion with little comment about the rubbish "routes" which are being signed. Marketing has been mentioned and that's about it. It's often one more way of advertising "how much has been done for cyclists" so why don't they get off the roads and show a bit of gratitude? The mar... word here really is marginalisation.
Not always, although I have educated a few councillors that the reason cyclists are on the carriageway rather than the adjacent shared-use paths is often because those paths are unrideable junk. It's amazing how much ride-through videos highlighting the hazards helps, even if the councillor cannot/will not ride a bike around their own constituency themselves.
I'm trying to persuade our local cycling campaign to take control of the routing network for precisely this reason. It sucks that we need to DIY, but I can't see how else to stop the county council signposting routes that are Simple, Obvious and Wrong because they're sat 40-60 miles away and have forgotten that they built a barrier that prevents use by most cycles (including the hybrids that their construction contractors ride, but not the racing and folding bikes that the highway officers ride), that they let the borough council build a ramp that blocks a cycle route, or that they've let a surface deteriorate to the point that it damages bikes if they exceed 10mph!
Signposting different routes for bikes makes sense in King's Lynn. There are many paths/tracks, bridges and even level crossings which are closed to motor vehicles but open to bikes and that cut miles off of some journeys.