Cycle paths - Lesson learned

[Stradageek]

I always feel it's sad for groups of pedestrians who see these lovely wide shared paths and choose, very understandably, to walk in groups chatting, that I should disturb them by needing to pass, but again I feel the same in reverse about singling out whilst cycling with friends.

My wife deals with gaggles of teenagers every day and always finds them really accommodating (if a little chaotic in the way they disperse when they hear her bell) they have even cleared paths of fallen trees for her when they saw her struggling

Not so sure about dog walkers with dogs off the lead, or, my favourite, three girls out running together three abreast across the cycle/footpath (no room to pass) - it looked very nice and sociable until I realised that my bell and increasingly loud shouts were to no avail as they were all in their individual ipod worlds!

Give and take, share and share alike?

[pwa]

Shared use paths mainly seem to be a box ticking exercise by local councils so they can claim to have increased cycling infrastructure with minimal expenditure. They seem to cause more agreivation as it shifts conflict from cars vs bicycles to bicycles vs pedestrians - plus if you stay on the road drivers shout at you to use the cyclepath (sic). These problems are going to remain until we can all learn to share the public rights of way with respect to each other and get rid of the them and us mindset. They are not going to be solved by extra cyclepaths, helmets or hi-viz clothing - the requirement for these seems to be an indication of the failure of society to look out for itself.

Having been part of a team that converted miles of disused rail line into shared use paths, the idea that someone thinks they were a box ticking exercise by a council makes me laugh. Firstly, the council was only a minor funder. And secondly, a lot of very expensive work was required, including tarmacking by a road laying team, putting new fences in, installing occasional picnic benches, reinforcing river banks, repairing old bridges across rivers, and the installation of a new bridge using the largest mobile crane I have seen. When the council got round to extending our network with a branch of their own they too had to spend a lot of money. And none of these shared use paths were described as "cycle track" because we did not want cyclists or other path users to imagine that these facilities were just for one niche group or one mode of travel. We called them "Community Routes", and they have worked well. Cyclists (myself included) do have to slow down to pass pedestrians safely, but that just encourages you to say "hello" to people you might otherwise have cruised past. We did think of the white line down the middle but rejected it when we were told by Sustrans about the problems that had produced in other locations.

[Vorpal]

People using cycle paths need to go at a speed suitable for the conditions. If there is a likelihood of pedestrians, 20 mph is too fast.

I've gone that fast on shared use facilities a few times when I could see it was clear enough to do so and I was unlikely to encounter others; e.g. 6:00 am on Sunday morning.

Mostly, though, I go much, much slower. Therre are a few places that I seldom go faster than about 6 mph. It's gravel, hard to see, and a high likelihood of encountering children or dog walkers. If I'm in a hurry, I take another route.

Even in the Netherlands, there are plenty of paths that aren't suitable for 20 mph. The speed limit for e-bikes and light mopeds is 25 kph, and within cities, more than 12 mph is seldom appropriate. However, long distance cycle routes are designed for much higher speeds, and I can imagine that it would absolutely fine to go 20 mph for long distances on a 3.5 m wide path between towns.

[reohn2]

Shared use paths mainly seem to be a box ticking exercise by local councils so they can claim to have increased cycling infrastructure with minimal expenditure. They seem to cause more agreivation as it shifts conflict from cars vs bicycles to bicycles vs pedestrians - plus if you stay on the road drivers shout at you to use the cyclepath (sic). These problems are going to remain until we can all learn to share the public rights of way with respect to each other and get rid of the them and us mindset. They are not going to be solved by extra cyclepaths, helmets or hi-viz clothing - the requirement for these seems to be an indication of the failure of society to look out for itself.

Quite right,though most folks seem to handle the bicycle v car and pedestrian v bicycle situations pretty well however imperfect the infrastructure.It's only a minority of all manner of road user who consider themselves the centre of the known universe,and who think everything else should revolve around them.
These twonks seem a larger minority of society than elsewhere on the continent IME.

What we have is a class ridden self centred society made worse by bad poorly planned and for the most part poorly built and poorly maintained bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure,designed around a car first everything else second travel network.
No politrickian so far has had the spherics to challenge that stupid self centred belief system,or when they do they propose the likes of HS2 ,and third runway madness

Also more people than ever IME walk and cycle oblivious to,and isolated from the world around them,whilst being plugged into their smartphones iplayers,etc,via earbuds or bloomin great cans (the kind you'd only used to see in recording studios ) covering both ears with the music loud enough to drown out all other sounds,which is something else I don't see in other countries.

TBH IMO there's something very wrong with UK society,imagine in any other countinetal country being told by any other user that you shouldn't be on the road or path(something that's happened to me on more than one occasion),when you have a perfectly legal right to be there,ie;being cut up by a motor for no reason other than punishment only to catch it up at the next TL,challenge the driver,only to be told that I don't pay road tax so s/he feels they have the right to bully and endanger my life as a result.
Or being told that I shouldn't be on a bridleway on a bicycle by a deliberately obstructive/obtuse group of walkers,who were quite stunned when I informed them I have had that right since 1968.
Or the maniac cyclist I mentioned in a previous post on this thread passing walkers from behind with about 400mm clearance at more than 20mph.
All of which aren't isolated incidents by any means IME.
Our problem is societal,born out of a class system that has an inbuilt belief that might is right,and what seems a growing minority for who respect for others is an alien concept .

[reohn2]

My wife deals with gaggles of teenagers every day and always finds them really accommodating (if a little chaotic in the way they disperse when they hear her bell) they have even cleared paths of fallen trees for her when they saw her struggling

I agree with you wife,there's no malice attached to gaggles of teenagers and they can be very accomodating,if treated with respect they return the respect IME.

Not so sure about dog walkers with dogs off the lead,

Some can be utterly stupid and completely self centred.

or, my favourite, three girls out running together three abreast across the cycle/footpath (no room to pass) - it looked very nice and sociable until I realised that my bell and increasingly loud shouts were to no avail as they were all in their individual ipod worlds!

Beaten to it.

Give and take, share and share alike?

That is the key,however some people.....

[Vorpal]

Having been part of a team that converted miles of disused rail line into shared use paths, the idea that someone thinks they were a box ticking exercise by a council makes me laugh. Firstly, the council was only a minor funder. And secondly, a lot of very expensive work was required, including tarmacking by a road laying team, putting new fences in, installing occasional picnic benches, reinforcing river banks, repairing old bridges across rivers, and the installation of a new bridge using the largest mobile crane I have seen. When the council got round to extending our network with a branch of their own they too had to spend a lot of money. And none of these shared use paths were described as "cycle track" because we did not want cyclists or other path users to imagine that these facilities were just for one niche group or one mode of travel. We called them "Community Routes", and they have worked well. Cyclists (myself included) do have to slow down to pass pedestrians safely, but that just encourages you to say "hello" to people you might otherwise have cruised past. We did think of the white line down the middle but rejected it when we were told by Sustrans about the problems that had produced in other locations.

Maybe network that you worked on was not a box ticking exercise, but many facilities are. Some councils like their pavement conversions like this one https://www.google.no/maps/@51.751291,0 ... 56!6m1!1e1

[pwa]

Shared use paths mainly seem to be a box ticking exercise by local councils so they can claim to have increased cycling infrastructure with minimal expenditure. They seem to cause more agreivation as it shifts conflict from cars vs bicycles to bicycles vs pedestrians - plus if you stay on the road drivers shout at you to use the cyclepath (sic). These problems are going to remain until we can all learn to share the public rights of way with respect to each other and get rid of the them and us mindset. They are not going to be solved by extra cyclepaths, helmets or hi-viz clothing - the requirement for these seems to be an indication of the failure of society to look out for itself.

Quite right,though most folks seem to handle the bicycle v car and pedestrian v bicycle situations pretty well however imperfect the infrastructure.It's only a minority of all manner of road user who consider themselves the centre of the known universe,and who think everything else should revolve around them.
These twonks seem a larger minority of society than elsewhere on the continent IME.

What we have is a class ridden self centred society made worse by bad poorly planned and for the most part poorly built and poorly maintained bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure,designed around a car first everything else second travel network.
No politrickian so far has had the spherics to challenge that stupid self centred belief system,or when they do they propose the likes of HS2 ,and third runway madness

Also more people than ever IME walk and cycle oblivious to,and isolated from the world around them,whilst being plugged into their smartphones iplayers,etc,via earbuds or bloomin great cans (the kind you'd only used to see in recording studios ) covering both ears with the music loud enough to drown out all other sounds,which is something else I don't see in other countries.

TBH IMO there's something very wrong with UK society,imagine in any other countinetal country being told by any other user that you shouldn't be on the road or path(something that's happened to me on more than one occasion),when you have a perfectly legal right to be there,ie;being cut up by a motor for no reason other than punishment only to catch it up at the next TL,challenge the driver,only to be told that I don't pay road tax so s/he feels they have the right to bully and endanger my life as a result.
Or being told that I shouldn't be on a bridleway on a bicycle by a deliberately obstructive/obtuse group of walkers,who were quite stunned when I informed them I have had that right since 1968.
Or the maniac cyclist I mentioned in a previous post on this thread passing walkers from behind with about 400mm clearance at more than 20mph.
All of which aren't isolated incidents by any means IME.
Our problem is societal,born out of a class system that has an inbuilt belief that might is right and respect to a growing minority is an alien concept.

The things you describe do, indeed, happen. But it is important to set some things in perspective. Most people out there are fine. Most drivers are decent people who don't object to cyclists on the road. Most ramblers (and I know a few) are good people and don't mind meeting cyclists on tracks so long as the cyclists are not trying to rush past at speed. I meet a lot of horse riders on the lanes around here and we are on good terms. The farmers in their tractors wave to me. Most of our society is okay. The "minority" you should be talking about is the antisocial, selfish minority that creates conflict where none is needed.

[reohn2]

The things you describe do, indeed, happen. But it is important to set some things in perspective. Most people out there are fine. Most drivers are decent people who don't object to cyclists on the road. Most ramblers (and I know a few) are good people and don't mind meeting cyclists on tracks so long as the cyclists are not trying to rush past at speed. I meet a lot of horse riders on the lanes around here and we are on good terms. The farmers in their tractors wave to me. Most of our society is okay. The "minority" you should be talking about is the antisocial, selfish minority that creates conflict where none is needed.

Isn't that the minority I am posting about?

Quite right,though most folks seem to handle the bicycle v car and pedestrian v bicycle situations pretty well however imperfect the infrastructure.It's only a minority of all manner of road user who consider themselves the centre of the known universe,and who think everything else should revolve around them.

I also have similar experiences to yourself with a majority of people,it's what seems to me to be a growing number of antisocial drivers,cyclists and walkers,particularly some dog walkers,who seem to think everyone else likes their badly behaved dog as much as they do as it jumps up and muddies you clothes with it's paws
To be absolutely clear about this,the majority of people are reasonable well adjusted and who respect others in society.

Population concentrations could have something to do with it too.
I live in a population dense area(Greater Manchester) and find other less populated areas of the country not quite as bad.
We were in the Lincoln area a couple of weeks ago and both of us remarked how much more relaxed the driving was in the surrounding countryside despite some pretty flat straight roads which lend themselves more to 'booting it'.
We also spend some time in North Wales where motorists tend not to be as aggressive.

That said I spend about half of my cycling in the Cheshire lanes which isn't overcrowded,but where punishment passes and crazy overtaking manoeuvres on blind bends,etc,are a daily hazard

But I digress the subject matter is cyclepaths,though the same people who drive badly are likely to use shared use paths as cyclists and walking.

[Flinders]

The problem is that motorists seem to think we ought to use shared paths and not the road. Shared paths are unsuitable for cyclists doing anything like a reasonable speed for a bike that's going any distance. I understand they are only surfaced for up to 12mph, anf in my experience neither the surface nor the shared use makes anything like that practical on a lot of them. I'm a slow, fat old woman and I [i]average [/i]more than that on the road.
They are okay, maybe for kids, and those who potter, but that's it. And sadly they are often deathtraps for cyclists at junctions.

My 2ps worth is that cyclists are almost always safer on roads than on dual-use paths or indeed any footway-based 'paths' which dump cyclists at the worst possible place when roads join/cross them. And given the attitude of some drivers (and even some cyclists on here) that even a road-based cycle path allows drivers to cut left across it without checking, I'd say they were a bit lethal too.

[reohn2]

The problem is that motorists seem to think we ought to use shared paths and not the road. Shared paths are unsuitable for cyclists doing anything like a reasonable speed for a bike that's going any distance. I understand they are only surfaced for up to 12mph, anf in my experience neither the surface nor the shared use makes anything like that practical on a lot of them. I'm a slow, fat old woman and I [i]average [/i]more than that on the road.
They are okay, maybe for kids, and those who potter, but that's it. And sadly they are often deathtraps for cyclists at junctions.

My 2ps worth is that cyclists are almost always safer on roads than on dual-use paths or indeed any footway-based 'paths' which dump cyclists at the worst possible place when roads join/cross them. And given the attitude of some drivers (and even some cyclists on here) that even a road-based cycle path allows drivers to cut left across it without checking, I'd say they were a bit lethal too.

I can't argue with any of that,only to add that shared use cyclepaths by the side of the road in the UK are in the vast majority on cases useless,totally inadequate and dangerous for most cyclists IME.As a result I rarely use them,though I've only once had a motorist try to tell me to use one,he short shrift from me

[GrumpyCyclist]

So, I wonder what the solution to all this is? Roads, being the overcrowded free for all they are days, can be dangerous, scary places to ride at times.The cycle paths (even the ironically named National Cycle Network) don't seem to be really suitable for anyone going from A to B on a bike as a transportation alternative rather than a leisure pursuit, so what's to be done? If cycling is to become, as the government from time to time says it wants, a realistic alternative to cars then surely cyclists need to be able to make good time on their daily commute or even just ride to the shop. Maybe even better integration with public transport, and for that matter a public transport system that doesn't effectively stop at 6pm. People out on an afternoon bimble on the bike probably aren't that worried about keeping up a good pace but if you're going into work, you'd want to know you can keep up a decent pace. So, what do we need? An actual cycle network that does what it says on the tin or much better cycle infrastructure on the road network? Honestly, I have no idea, I wish I did.

Just did a loop around a country park this afternoon and met a few people wandering about. All were fine and courteous, and chatted happily as I passed (one even asked for a lift ) but it did slow me down overall. Maybe it's one of those situations, like the old joke: "how do we get a decent cycle infrastructure in the UK?", "well, if I were you I wouldn't start from here". Maybe we're too far down the road now to turn back and there'll never be a decent, functional cycle network here. Shame though.

[Elizabethsdad]

Shared use paths mainly seem to be a box ticking exercise by local councils so they can claim to have increased cycling infrastructure with minimal expenditure. They seem to cause more agreivation as it shifts conflict from cars vs bicycles to bicycles vs pedestrians - plus if you stay on the road drivers shout at you to use the cyclepath (sic). These problems are going to remain until we can all learn to share the public rights of way with respect to each other and get rid of the them and us mindset. They are not going to be solved by extra cyclepaths, helmets or hi-viz clothing - the requirement for these seems to be an indication of the failure of society to look out for itself.

Having been part of a team that converted miles of disused rail line into shared use paths, the idea that someone thinks they were a box ticking exercise by a council makes me laugh. Firstly, the council was only a minor funder. And secondly, a lot of very expensive work was required, including tarmacking by a road laying team, putting new fences in, installing occasional picnic benches, reinforcing river banks, repairing old bridges across rivers, and the installation of a new bridge using the largest mobile crane I have seen. When the council got round to extending our network with a branch of their own they too had to spend a lot of money. And none of these shared use paths were described as "cycle track" because we did not want cyclists or other path users to imagine that these facilities were just for one niche group or one mode of travel. We called them "Community Routes", and they have worked well. Cyclists (myself included) do have to slow down to pass pedestrians safely, but that just encourages you to say "hello" to people you might otherwise have cruised past. We did think of the white line down the middle but rejected it when we were told by Sustrans about the problems that had produced in other locations.

Fair play to you PWA what your team created sounds great - I was thinking more of when the council just paints a few signs on a pavement to make it a shared use path.

[Mark1978]

Solutions? National standards for cycle infrastructure. Suitable for fast as well as slow cyclists, not shared use.

Local authorities won't have to stick to it but they'll only get national network signage and mapping if they do.

[Richard Fairhurst]

I was on a British Waterways working group several years ago looking at cycling on towpaths (nothing ever came of it because of one or two disruptive personalities, but that's by the by).

One thing I was interested in exploring, though in the end the group didn't agree on it, was a signposted towpath speed limit of, say, 12mph or 10mph. Not because 12.01mph is magically unsafe whereas 11.99mph is safe, or indeed because many cyclists have speedometers. Rather, because it's a universally understood way of signalling "this is a slow-speed environment - you don't have an automatic right to barrel along here at any right you choose". Yes, some people know what they're doing is irresponsible and do it anyway, but most IME are genuinely unaware that "cyclists permitted" doesn't necessarily mean "cyclists always have right of way".

In the end BW launched the Two Tings campaign, which has now become the Canal & River Trust's "Share the space, drop your pace" slogan after concerns that Two Tings was being used as a cover for "I've rung my bell, now get out the way". I think there's a marketing push on the way for "drop your pace", but I do worry that it's a more complex, less instantly understandable message than little 12mph roundels on wooden posts would be.

(Towpaths are, of course, a narrower, more contested environment than an ideal cycle path would be, and I wouldn't for a moment suggest a 12mph limit everywhere.)

[mjr]

The key word here is 'shared'. If a cycle path is exclusively for cycles, as is the case in Holland, then of course speeds can be higher. Personally I don't see the future of cycling 'infrastucture' in this country working out, if we rely solely on 'shared' paths. An opinion which I think is 'shared' by many others here!

Not rely SOLELY on shared paths but even the Netherlands has them in some places where traffic levels are light.