Bicycler wrote:Whilst 10m abreast walking is obviously inappropriate, we can't say the same to two people walking side by side on typical UK 2-3m wide shared use paths.
There's a big difference between 2m and 3m width. About a metre, in fact! Two people can walk side by side on a 3m path and be passed (slowly!) by most people cycling. 2m width effectively becomes a tidal flow situation and is not an acceptable width for anything except very light flows. If there's much traffic volume (foot or cycle), 3m is probably a bit tight if it's used for any length and I'd be looking for other routes. I sometimes use National Cycle Route 1 between the town centre and Lynnsport despite the King Route being shorter because National is between 3m and 10m wide (mostly 4m), whereas I think King is nearly all 3m and slow going when busy.
Bicycler wrote:Unfortunately former pedestrian paths seem to make up the majority of routes open to cyclists at the present time.
As in unreconstructed/unwidened and just the bad old blue-signs-and-white-paint jobs? Is that true? Maybe we're blessed around King's Lynn, but even when Norfolk County Council were making cheap substandard mixed-use paths, at least they still widened the tarmac in all but a few cases, usually to 3m. (Unlike the Highways Agency / Highways England who still won't widen their 1.2m abomination with zero-radius corners.)
But I do think that when using such inadequate shared formerly pedestrian-only paths that we need to be accepting of ordinary pedestrian behaviour such as dog walking and headphone wearing. It would be damaging to the prospect of opening more such paths to cyclists (and I'd rather they were open than not) if permitting cycles becomes associated with greater inconvenience to pedestrians.
I'd probably rather they were open than not, but I'd really rather they were upgraded to suitable width. Outside of urban areas, there's usually verge width available to do so. Inside urban areas, there's usually carriageway width available to do so. (I know there's not always, so please no examples this time).
Ideally I'd want paths with high numbers of cyclists, for example advertised cycle routes, to be segregated rather than shared use.
I have never seen effective segregation of cycles and walkers. We are unlikely to see the police enforcing it like they do bans on walking along motorways (and again, do we want to treat people walking as badly as motorists do?), so we need to be accepting of ordinary pedestrian behaviour - people will walk wherever, regardless of whether it's marked as foot path or cycle path. The main thing that formal segregation attempts have done is limit the available width for cycling, resulting in congestion, conflict and some really stupid attempts to fine people. Oh and some nasties will start shouting abuse at people who stray into "their" bit of space, which is never fun
By all means, use visual cues (using colour differences to mark out a cycling channel and pseudo-footways, for example) to encourage people to ride and walk on different bits of it, but please no more legal limits on the ability to use the full width to give enough space when passing.
,a lady's voice spoken loudly so I could hear said "of course they don't have bell's these days do they".I quickly replied "no they say DING DING and excuse themselves!".
