Bristol's poor cycling infrastructure now has its own Twitter account

monkeytrousers wrote:

You lot don't know you're born.

I spent last weekend in Bristol, staying at the Premier Inn near Temple Meads. Went for a ride over the Severn Bridge on the Friday afternoon. A spin to the south early on Saturday AM. And a longer ride to Wells and Cheddar on Sunday.

OK, so it's not The Netherlands or Belguim, but you want to spend a weekend in Bedford. It's petty much got zero cycle infrastructure. Bedford Borough Council's idea of doing this is to just put those little blue shared path signs up on lamposts, without doing much else.

Ark at 'ee

hawkinspeter wrote:

My current bug-bear is the new cycle lane alongside Cattle Market Road (by the side of Temple Meads, going under the bridge). The road has been converted to be one way, but has been blocked for living memory. The cycle path on the pavement is also blocked and I can see no reason why.

The most ridiculous thing about that piece of cycle path, is you can't actually get on it once you are past the traffic lights (when heading from the station to where the arena may or may not go). To get on the path, you would have to do a tight turn onto the pavement around a blind corner into any oncoming cyclists/pedestrians.

The path itself is pretty good though! Sadly, any of the genuinely good bits of cycle path in Bristol are generally hard to access and start and finish in the middle of nowhere useful.

The tragedy of it is, it's bad for everyone, motorists included. My mother lives and works in Bristol, she asked me how to cycle from her house to her place of work (outskirts to city centre), no possible route excluded busy roads, so she drives the 4 miles to work instead - this is typical of many commuters in Bristol (ah, Geography A level!).

Canyon48 wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

My current bug-bear is the new cycle lane alongside Cattle Market Road (by the side of Temple Meads, going under the bridge). The road has been converted to be one way, but has been blocked for living memory. The cycle path on the pavement is also blocked and I can see no reason why.

The most ridiculous thing about that piece of cycle path, is you can't actually get on it once you are past the traffic lights (when heading from the station to where the arena may or may not go). To get on the path, you would have to do a tight turn onto the pavement around a blind corner into any oncoming cyclists/pedestrians.

The path itself is pretty good though! Sadly, any of the genuinely good bits of cycle path in Bristol are generally hard to access and start and finish in the middle of nowhere useful.

The tragedy of it is, it's bad for everyone, motorists included. My mother lives and works in Bristol, she asked me how to cycle from her house to her place of work (outskirts to city centre), no possible route excluded busy roads, so she drives the 4 miles to work instead - this is typical of many commuters in Bristol (ah, Geography A level!).

It's not too difficult to get onto it from the pavement, but after going along it, you're faced with a huge lump of concrete that blocks it so you have to go onto the road or pavement. The only reason that I can see for blocking it is to stop cars from using it.

hawkinspeter wrote:

Canyon48 wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

My current bug-bear is the new cycle lane alongside Cattle Market Road (by the side of Temple Meads, going under the bridge). The road has been converted to be one way, but has been blocked for living memory. The cycle path on the pavement is also blocked and I can see no reason why.

The most ridiculous thing about that piece of cycle path, is you can't actually get on it once you are past the traffic lights (when heading from the station to where the arena may or may not go). To get on the path, you would have to do a tight turn onto the pavement around a blind corner into any oncoming cyclists/pedestrians.

 

It's not too difficult to get onto it from the pavement, but after going along it, you're faced with a huge lump of concrete that blocks it so you have to go onto the road or pavement. The only reason that I can see for blocking it is to stop cars from using it.

*facepalm*

I didn't realise there were concrete blocks there now! Unfortunately, so many times when I've seen decent infrastructure put in place in Bristol, barriers of some sort or another have been erected to prevent (I assume motorists) using it - in doing so, it makes it very hard for some bicycles (though I still see kids riding motorbikes on the paths).

The A-frame barriers are the absolute worst, most are so narrow that normal bikes can't through. Not to mention the fact that on the shared use paths, they block less able pedestrians.

Shame we all have to lose out because of some idiots!

brooksby wrote:

All of the cycle paths marked out in the shiny new development of the Centre in Bristol look like the picture of the one next to the Cenotaph:  no signs, just little embossed bicycle images every ten-fifteen feet, slightly different paving... Nobody notices that they are there, complete waste of time.

And I desperately want someone from Bristol City Council to explain how putting a big main road* across the Centre and removing two pedestrian crossings to get you from the Centre promenade across St Augustine's Parade to the side by the Hippodrome is "making a safer and more pleasant environment for pedestrians and cyclists" (which is how all that work was originally touted, lest we forget...).

 

I commute through the city centre everyday (by bike 3 days a week and by car 2 days) and have done for a couple years, I didn't know there was a cycle path/lane there until I saw the tweet earlier this week!

The re-designed road is vastly better than the old one and it's made my commute easier (both by bike and car), however, it's not a pleasant place to be and it's certainly not good for the vast majority of cyclists.

What's worst is to think about how much was spent designing and building that "infrastructure"