Reading council to review ‘door zone’ cycle lanes

Cycle In it and get "doored", cycle outside it and get run over.,some tit in an office with jumped up degree in history came up with this as a scheme. Sorry but let's waste more tax payers money on a problem that doesn't exist.

The cycle lane on Henley Road in Caversham is also a disgrace, thanks to Reading Council. It sits in the usual place on the left hand side of the road up to the kerb. However, due to complaints from residents, cars are allowed to park in it.

These residents each have a drive way, but want to park in the road outside their house, so Reading Council backed down and let them. The councils response when pressed was -- if we put parking restrictions in the residents will complain and get the cycle lane thrown out.

Cyclists have to weave out from the cycle lane into the traffic, around a parked car, and back in again. All the way down the road.

drmatthewhardy wrote:

Swap the parking lane and the cycle lane. That would be a start, anyway.

Can't see that helping
1) cars can park in either direction (unless it's one-way?)
2) passengers don't look either when getting out
3) motorists walking to and from their cars through the cycle lane

There are plenty of cycle lanes like this in Portsmouth, which is great when you're cycling in the middle of the day and the roads are relatively quiet. However as soon as 3pm hits all hell breaks loose.

Usual nonsense. Give people a ghetto, a dangerous ghetto, and leave anyone who refuses to live in the ghetto open to abuse and harrassment from those who think they should be in it. (For bonus marks, criticise them yourself for entering the ghetto you built for them.)

More planners living in a box upon whose interior walls is written "a bit of paint is at least something".

Crazy traffic plans - if there's a 'door lane', I'm riding outside of that - surely that's common sense Reading council!

I ride Wokingham Road regularly, and it's not the door zone issue that is the problem. There are increasing numbers of close passes by drivers who think that as a bicycle is in a cycle lane, they do not have to give them any additional space. More importantly, the cycle lanes stop immediately before a traffic island or similar, and drivers clearly do not view a bicycle in the cycle lane as being on the road and force their way past whilst in the narrowed section. Negotiating the road now requires far more careful defensive positioning than before the cycle lanes were in place.

I think the tone of rethink is terrific and, I must say, what a pleasant bunch of comments under the Get Reading story. Local newspaper comments where I live are universally vicious, ignorant and furious.

"Reading Borough Council spokesman, Oscar Mortali, responded by saying the cycle lane was purely advisory"

Because it's OK to advise cyclists to ride in an unsafe position, while forcing them to would be crossing some line?

Swap the parking lane and the cycle lane. That would be a start, anyway.

Reading Borough Council ... had “weighed up the balance of risk” when adding the lanes in the first place.

And obviously found the lives of cyclists were expendable...

Reading Borough Council ... responded by saying the cycle lane was purely advisory

So what's the point of the lanes then? And do motorists understand they're only 'advisory'?

Next item on the agenda - the rotating knives along the walls of the entrance hall of the proposed new housing development.

The way council looks at making cycling lanes is similar to eastern European countries making pathways for disabled. Oh, the entrance to a building has 5 steps, lets just put more concrete on top and make a 45 degree angle for a wheelchair, jobs done. The amount of useless paint spent on the cycling paths is huge. Just because it is painted on the road will not mean that I will choose to cycle in a narrow, full of potholes path or door zone...