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news
New bollards on Milton Keynes cycle routes (Steve Abraham)“Oh! Bollards!” Delivery cyclist says council’s new cycle route barriers are too narrow for cargo bike trailers… also supplied by the council
Milton Keynes-based delivery cyclist Steve Abraham has criticised the local council’s decision to install a growing number of barriers and bollards on the city’s cycleways and shared use routes, which the ultra-cycling legend says prevents the paths being used by delivery riders with large bike trailers – that were themselves supplied by the council.
Earlier this week Abraham, a cyclist known for his distance record attempts who works as an independent food delivery rider for companies such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats, posted on Strava a photo of a set of bollards at the exit of a canal crossing which – unless the rider attempts a tricky manoeuvre onto the adjacent grass – appear just wide enough for a cyclist on a standard bike to pass through.
And not at all wide enough, as Abraham noted on the ride sharing app, for cyclists on cargo bikes or towing large trailers stocked with food.
“Milton Keynes Council, in their infinite wisdom, have started putting up bollards that the trailers they supplied to us won’t fit through. Muppets,” the independent contractor posted on Strava.
Speaking to road.cc, Abraham says that, at the same time active travel charity Sustrans has begun to remove barriers along the National Cycle Network, “bollards and barriers are cropping up” throughout Milton Keynes in recent months, hindering the bikes he uses to deliver food as an independent contractor, an experience he spoke in detail about on a recent edition of this site’s podcast.
> “You're just collateral” — Ultra-cycling legend Steve Abraham on Deliveroo and the gig economy
The ultra-distance cyclist, who uses the trailers once a week, says the new bollards on their “usual” canal crossing were flagged by a colleague last week, and that when he attempted to access a previously used crossing on a different route, he “found more new bollards”.
“The bikes we use are Tern GSDs and we tow Carla trailers which are the biggest trailers I have ever seen,” he says. “They were supplied by the council (who bought 21 e-cargo bikes for businesses and charities to rent at an extremely good rate). Milton Keynes Parks Trust also have a few of their bikes too.
“There were a few barriers in places before we got the cargo bikes and they’ve been there longer than I have (25 years), so I avoid them on any bike, but wouldn’t be able to get through them on my tandem, let alone our monster Tern set up.
“A more typical cargo bike without the trailer would get through those bollards, but it’s tight and especially tricky if there's a gusty side wind.”
Steve says the new bollards, such as the ones he posted on Strava, have made it trickier for delivery riders to find efficient, accessible routes using the city’s redways, a traffic-free shared use network covering most of the city estates and stretching out to the area’s older towns, an example of active travel infrastructure that Abraham describes as “a bit of a local quirk that are good, bad, and misunderstood”.
“These new bollards are on canal bridges. There was already a barrier stopping us using one useful crossing. We now have lost three more options and have one left without a mile’s detour,” he says.
“There might have been one more crossing over the canal but I am not sure I would make it without a run up. It’s very steep and I would have to take a bend at speed to have a chance. Leisure riders often push their bikes over it because they get caught out in the wrong gear following directions from signs or phones. Shared use substandard paths aren’t for fast and efficient riding.
“Or we could just use the grid roads with 60 or 70mph speed limits. I’m sure that those drivers that complain about anyone ever cycling on the grid roads when we have these ‘wonderful cycleways all over the city’ will understand if they see us.”
> Steve Abraham back riding after driver knocks him off bike
Abraham also noted that he contacted the council to inform them of the areas where the bollards and barriers prevented the trailers from passing through, but that he never got a response.
“Overall, I would get rid of them all with a few possible exceptions,” he says. “They make crossing roads with oncoming pedestrians or cyclists also crossing a lot more awkward than necessary.
“They generally just make the redways that extra bit more awkward at best, or in the case of the bollards and barriers that some bikes can’t get through, they put a big limit on route options. And you also really need to know your way around because these things don’t show up on route planning apps like Google.”
He continued: “The barriers and bollards are an unhelpful waste of money that are one of the problems of the redways.
“They could be to slow people down where things are very badly designed. I find it ridiculous that we have grid roads that allow people to drive at the national speed limit and that’s seen as essential, but being able to cycle at speed on something that’s supposed to be specific for cycling is a problem.
“200 miles of cycleways that don’t meet minimum standards is a boast. The cul-de-sac I live in is built to a much better standard and I bet there are thousands of miles of those. A cycleway that’s about half the width of a typical residential road, with a good footpath on both sides and built to a similar standard with drainage would be the best cycleway in Britain.
“Instead, we get hazardous substandard paths. That probably makes me sound like a miserable old bugger and to be fair, I might even be one! So, I will say that Milton Keynes is great for me as a cyclist partly because of the redways.
“But that’s because cycling is fun by default and although it could be a hell of a lot better, all of the bulls*** and nonsense doesn’t ruin all of the fun, especially when you can escape criminal car drivers. And the redways are a better way of seeing the city than the soulless grid roads. Though I will usually use the grid roads to ride into and out of Milton Keynes.”
Milton Keynes City Council has been contacted for comment.
The issue of barriers and bollards hindering access to cycle routes for people with disabilities or non-standard cycles has proved a growing concern in recent years.
In December, we reported that Stockport Council had backtracked on its plans to introduce more barriers on cycling and walking routes, a decision welcomed by campaigners who said that the barriers would discriminate against disabled people who use non-standard cycles, wheelchairs, and mobility aids.
Stockport Council had originally voted to install chicanes, bollards, and barriers on some cycling routes to tackle anti-social behaviour, a measure Labour councillor Dean Fitzpatrick claimed at the time was about trying to “balance everything for the whole community”.
However, the plans were heavily criticised by active travel campaigners who argued that the proposed barriers did not “meet the legal access requirements” and would prevent disabled people from using the routes.
“The very basic bare minimum the council should be doing, they don’t reach that, which morally is pretty disgusting. There’s a minimum and the council is trying to worm their way out of it,” Harrie Larrington-Spencer, a researcher at the University of Salford who specialises in inclusive active travel, said in response to the policy.
“It’s not about balance. Disabled people have the right to access these spaces. You should be able to use the same walking and cycling routes that non-disabled people can use. You are limiting who can access these routes, which is terrible.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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41 comments
Shock! Town literally designed around the motor vehicle* from the ground up turns out still to be crap at providing for other modes many years on.
As Patrick9-32 says hopefully someone will check if they're in line with the accessibility legislation and if not they can get in the bin (or the council gets sued).
* For those who say "but it was also designed with cycle infra - the redways!" yes, bonus point for you. However have a look at how convenient it is (long article but images and maps further down) - compared to "drive directly along wide straight roads to your destination at n + (n times 10% +2) mph (or above)!" (for example Google maps, switch between normal and "cycling" view etc.)
Sigh!
Yes, we have a great road infrastructure, we also have a shared use path infrastructure that should be the envy of most places. It may not be the most direct route however that misses the point. You get to see a completely different side to the city. I used to use it to commute to the station and it was a joy! Also a lot quicker than driving the same route during rush hour.
Don't get me wrong - I'd love to pay a visit and if I lived there I'm pretty sure I'd use the paths where suitable for my cycle journeys.
However while many people value quiet, pleasant routes and green spaces - for transport most people want to go "like the car goes". They don't want the "scenic route". They want to go pretty directly between A and B. They don't like not being able to see where they are / where they're going. They don't like being in places which don't seem to have "escape routes" or are "isolated locations". And they don't enjoy sharing with another mode (when cycling OR walking) unless there are hardly any people using the other mode.
I have been told that despite me thinking they're pretty good the former railway line paths in Edinburgh are just not used by some - especially women - because they're often in cuttings and hidden from observation and there can be a few hundred metres between "access points".
Contrast here. Obviously I'd like both - but without the direct network of routes cycling will remain "recreational". (Milton Keynes of course has the other issue that it is just super-easy to drive, because it was so built...)
I've just reviewed my old commute route to the station - it's less distance than the road using the Redways. In addition I get to cycle past Furzton Lake, The Bowl and Tear Drop Lakes, well away from any traffic.
That's probably one of the best redway routes in Milton Keynes. I used to shop in Morrisons Westcroft just to do the ride straight down to Furzton then through Teardrops to go home.
Sometimes the redways can give a very good shortcut compared to roads. I exploit them when I do Deliveroo. I can do a delivery from Pret or Subway by the train station to someone near the train station in Loughton in about a minute or two but by road it would be about a mile and a half plus a lot of faff.
I can see why some people would prefer not to use paths that appear hidden away and secluded. However I suspect that many of the complaints come from people who don't cycle - people who don't understand how little protection is offered by on road cycle lanes and cycleways/shared use paths which are adjacent to the main carriageway (i.e. there is no guarantee that vehicles will remain on the carriageway and no guarantee that cyclists will remain on shared use path or within the confines of a cycle lane) - in fact motorists tend to completely ignore cyclists in a cycle lane or on a cycleway or shared use path (which in many respects makes them more dangerous and less pleasant to use than just riding on the main carriageway).
Yes... we sometimes hear opinions about active travel given by people who frankly would never cycle on the roads as they are. They probably wouldn't cycle even if there was a cycle lane. (As opposed to a properly separated cycle path). We know this - because in actual fact most people in the UK drive (or are a passenger) for most journeys! That is also because it's just too easy to drive of course. Hence the lesson of Milton Keynes - or Stevenage - where it's easy to drive, Brits drive.
However these are exactly the people which places where cycling is a mainstream mode of transport have indeed provided for. So we know that cycling infra has to be "safe" in a number of ways (actually safe, subjectively safe and socially safe) as well as being "attractive" e.g. convenient, direct, there's a network of routes, people can cycle side-by-side socially etc.
As to "some people" - I don't think just telling people it's fine or making spaces where a substantial number of people don't feel safe is a worthwhile endeavour. After all, the quick and the brave can already ride on the roads, or walk wherever they like at night - it's a statistically safe country, the UK!
In Edinburgh these paths are shared use (UK, innit?) so lots of the complaints are from people who might walk on them in company, during the day. (I'd also like there to be separate spaces for pedestrians and cyclists, just like in NL / Scandinavia, but we're not even at "3rd class active travel country" yet...)
This type of infrastructure has very specific guidelines to ensure it remains accessible for wheelchair users etc. It isn't clear from the article whether these bollards meet those specifications. If they do then the size of the trailers is the issue. If not then the bollards are the issue.
According to their website, Carla trailers are 970mm wide (https://www.carlacargo.de/site/assets/files/1087/2023-datasheet_carla_ec...). LTN 1/20 suggests infrastructure is designed for cycles up to 1.2m wide. Therefore, it sounds most likely that the bollards are the problem.
I would also point out, as Abraham has, that adding any form of barriers to cycle paths generally makes the paths less attractive and less usable - which is why LTN 1/20 also advises "a general presumption against the use of access controls". It's not entirely clear what problem the council are trying to solve or why they felt installing these barriers was the appropriate solution.
Concern that licenced, careful drivers might accidentally find themselves on the path? Or "youf on quad-bike" / joyriders in stolen vehicle getting in there?
General symptom of there being a budget for putting up bollards every once in a while, but policing things being done by a completely different organisation and there isn't money for that.
I'm sure they've got great "vision zero" / "zero carbon" policy statements though!
The ones working for the council?
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