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broken bike.jpgReading announces pop-up cycle lanes after two cyclists are killed in one day
Reading has announced plans for £1.5m of cycling and pedestrians routes with the first pop-up cycle lane due to be completed today. The news comes after the town suffered two cyclist fatalities on its roads inside 24 hours.
Reading is to receive £1,474,000 from the government’s £250m emergency active travel fund.
Berkshire Live reports that the council is set to receive around £295,000 of this for temporary projects in response to the Covid-19 pandemic with around £1.2m to follow for long-term projects.
Seven schemes were approved on May 18, which are temporary but could become permanent.
The first project – pop-up cycle lanes on Reading Bridge – is set for completion today.
The others involve:
- Increasing walking and cycling capacity on Gosbrook Road and Westfield Road
- Making Sidmouth Street one-way while adding a contra-flow cycle lane
- Building a cycle lane on Oxford Road
- Reallocating a motor traffic lane to cyclists on Whitley Street Local Centre
- Introducing cycle lanes on Southampton/Silver Street
- Adding a cycle lane to Redlands Road at Christchurch Green junction
A temporary westbound cycle route on London Road, which could be shared with buses, has also since been approved.
Yesterday, a 22-year-old woman was released under investigation following the death of a cyclist in a crash on Thames Street in Sonning on Wednesday morning.
She was arrested on suspicion of causing death by careless driving whilst unfit through drink or drugs.
The incident occurred at around 7.50am. Police have appealed for witnesses.
Later that same day, at around 7.25pm, a Deliveroo cyclist died following a collision in Addington Road.
A 26-year-old man from Wokingham has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by careless driving, and driving a motor vehicle with a proportion of a specified controlled drug above the specified limit.
Again, police have appealed for witnesses.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
- marmotte27 24 min ago
"braking zone" This is about bunch riding.
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Riding in primary wouldn't stop a motorist crossing the white line to overtake: arguably, it would encourage them to cross the white line giving...
- Geordiepeddeler 6 hours 31 min ago
Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
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Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
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'Released under investigation', 'suspicion of causing death by careless driving'. OK, these are blanket terms and can mean several things. Yet, both drivers were intoxicated. So why is there any 'suspicion' and why an 'investigation'?
I just bet you that in a couple of weeks this will all be forgotten about, perhaps a small fine and a couple of points, not too many as it may prevent the drivers 'right to earn a living and to drive around Reading' After all, they are full of 'remorse'.
And the pop - up cycle lanes will have gone too.
Because that's how our legal system (mostly) works - innocent until proven guilty and all that. The police have a suspicion (maybe a very strong suspicion), so they carry out an investigation, and if what that reveals appears to be strong evidence of an offence they pass that along to be tested in a prosecution. If proven, that results in punishment.
Generally that seems better to me than the police just handing out punishments based on assumption and opinion.
Where's ktache? Isn't Reading their manor?
I have been at work, no spending hours on here during the working day now.
I feel incredible sadness for the deaths of my fellow Reading cyclists, and want to wish their family and friends my deepest sympathies.
The Reading bridge pop up routes could be an easy do, one on each side even, the bridge "had " 2 lanes feeding into the horrible Vastern Road Roundabout. George street is single lane in either direction, and only doubles up just before the bridge. It will upset many motorists, but shouldn't remove too much capacity, only space.
I am interested to see what they could come up with and if it will be any good. And how much it will all be objected to. Tony paige has not always have a great record on cycling provision, let alone spending money well on it.
I might check out Reading Bridge tomorrow.
I was over Reading Bridge this morning. It's now as it always should have been, one cycle lane and one vehicle lane in each direction. Big improvement.
I popped over this afternoon, the layout was good, removing what was a fairly pointles extra lane to feed the Vastern Road roundabout, unfortunately they have decided to save a small percentage of the paint cost and NOT put in continuous painted lines, but to make them dashed.
So while the very best of the country's pop up cycle lanes are physically protected, Reading has decided to not even give them the protection of the law. I am dissapointed, but not suprised.
Just paint and not even the right paint.
Even the awful ones on the Wokingham road are mostly Mandatory and not fully Advisory.
Lets hope they spend the money better than they did with the SRTF money. A stack of illuminated signs that tell drivers which car parks have spaces.
I'll be interested to see what they do on oxford road. The only space to steal is from the pavements and taking that away would drastically reduce the parking space
With 1.5 million Oxford road could be completely remodeled with protected cycle paths either side going the correct side of extensive parking.
Speaking as a local I wouldn't have regarded either of those places as especially dangerous. Before you go off on one about new riders or road layout, I don't think we need to look beyond both drivers being off their head on weed.
2 more tragic deaths there must be ways that we can start to empower ourselves to try and mitigate the risk with known blacks pot areas of dangerous road.
Strava with the right head unit will tell you a segment is coming up, how hard would it be to have an overlay of dangerous sections of road for cyclists as well? I appreciate its pessimistic and not for everyone but the technology is there it would be useful for some I feel....
Unfortunately the two deaths would appear to have nothing to do with hazardous road layout but everything to do with drivers being off their fucking heads on weed.
Agree with Eton on this one - certainly the only danger on that section of road in Sonning is the occasional delivery lorry or the inevitable rush hour traffic queue and then the required filtering. Seems like neither of those conditions were to blame if the drive is suspected of drink/drug driving.
I would pay for Strava* if this could be added. Doesn't matter if the cause is bad road design or popular road with drugged up idiots, if the road is statistically more likely than average to have accidents, it would be useful to know.
*Or some other service as I'm still working through the process of calming down about the features removed from free Strava before eventually shrugging and paying.
Almost joined-up thinking from Reading. These could produce continuous cycle routes in and out of the centre on some of the most popular roads (though I still wouldn't fancy Southampton Street even with a cycle lane). Of course, everything is in the implementation, and Reading council has a bit of history here (remember the cycle lane on Wokingham Road which makes it more dangerous to ride). Still, we can but hope. Just as long as they don't produce their normal substandard work, then claim it shows a lack of demand when (understandably) nobody rides on them.
I had feared about toxic mix of increased numbers of cyclists and motor traffic returning, and this is indeed a theme that the London Cycling Campaign had spoken about last week already.
I know the second victim is a Deliveroo rider, who is likely quite experienced, but my personal anecdotal experience is that the increase of slower, new cyclists as well as young children out with their parents has an unintended consequence of causing faster riders like myself to take more risks by overtaking. And before anyone says why not just wait, I just want to point out that we're still meant to socially distance and I'd likely get glared at by tailing behind a slower rider for a protracted period of time rather than getting in front and riding off to create the distance.
I doubt traffic volumes made much of a difference in the first instance - without wanting to speculate too much - the incident is actually between the 2 worst spots on that road. 50m back down the road is a mini-roundabout with a semi-blind entry from 1 direction, and up ahead is a hump back bridge with lights that a lot of motorists get frustrated being stuck behind bikes on.
Looks like both incidents maybe drink/drugs driving related.
Of course I don't know the details of the case, but Addington Road is fast and straight with a lot of busy junctions. There are plenty of opportunities for collisions. I used to ride it in primary with my hands covering the brakes.
Tragic.
It'll be interesting to see what level of punishment is handed out for these crimes. Death by motor vehicle seems to be almost acceptable in society these days.
It's been acceptable for generations, not just now. As the old saying goes "If you want to commit murder and get away with it, use a car."
Cyclists lives matter?