Leicester exploring parking protected cycle lanes, says city's mayor

Just following up on my own post (sorry).  Looking again at the picture at the top - it is MUCH clearer there that there is cycle infrastructure between the cars and the pavement than it was in my German adventure.  But nevertheless, for hurried, stressed, non-concentrating car travellers, I still think it would be all too easy for them to get out of their cars and, without lookin,g walk straight into the path of a cyclist as they head to the pavement in a tunnel-vision way.

Hmm.  I'm a bit in two minds about this one.  It would be good to see the real-life dynamics of how it works somewhere where it is already in place. 

I like the overall intent - no issues with that, but I can see potential dangers.  I would have thought that it is highly likely that people (whether driver or passengers, and particularly with child-filled cars), could end up getting out of the car and walking straight into the cycle lane (causing a collision hazard), without really thinking, because they are automatically programmed to think of parking spaces being right up against the pavement.

If you can reprogramme all car occupants to think, "We are now parked, but we are actually still in the carriageway with vehicles moving past on both sides.  We must look carefully irrespective of which side of the car we are getting out," then I think this could work well.  But somehow, I think the likelihood of being able to get everyone into that mindset is, frankly, zero.

Particularly challenging for people who are not familiar with this kind of infrastructure.  I visited a German city a few months ago.  The taxi pulled up to the pavement to let me out.  I climbed out onto what I thought was the pavement, only to discover (after a poor cyclist had pulled brakes, swerved around me, and (rightly) expressed her annoyance) that I had actually climbed out onto a cycle 'lane'.  I felt pretty ashamed to have caused this situation.  I had looked that I was clear to open the door - not wanting to door a pedestrian - but of course, a 15+mph cyclist can arrive very quickly between opening the door and climbing out of cab with a rucksack.  It's a mistake I won't make again, but it just highlighted to me how easy it is to make a mistake if you are programmed to think of particular infrastructure in a particular way and are unaware of a different model.

I love architects drawings. There's one of these running between Camden Road from just north of St Pancras. Functionally it works well enough (bus stops can get a bit fruity) but those flowers last about two weeks and the baskets holding them about another fortnight longer. As it looks like a bomb site after a month, best just make those dividers bollards or nicely painted breeze blocks from the off.

"Leicester Cycling Campaign Group questioned whether the city was suited to such infrastructure, however."

It appears to be suited to using large amounts of public road space to store private cars.  

Bristol?  You know that there is machine politico now and not red trousered independent?

It's good that the Mayor is thinking about possible cycling solutions, whether this particular idea turns out to be applicable to Leicester or not.