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news
Spate of tickets issued after Manchester cyclist complains about cars parked in cycle lane – but is this enough of a deterrent?
A number of cars have been ticketed on Withington’s Palatine Road after a local cyclist drew attention to how many people were parking in the cycle lane during rush hour.
Much of Palatine Road features a cycle lane with a single yellow line, meaning motorists are not allowed to park there between 8am and 9.30am and between 5pm and 6.30pm.
Local cyclist Sam Easterby-Smith grew so frustrated with people ignoring this that he filmed the situation and got in touch with the Manchester Evening News. He’s also written a blog post.
Easterby-Smith’s video is of him cycling to take his daughter to nursery. His short trip sees him pass dozens of vehicles parked in the cycle lane.
Manchester council said that 166 drivers had been given tickets on Palatine Road in the past six months, but it does appear to have been spurred into renewed action.
Yesterday morning, Easterby-Smith tweeted:
BOOM! Today a whole bunch of cars on Palatine Rd have been ticketed! Well done @ManCityCouncil & thanks @ChrispLOL @rosa_battle pic.twitter.com/TETzveCKLb
— Sam Easterby-Smith (@samscam) December 9, 2016
“It has been an issue for quite some time. It’s like this every day,” he said. “I have been carting my baby up and down to nursery and it’s always the same.
“I do appreciate the council are paying attention but I think there are factors compounding it. The shortness of the restriction period doesn’t help.
“People park there and think it’s not long until the end of the restrictions, and more often than not they get away with it because the council doesn’t have the resources to police it twice a day, every day.”
Easterby-Smith would like to see more being done.
“They are forcing myself and my baby into the road. I’m a confident cyclist but I don’t want to do that, and I shouldn’t have to. I should be able to breeze through the cycle lane.”
Councillor Rosa Battle, executive member for the environment, said:
“We are aware of the situation on Palatine Road and have taken action to address the illegal and dangerous parking taking place.
“We will continue to enforce rush hour parking restrictions in this area, to ensure that drivers who ignore the rules are caught and fined.”
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.
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26 comments
Car parking at Christies is an ongoing problem, only likely to get worse as the hospital expands. As the area is heavily built up there is, needless to say, no additional space for parking, so park and ride facilities slightly further afield are planned ( residents in some of these places are not that happy about it. )
A more pro active travel plan to encourage more use of public transport ( which in Manchester isn't bad) or by cycling ( by staff?) is what's needed. I've had cause to use the parking facilities in the hospital in the past and something does need to be done.
On the subject of cycle lanes, why are so many of them marked with broken lines making them practically useless. Any cycle lane in which you are allowed to park isn't a lane at all.
There was a guy in New York a few years ago who would ride his mountain bike up and over the top of any car parked in the cycle lane. He was quite famous until the number of criminal damage fines brought an end to his protest. As he was quoted at the time, if the police were half as efficient at ticketing the drivers as they were at apprehending the cyclist there would be no problem.
Bike Lanes by Casey Neistat - not quite what you were talking about but a famous video with a couple of views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ
Maybe a bit of guerilla lane segregation like in San Francisco could be of use here?
Good work on the council enforcing the rules. I hate it when there are rules that arent enforced, as I'm a rule follower, so I'd not park there, but be annoyed at those who break the rules without consequences. I hope the council tickets there every day and raises the money they need to improve the situation.
Thanks to Sam for drawing attention to this problem. This stretch of road has had a full repair recently. Very welcome and now a great surface for cycling on. But it can see pretty heavy car traffic including at the times Sam and baby are doing this journey. Allocating more space would clearly help.
There are three stretches of mandatory lane - two southward and one northward, plus a bus lane towards Withington Village on the north inward stretch. The middle section with no lane at the moment is bounded by two pinch points. The northernmost is a right turn pocket for a Christie Hospital car park and the other a mid road pedestrian refuge which currently has a very wide hashed buffer.
The mandatory lanes are long established but have been time limited to morning and evening peaks. Unusual and a bit ambiguous. The lane is 2m wide and some (careless) drivers who don't check signs may believe it is a parking lane.
The outline proposals from Highways are to start a process to make the mandatory stretches full time and to add an advisory lane between the pinch points. Hopefully that process will be given the go ahead and succeed through consultation. I believe myself that a lane can be fitted in the width past at least the second of these pinch points going south. Obviously we would prefer that to be mandatory too. But it is tight.
There is a currently a lot of pressure on kerbside parking during the day including with patients and visitors to Christie. Very likely some staff parking too. This is a long term problem - also on nearby residential streets - which will not be solved overnight particularly as there are some big builds on the Christie site affecting the network and parking too, but progress is now being made.
Much of Palatine Road was included in the first cut as a spur off the Wilmslow Road Cycleway but the scope was reduced here. While we wait for the Great Leap Forward across the whole of GM we will continue to make whatever gains we can, and as Rosa says to enforce the TROs we do have.
Brighton & Hove Council should take note of this...
I thought it was also an offence to park with 2 wheels up on the pavement too . . . certainly in London I've had a fine for having one tyre partially on a kerb stone (that had partially sunk so hadn't felt that a wheel had run up onto it.......
It is up to each local council in London to police parking offences in their area. Some councils are more strict than others and it also depends on the location of where you have parked on how strict they are.
For example at the moment I am delibrately parked slightly out of the allocated parking where I live to ensure a car cannot come tomorrow and park accross the entrance to my block. I have 3 disabled neighbours including one with mobility problems. She cannot get out if a car is parked there. I won't get ticketed. However if I park the same way in a shopping location in my area I would get a ticket.
I'm very confused about the whole business of when it's allowed to park in a (mandatory) cycle lane.
As I understand it, the mere fact its a mandatory solid-white-line lane doesn't automatically make it illegal to park in it. Even though one would assume the definition of a mandatory lane would imply that. Instead it, apparently, depends on what the specific traffic order for that road says, and I have no idea where you find that information.
There are loads of mandatory cycle-lanes I see cars regularly park in (including police cars near certain police stations). The bit of the Thames cycle path after it comes inland from the Woolwich barrier, for example, _always_ has the same row of cars parked in it - never seen it clear.
I've seen people pull up and park in such lanes right in front of cops, and the cops ignore it. Even when there are yellow lines there as well, nothing seems to be done.
Anyway, ironicaly enough, visiting hospital is almost the one-and-only case I think people could legitimately claim to _need_ to drive there and where I agree that parking ought to be available. Don't know about this particular case, but an ongoing outrage is the PFI arrangements that lead to hospital car-parks being contracted out and run ruthlessly for private profit.
Rule 243 Highway Code fairly well covers it.
Now if only there was an organisation that had statutory powers and responsibilities to enforce these rules and regulations.
But Rule 243 isn't mandatory.
It's illegal to drive or park in a mandatory cycle lane during the hours of its operation, which is 24/7 for most of them.
I have been watching Frankie Boyle's US autopsy this week. Ha, your netrage amuses me.
I am pointing out.
1a. There is not adequate parking for a hospital there
1b. The NHS does have a limited budget and priorities.
2. People will still commute by car even if it means parking illegally.
I have not visited any NHS hospital in England that has adequate parking for all it's staff and visitors. It doesn't matter where they are located.
My family and friends' who work and have worked in hospitals have had to use bikes of all varieties and public transport to get there if they can't find any parking off -site. within 20 minutes walk. The only workers who don't have to are those who are at high grade management levels and the consultants on call.
True. Google all the fun to do with parking and access at the almost brand new Southmead hospital in Bristol.
So how long will it be before Sam Easterby-Smith starts getting death threats from the motorists of Manchester ?
Sounds like a Liberal Elitist name to me, with a double barrelled surname and the audacity to ride a child's toy on the road
Irony/sarcasm dectector anyone?
Just because theres no smiley face....
Perhaps if Christies Hospital was forced to provide adequate parking instead of focusing on cancer treatments there might be space for all the people who want to commute by car.
Hang on, so a hospital should focus on providing car parking instead of world class patient treatment? Really!? You've got to be shitting me
I think there may have been a soupçon of facetiousness in his comment.
If they provided more parking and stopped muching about treating people then there wouldn't be so many commuters wanting to go there and it'd be miles easier to park. I think we're on to something here.
You'd better hope you never get cancer then pal!
All those drivers are probably now complaining to everyone within earshot about this totally unfair war on the motorist.