Cyclists left baffled by signs in Nuneaton

My wife, Michele is not yet a county councillor. I am the county councillor for the next divsiosn of Weddington.

The problem is we have a mass of planning applications approved without a master plan, two tier councils where the planners and highway planners are at seperate end of the county and token efforts for cycling put in as after thoughs. When contractor look at the drawings for one development they just build what is on that drawing even though nothing else is built.

This needs to change and we need to start with cycling infrastuture before anything else starts.

The long shoot in Nuneaton has had massive development in recent years, with multiple new estates put in and this shared path will be a token gesture. What it needs is properly redeveloping the road / transport links, with a safe cycle route between Nuneaton and the A5

It reminds me of the wonderful cycle paths 'designed' by Lancashire County Council. One near me starts on the shared path with a dividing line between pedestrians and cyclists, the cycle path on the right. At a road junction, the paths cross over, at the next junction, they cross over again and at the next junction, they cross again! All this in a distance of perhaps 300 yards. So you are constantly switching from riding next to the kerb, to the other side, and so on and so on. So consequently cyclists and pedestrians are all over the place, missing one another. At the end of this 'cycle path' at the top of the hill, it turns into a road.... and stops. So you then have to stop, cross the road then wait at the junction to join the traffic. And motorists wonder why most cyclists don't use this? Another belter is a shared path along a road where the whole length of cycle path has the lamp posts in the centre of the cycle path, helpfully marked with chevrons around each lamp post. It is therefore no wonder to find out that the man who was initially responsible for designing and overseeing the installation of cycle paths is not a cyclist. In fact most cycle paths in Lancashire are converted footpaths and cycle lanes marked out on the highway. Absolutely no foresight at all. 

btw one of the best signs we have in Lancashire is a sign on a metal post, the sign reads 'This sign is not in use"

Who at the council signed it off?  Surely they didn't just accept the contractors word that they had carried out the work to a satisfactory standard?  

Almost as good as here where a newly opened cycle-route (separated from the footpath) was marked with painted pictures of cycles on the asphalt. . . the only problem being at one end it showed it as being cycle on the right (correct for Norway) the other end to cycle onthe left... Hmm head-on central.

When confronted by the grotesque manoeuvrings of a local council I'm always reminded of the elected member who listened patiently to the traffic department scheme for installing more cats' eyes and then asked who was going to pay the electricity bill for them.

Suddenly it all makes sense.

It happens all the time. 'Designers' lose their minds when they build cycle routes. The fail to ask themselves even the most basic questions about how a route will be used by someone riding a bike.

You would think that riding a bike was such a peculiar and technical skill, that no normal person could be expected to understand how it is done, and therefore how to build a lane that works adequately.

This is Beckwith Head Road in Harrogate, with a 'cycle route' created just a couple of years ago. It is utter rubbish, and has two ends but three 'end of route' signs. Total nonsense.