Council update on cycle lane's "excellent progress" interrupted by... motorist driving into segregated infrastructure; Alaphilippe heads off on two-hour training ride AFTER Dwars Door Vlaanderen; Our new favourite pro cyclist + more on the live blog

Also can we mention both Dwars door Vlaanderen winners received stuffed toy horses as prizes, which Demi Vollering has confirmed she has named Zlatana after the horse she met at Strade Bianche

Ride London have confirmed the teams for the Ride London Classique today, but theres no Team SdWorx, which means no Lorena Wiebes...interesting

https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/no-money-available-to-...

Quote:

The narrow stretch of pavement is shared by pedestrians and cyclists next to a fast four-lane main road, and is often jam-packed with commuters coming to and from places like Brislington, Knowle, Totterdown and Stockwood. And soon 500 more homes will be built just next to it.

Legal & General, the financial giant, is planning to build 500 apartments on Temple Island, as well as offices, a hotel and a conference centre. And many of the people living and working there will also be walking and cycling on this narrow pavement and bike lane.

But there is no funding available from the £200 million which the government gave to Bristol City Council to upgrade walking, cycling and public transport routes over the next five years, according to City Hall chiefs. They did however admit that “this definitely needs addressing”.

I really don't understand why the Guardian pay Chiles - who married Guardian editor, Kath Viner, in 2022 - to write this rubbish.

Reading Council started the work back in September 2022. By my estimates, they've laid about 250m of tarmac so far. At this rate, I reckon they'll finish the project in 2024. From the number of times I've passed the area, it's just two workers and they're usually finished around 4.30pm. 

The cycle lane isn't fit for purpose, as demonstrated vehicles can just drift into the lane. I can guarantee delivery drivers will park in this lane. It's also really bumpy to ride on, apparently they hand flatten the tarmac instead of using a roller.

Tonyt is incorrect to state this is the first segregated lane in Reading, there are at least 3 others in Reading, though they're all very short.

It's a complete waste of money, and poorly designed.

So not enough of a kerb to separate the cycle path from the main carriageway, and we know how much attention many motorists pay to the painted white lines...  I would have loved to see the headlines, had Cllr Page actually been taken out by the BT van or the black car following it...

Ah, Tony Page, referred to by local Tories as a useful idiot.

That councillor's "cycle lane" is local to me and it's absolutely f8ckin terrible, dangerous and I will practically never use it, it's right outside the front entrance of Reading Uni and I'll be going that way this evening. It's basically an extra pavement with an annoyingly/dangerous small kerb. Complete waste of active travel money. See also Wokingham Road "cycle lane" debacle. I think I counted 57 bicycles painted on one side of the road after they removed the offending "lane".

Shinfield road was massively wide, allowing plenty of room to overtake, then they recently introduced charging for parking on the next road along, Pepper Lane, which is fricking awful due to the ruts where you would cycle just wide of the parked car doors. The parking charges (in a different borough) displaced these idiots to park on the Shinfield road, both sides, completely clogging the main road for all.

Then they very recently put double yellow lines on it, problem solved, pretty much...

Except the double yellows were only to keep it clear so they could spend months removing road space to put these extra pavements in. The kerb is high enough to cause a problem for a cyclist but low enough to be easily mounted by a motorvehicle. (I have had far more dangerous overtakes during the short period of roadworks!)

What you don't see, behind the camera, is that the lane just suddenly ends about 2m before the traffic lights and the road is only about 1.5 m wide there.

I think the lane going into town just ends on the actual pavement before the side road and traffic lights outside the Uni entrance, barely 100m from the filming location.

I don't know what idiots come up with these designs or sign them off but I really don't think they ever use a bike.

That Park Lane flood is particularly bad, but it is a general clear design fault with London's new infrastructure.  Humps - mainly for bus stop bypasses, but not only those ones - create floods whenever there is heavy rain.  It's a common feature of CS7 through South London, and I've also seen it on CS3.

RE: cycle track - it though it's more like a lane.  What's missing is:
a) Separation.  As shown in the video you can seamlessly move from road to lane because they are about 4 inches apart.
b) A vertical kerb with decent upstand on the road side to "nudge" vehicles back into the road.
c) A different - standard - colour from the road and the footway so that everyone knows what this space is.

Come on people - it's not rocket surgery... Would you be confused about "where I go" in the image below?

Also note the "forgiving kerb" - it marks the side of the cycle path and indicates to pedestrians where their space is by a heigh difference.  It nudges cyclists back into the lane safely while also not reducing the cycleable space which high vertical wheel-grabbing pedal-impeding kerbs may do.  I think the UK is twitchy about these though because "trip hazard" / disabled access and standards now require at most a very small heigh difference?