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'Two and a half second' cycle lane is not a cycle lane, says councilCredit: Richard MacRae, cycle lane, Stapleford

'Two and a half second' cycle lane is not a cycle lane, says council

The council said it was actually just 'new road markings designed to improve road safety'...
by Will Bolton
Sat, Oct 16, 2021 10:55
9

A controversial 'cycle lane' that 'takes two and a half seconds to ride over' is not a cycle lane, Nottinghamshire County Council has said.

Derek Higton, service director for place and communities at the council, said that it is in fact 'new road markings, introduced to improve cycle safety'.

The installation on the Ilkeston Road and Pasture Road junction last week left many Stapleford residents feeling 'baffled'.

The markings cover only part of a roundabout and it is not entirely clear what their purpose is. 

Richard MacRae, Independent councillor for Stapleford North on Broxtowe Borough Council, at the time described the apparent cycle lane as 'comical and a waste of money', Nottinghamshire Live reports.

However in a delayed statement, the county council has now said said they were only "new road markings which were introduced as part of a casualty reduction scheme to improve safety for cyclists".

Mr Higton said: “There have been multiple accidents where cyclists have been injured at this junction in recent years and as such the contrasting road surfacing, along with improvements to signage and the junction itself, have been introduced to alert drivers to the presence of cyclists.

“Similar measures have been used at other locations both in the county and nationally previously and have had a positive impact in reducing casualties.”

Last week in Birmingham there was another claim made for the country's shortest cycle lane. 

Again, the 'cycle lane' near Pype Hayes Park came under fire for its lack of length before Birmingham City Council clarified that it was not a cycle lane.

In that instance, the council described it as 'a pointer for cyclists to join the pavement and cross the main Eachelhurst Road into Pype Hayes Park'.

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9 comments

Avatar
Hirsute | 3 years ago
3 likes

Didn't it say previously that the markings were more to stop drivers pulling out and alert them to cyclists?
Sounds about as effective as ASLs which few motorists understand or take note of.

Avatar
ktache replied to Hirsute | 3 years ago
0 likes

I hope that is the case.  The dashed line does appear to be extra thick.

Though I don't think that most motorists pay a lot of notice to the road.

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antigee | 3 years ago
2 likes

Downunder there is an Austroads research report studying collisions at roundabouts..."...Attempts to accommodate or attract cyclists with marked bicycle lanes in the circulatory lanes at roundabouts have been found to be counterproductive in terms of increased crash risk..."

https://austroads.com.au/latest-news/better-understanding-bicycle-safety...

Hasn't stopped local authorities round my way adding them though...and in Victoria in theory on road lanes are compulsory...in future I'll use the Nottingham defence..."it's just road markings" AKA the drivers excuse

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to antigee | 3 years ago
1 like

Didn't read the full report but it sounds like all the usual suspects we know from the UK are present e.g. "we just added bike lanes to existing rounabouts which have wide entries encouraging high speeds, poor sight lines - oh and some of them are on arterial roads". And the starting point for design is a high "design speed" - they don't actually say that but you can infer from the "reducing the entry speeds was not achievable due to the larger design vehicles on these roads".

The UK also likes a roundabout. In theory there may be some safety wins but in practice it's all about maximum capacity / keeping the cars flowing. Designers in the UK - with one exception - have shown great creativity in making dangerous "look-alike" versions of a good design. Sadly in Bedford one was even waved through by cycling organisations essentially because "we've no hope of anything better".

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mdavidford | 3 years ago
5 likes

If we're doing 'shortest bike lanes', here's one of my old favourites. Sadly almost no longer visible due to services works that dug up almost the whole of it.

Not the absolute shortest, but barely long enough to fit a bike in (even you do have a weird arced bike), and gets bonus points for going from absolutely nowhere to absolutely nowhere.

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Tom_77 replied to mdavidford | 3 years ago
2 likes

There's a bunch of really short ones near me. I think they're meant to discourage overtaking at the pinch point, but if anything I think they'd have the opposite effect.

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andyp replied to Tom_77 | 3 years ago
0 likes

pfft Call those short? Luxury. Any regular Manchester commuters will be familiar with the Ashton Old Road 'bunny hop' cycle lane.

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🐸 | 3 years ago
10 likes

2.5 seconds? Is there a strava segment?

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chrisonabike replied to 🐸 | 3 years ago
6 likes
🐸 wrote:

2.5 seconds? Is there a strava segment?

Keep it down, you'll set off the residents...

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