Cycle route with Toucan access and "shared pavements"
Discussion
Recently, our local Council have introduced a cycle route.
The route begins at a Toucan crossing here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.27799,1.0847948,3a...
This crossing is located at the end of a one way street (Burgate). Cyclists leaving town have to walk with their bikes to the crossing before they can cycle, which is a bit odd and not that easy in a busy pedestrian environment on a narrow pavement.
The route then mounts the pavement at Longport and continues on the pavement to here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2773621,1.0887019,...
Cyclists approaching from Lower Chantry Lane wishing to join the route must navigate the Toucan Crossing in order to mount the pavement and join the "Cycle Path". About 100yards up the road, the cycle route runs out of space, and cyclists must again navigate a third Toucan crossing to enter the road and continue on the route as indicated by a painted bicycle on the carriageway here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2775368,1.0905675,...
My questions: 1, Are Toucan Crossings designed to allow cyclists to enter the carriageway from a pavement or leave the carriageway to mount the pavement? I thought they were designed only for cyclists to cross a carriageway.
As things stand, I do not use the pavement sections of this cycle route but just continue in the road as it's simpler and easier and does not involve switching from the road to the pavement and vice-versa via a Toucan crossing. I consider it a collision risk (cyclist on cyclist, or cyclist on pedestrian) for cyclists to switch from the road to the pavement or vice-versa via a Toucan Crossing, never mind the additional time taken to wait for a red or green light.
2, I also consider it a collision risk for cyclists to use the pavement, hence the MUST not in the highway code.
This cycle route includes non-demarcated pavement sections, is it legal for cyclists to use these sections of pavement? I consider it unwise at least: See here for example:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2771675,1.0884305,...
I have not put this in the cyclist forum, as the fact that I cycle in the carriageway instead of using the pavement also affects motorists, as the carriageway is narrow due to the widened pavement, thus making it more dangerous for vehicles to overtake.
I regard this whole cycle route as an expensive and confusing waste of space. Am I wrong and should cyclists use it?
The route begins at a Toucan crossing here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.27799,1.0847948,3a...
This crossing is located at the end of a one way street (Burgate). Cyclists leaving town have to walk with their bikes to the crossing before they can cycle, which is a bit odd and not that easy in a busy pedestrian environment on a narrow pavement.
The route then mounts the pavement at Longport and continues on the pavement to here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2773621,1.0887019,...
Cyclists approaching from Lower Chantry Lane wishing to join the route must navigate the Toucan Crossing in order to mount the pavement and join the "Cycle Path". About 100yards up the road, the cycle route runs out of space, and cyclists must again navigate a third Toucan crossing to enter the road and continue on the route as indicated by a painted bicycle on the carriageway here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2775368,1.0905675,...
My questions: 1, Are Toucan Crossings designed to allow cyclists to enter the carriageway from a pavement or leave the carriageway to mount the pavement? I thought they were designed only for cyclists to cross a carriageway.
As things stand, I do not use the pavement sections of this cycle route but just continue in the road as it's simpler and easier and does not involve switching from the road to the pavement and vice-versa via a Toucan crossing. I consider it a collision risk (cyclist on cyclist, or cyclist on pedestrian) for cyclists to switch from the road to the pavement or vice-versa via a Toucan Crossing, never mind the additional time taken to wait for a red or green light.
2, I also consider it a collision risk for cyclists to use the pavement, hence the MUST not in the highway code.
This cycle route includes non-demarcated pavement sections, is it legal for cyclists to use these sections of pavement? I consider it unwise at least: See here for example:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2771675,1.0884305,...
I have not put this in the cyclist forum, as the fact that I cycle in the carriageway instead of using the pavement also affects motorists, as the carriageway is narrow due to the widened pavement, thus making it more dangerous for vehicles to overtake.
I regard this whole cycle route as an expensive and confusing waste of space. Am I wrong and should cyclists use it?
Sadly there's a lot of half-arsed cycle infrastructure built in the UK because councils are obliged to build it but often it seems the roads officers are thickos who can't be bothered doing any research or the budget allocated is so inadequate that what gets designed and built is metaphorically like the Spinal Tap stonehenge stage set.
mac96 said:
I have always assumed that when recruiting staff who may design cycle facilities, the first question in the interview is 'Have you ridden a bike since the age of 12?' If the answer is 'Yes' the candidate is automatically rejected.
Going back 20 years I was working on the outskirts of Coventry. A colleague was newly ex-council and shared that the council officer in charge of roads / road planning for Coventry didn't have a driving licence.
mac96 said:
I have always assumed that when recruiting staff who may design cycle facilities, the first question in the interview is 'Have you ridden a bike since the age of 12?' If the answer is 'Yes' the candidate is automatically rejected.
Thats in the areas with 'good' cycling infrastructure.Everywhere else the question is 'have you looked at a bicycle since the age of 12?'
Simply knowing what a bicycle looks like disqualifies you from designing cycling infra...
I regularly argue that while we need better infra (ok, london is getting better), step 1 on this is legal minimums for cycling infrastructure - either have an expensive, difficult process for deviation and/or legal liabilities for RTC's on infra that deviates.
regularly get told insisting on a bidirectional cycle lane being 3m wide is excessive. But the actual error margins are comparable to a 5.5m wide bidirectional road - as narrow as we generally allow; Cars are inherently stable - they need LESS margin than bicycles (on narrow roads where they should be travelling at significantly reduced speed).
WRT OP, IHMO a toucan crossing is just a cross road with some routes limited to specific vehicles - in the absence of signage of course it can be used to turn left/right.
Relatively famous court case (Auriol Grey) the Judge found that in absence of clear signage, shared use cycle lanes continue, (regardless of official council maps etc; as sections either side were cycle paths the section in the middle was a cycle path) though I don't think this is binding on other courts.
I expect though haven't looked at it that I would be doing the same as you - ride on the road because its almost certainly safer than multiple tight manouvres vs just going in a straight line on a low speed residential road...
Quick scan of streetview and that design looks awful from a user perspective.
Heading west on Longport, a cyclist can only join that cycle "path" by leaving the road at the toucan crossing, at a point which could well be blocked by pedestrians. So the cyclist would have to stop ON the crossing and what, dismount (or just disappear, I guess was the intention of the designer)?
For the sake of 200yds of cycle path, I'd continue riding on the road on that section.
Heading west on Longport, a cyclist can only join that cycle "path" by leaving the road at the toucan crossing, at a point which could well be blocked by pedestrians. So the cyclist would have to stop ON the crossing and what, dismount (or just disappear, I guess was the intention of the designer)?
For the sake of 200yds of cycle path, I'd continue riding on the road on that section.
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