Until recently, I believed most bike lanes were designed by people who don't ride bicycles. You may think I'm cynical, but I've ridden on too many lanes that ended abruptly ("bike lanes to nowhere"), had poor sight lines, let cyclists out into the middle of major intersections or were, for various other reasons, simply not any safer than the streets they paralleled.
Now I'm starting to wonder whether lane designers are acting under orders to reduce the population of cyclists. I guess, for them, that's the easiest way to appease motorists upset that we're "taking the road away from" them.
I mean, what other reason is there for this?
Had the bike lane continued in a straight line, or simply ended at that intersection, it would be safer for anyone who has to turn left from that intersection. Instead, a cyclist riding through that loop has to make two sharp left turns almost within meters of each other in order to go where one left turn would have taken him or her.
Had the bike lane continued in a straight line, or simply ended at that intersection, it would be safer for anyone who has to turn left from that intersection. Instead, a cyclist riding through that loop has to make two sharp left turns almost within meters of each other in order to go where one left turn would have taken him or her.
And studies have shown that left turns are significantly more dangerous than right turns for motorists. (That is the reason why, for example, all United Parcel Service delivery routes are planned so that the drivers make only right turns.) What sort of diabolical mind would force cyclists to make two such turns in succession?
This strange piece of transportation "planning" was inflicted on the cyclists of Nottingham. I thought planners in England knew better. Oh, well.
This strange piece of transportation "planning" was inflicted on the cyclists of Nottingham. I thought planners in England knew better. Oh, well.
Nottingham used to be world famous for the manufacture of something, now what on earth was it...?
ReplyDeleteColine...Umm...Let me think...Nottingham...Did it have something to do with forestry? And it was named after Sir Walter somebody?
ReplyDeleteI think you are thinking about a precursor to Smokie and the Bandit about a gang of blokes hiding in the forrest from the sheriff in Nottingham. They used horses instead of cars and bows instead of revolvers...
ReplyDeleteSome time later the burned down most of the trees to make charcoal to make iron to make, oh I forget...