deliberate obstructions

[Triple-S]

The end of my road meets the main A23 dual carriageway in this residential area. A couple of years ago the Council widened the footpaths so as to make them half cycle paths - but they were already quite wide..... A costly job with all new kerbing - and the predictable delays in the rush hours whilst the road was reduced to one lane each way. Still, when done it provided off-road parking for all the houses along there, so the traffic could flow on the reduced but now clear road width.

Yesterday more jams again due the Council's agents fitting concrete bollards every few feet along the pavement - to keep cars from parking along it! So as its not yellow-banded they have to park in the road again, reducing traffic flow again..... So now we have a mile of 12 feet wide pavement/cycle path and about as much for all the traffic now single-laned on a dual carriageway that features daily on the local radio as traffic jam hot-spots - why?

What a waste of us ratepayers money for negative gain? One can count the number of cyclists that use this road on the fingers of one hand yet the local post office and convenience store get regular passing customers in their cars, so the traffic flow will get interrupted. I bet a yellow band appears next, thus depriving the shops of business: it makes one wonder if 'they' have a plan to force the shops to shut - or is planning and logic now put out to children?

Paul-the-Incredulous

[Dastardly Diesel]

Call me old fashioned, but people shouldn't be parking on the footway in the first place.

And you've answered your own question. Nose to tail traffic jams, while the cycle path is empty. The answer is to either cycle and enjoy a jam free journey, or drive the car and suck it up as the price for being too idle to ride. How bad does it have to get before motorists get the message?

After suicide, road traffic is the biggest non-natural cause of death in the UK. It's about time the private motor car started to move down the pecking order of societal priorities.

[Triple-S]

DD, the line markings for the cycle/foot way are in a few feet from the new kerbs, the pavement is so wide now, so the cars weren't blocking their zone.
Also, like several in this area, we are a bit ancient and can no longer ride bicycles - I am half-deaf and have a neurology problem which means I can't balance (yet am OK to drive - its to do with head movement). I use the bus for all local journeys, the car just to visit family. So many non-thinking so-called environmentalists forget most pensioners can't ride bikes any more.

P

[green van man]

To each their own but I have 2 taxed and insured cars that are baught and paid for why would I pay a further £1000 for an electric assisted bicycle because 35 years of working outdoors mean the lack of cartilage and arthritus in the knees preclude cycling.

Nope, I will sit in air conditioned comfort as I crawl along thankyou, the radio or CD player whileing away the time and providing entertainment. I can get up half an hour earlier to accommodate the jams and will arrive on the job relaxed and fresh rather than a bath of sweat knowing I shall have to do it all again at the end of the shift.

Paul.

[canis]

Originally Posted by Triple-S

What a waste of us ratepayers money for negative gain?

You think that's bad?

Every single junction (all of them) where I live have a massive box at lights for cyclists to occupy. I've never seen one used.


It's also become habit to put all the stop lines in line with each other. This get silly at curved junctions where one lane might be thirty or forty feet away from the junction. It's an insane amount of real-estate being denied to drivers.


I've lived in many towns in my life, but I have to be honest, Oldham's road layouts are the most arsenine i've ever seen. It's absurd - we're talking petrol stations where the only route out is through a car-park (like, wtf?) arrows on the floor so haphazard as to be fundamentally useless (drivers ignore them) and the sheer amount of white paint (I think i've moaned about this before)...

I don't want my taxes spent this way! (quietly seethes!)


EDIT: Don't forget this one, which is so vast it doesn't even fit on the screen!