On Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:52:10 +0100, spindrift wrote:
Look at the stretch of road between Merton Park tram stop and
Wimbledon Chase train station. There isn’t the physical space on the
road in these places to do anything other than paint a line down the
road, in full knowledge that it will make the ‘vehicle lane’ too
narrow for a vehicle to drive down, therefore making encroachment on
the cycle lane inevitable.

If it's a slope, mark a cycle lane uphill only.
If it's flat, set and enforce a 20mph limit.

Other sections of the route involve cycling along dual carriageways.
If the whole purpose of this scheme is to make cycling more
attractive, then I don’t quite see how this adds up.

Lane width could be redistributed, e.g. with a 4.5m nearside lane and 3.0m
outer lane, instead of 2 x 3.75. This sort of juggling is harder on single
carriageways.

Many of the existing cycle network routes follow residential streets
and, in the outer boroughs, bridleways / footpaths. In many ways I’m
surprised to see the proposed routes following major roads and keeping
well clear of the quieter and safer options,

One of the better aspects (or maybe the only good aspect) of the
Superhighway proposal is that it uses direct routes. If you're commuting,
you want a direct, uninterrupted route. With few exceptions, back-street
routes are too indirect and slow. There are of course some direct off-road
routes (e.g. the towpath) but their capacity for high-speed cycling is low.

However, I would be amazed if the necessary measures are taken to make the
superhighways good. In particular, the roads they use meet at major
junctions and gyratories. As we know from LCN+, there is precious little
political will to make these cycle-friendly - and it certainly couldn't be
done between now and May 2010. So I guess we'll get slow, tortuous
bypasses, which will outweigh directness elsewhere.

Colin McKenzie


--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at the
population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.