Poor roads, bad driving & theft deter Reading cyclists, council admits before rolling out excuses for inaction

Thank God it's my last week of commuting into Reading. My office is on Vastern Road and the new East-bound section is a joke - the bus/cycle lane is the right lane! Westbound, the cycle path (pavement) ends abruptly saying "rejoin carriageway" which is the 3 lanes and approaches one of the most dangerous roundabouts it has been my displeasure to use (hint: don't use it).

Councillor Tony Page said...... Cyclists only constitute three per cent and even if you double that it’s still only six per cent.

Good to know he can count maybe that's the only thing he's good at?

On the plus side, there is so much new development going on South of Reading, that within 3-5 years it will be complete gridlock anyway, so the only sensible way to travel around will be by bike. I regularly travel through Wokingham and Winnersh and pass lines and lines of cars going nowhere. Smugingham BC's approach is to let the roads get into such a poor state that they are completely unsuitable for any cycling other than on a MTB. This way they can avoid having to worry about cycling and can continue simply to build more houses.

I'm a Reading Cyclist and Motorist, and frankly it's bad for everyone - even those of Buses.

Generally the people in charge of the roads in the council are Morons and have no idea what they are doing.

I only survive Cycling in Reading as I have local knowledge and quite a few Towpaths I can travel down to avoid traffic.

RBC are also anti car. I remember about 15 years ago now, they changed the main Southerly route out of the town(A327) from 3 cars lanes to one with lots of parking either side, bigger pavements, a underused Bus lane and wasted spaces full of hatching.

If you want further proof just Google 'Shinfield road roundabouts' and you'll see what their attitude is to the taxpayers.

Trust me when I say these guys can't even be trusted to look after a bee in a jar!!

I used to live in Reading and Cemetery Junction in the east of the town was quite scary but the Thames canal path was superb. There are ways around town without reverting to main roads and demanding for cycle lanes.

What's the collective term for ineffectual councilors?

At least there's a hint of a 20mph limit. Add in a few bollards to create quietways, get people to understand that a month's bus fares would pay for a 2nd hand town bike, and things start to change. It's not rocket science, and the popularity of the bus service is the lamest of excuses.

That's what our executive member for transport said in WsM, "we haven't put any effort into improving this horrific junction because very few people choose to cycle across it"!

I may have misquoted him slightly, but the meaning is there...

I cycle across Reading twice every day.

The council haven't got a clue and Tony Page is a big obstruction to cycling in Reading.

The town is choking on cars but nobody seems to understand that a relatively small modal shift to bikes would radically change that. The argument that the streets are narrow is total nonsense, most of Reading's streets are huge, the town got bombed flat in the war so there is loads of room. Its just that the town has a legacy of town centre road building that the council can't seem to move on from. Being the only reliable crossing of the Thames for a few miles doesn't help but the council have no strategy for removing or dealing with the through traffic - it makes them obsessed with traffic problems but they will never get away from that without providing credible alternatives.

One of the major problems is that the town is cut in half by Thames and the railway line, which have only 2 crossing points which are terribly hostile to bikes. 5 minutes on the back of an envelope reveals how one of the crossing points could be completely tamed very cheaply (and it does link to lots of traffic free routes) but the council missed this opportunity when they re-furbished the station approaches.

The recently renewed Vastern road across the front of the new station entrance is a typical example, its about 40 metres wide. We could have had a nice boulevard, or good quality cycle infrastructure leading to the station and building out from that, but the council insisted on making concrete desert, 4 lanes of car traffic and big pavements, then making the pavement shared use as an afterthought. They couldn't have done a worse job if they had tried!

In the past there have been patches of very high quality infrastructure built in Reading but whatever policy put them in has very definitely been reversed in recent times.

Hardly anyone cycles because it's not subjectively safe.
But no point investing in infrastructure because hardly anyone cycles!

That's basically their logic.

OK Reading - 25% of RTC's involve cyclists - but only 3% of modal split.

Seems that you really should be fulfilling your statutory obligation under Section 39(3) RTA 1988 and "Carrying out investigations into road traffic collisions" with a view to addressing this disparity. Maybe you can publish the reports you have done (as required by law) to date?

Any Reading cyclist care to do an FoI on this one?

simple question time, Who owns Readings buses? what is the income/cost,

Would the minor detail of councillors self interest cause any bias in how they see competing methods of transport?

The Peoples Republic of Reading see all personal modes of transport as a threat to their authority. To control and monitor the movement of the population, you must force them onto the state controlled transport system - Reading Borough Council owns the bus company.

I have very limited experience of cycling through Reading i.e. once from east to west. Much of it was on a dedicated, segregated cycle lane integrated into the wide pavements. Usual errant pedestrians and white vans parked but generally I was impressed.

"In UK towns and cities smaller than London"

That'll be all of them then...

What the hell is up with the comments system on the GetReading? I've looked through and I can't see any mentions of road tax, cyclists jumping red lights or people wanting to mow them down...