Reading Cycle Campaign slams ‘door zone’ cycle lanes

I think that people need to realise that stuff like this happens because councils want to add bike lanes. They want to add more and more kms of lanes, not so that cyclists and motorist can share space more safely but because it's a council target.

That's why crap like this happens. It's why you trees and lampposts in cycle lanes or why they start and then stop a dozen or so metres later (another dozen metres added for the cost of some paint). As they accumulate more metres of cycle lane they hit certain targets and can then brag that they hit this or that target on some plan or another.

It's nowt to do with cycling or cyclists or road safety.

Although... I'm sure making a template couldn't be that hard...

The picture is not taken in the UK, and is therefore not in Reading.

Interestingly, the picture DOES show other places marking out an area where cyclists should NOT ride (which is exactly where Reading council are encouraging cyclists to ride).

Would it be helpful if we used a neutral country to show Reading Council how it should be done?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclable/9465769243/

“Reading is a small, tight-knit urban area with significant pressure on the limited road space available.”

Limited road space seriously? Almost a four-lane road on that picture.

If it wasn't so dangerous I'd find it funny how incompetent planners can be

Another incompetent local authority. Just wait 'til a cyclist is doored and injured then sues them. This will wipe the sarcastic smug grins off their podgy faces.

This is the car door lane...look at the picture? Therefore it should be avoided if you're on a bike and there are parked/stopped cars. No?

Local bbc news facebook page has some proof that some motorists are aggressive https://www.facebook.com/BBCSouthToday/posts/690154384408488

Well done you. You all managed to mention a dead tax LMAO

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purely advisory

Aye. I get plenty of purely advisory tailgating and beeping when not using cycle lanes due to the car/taxi/skip/tree/road sign parked in them.

Copies of the design and completion safety audits for the works please.

Don't councils get funding to have a certain amount/length of cycle lanes in there area, hence that is why we get 1 meter cycle lanes and lanes with a lamp post in the middle of them.

It's not about common sense, it's about money

This is the problem with all this "hey, here's £20 million of money to spend on cycling, whoopee!" announcements by central Government. It's given out with no directive on how to spend it, no minimum standards and it gets squandered on worthless bollocks like this and the council then goes "well we gave you these lanes and you're not using them so we don't see why we should give you anything else..."

In the meantime, it actually causes more problems than it solves - cyclists get stick for not using it, it puts them in more danger, motorists get annoyed cos cyclists aren't using it...

I've said it before on other related threads but give money like that to councils to spend on "cycling" and you end up with some green paint and a whole load of "cyclists dismount" signs. Criminal waste of taxpayers money.

Reading Council is pretty notorious for being crap about cycling. They have a history of doing what they think is best and getting it very wrong. Its not that they don't spend money - they just installed a very expensive bike hire network. Problem is that nobody wants a bike hire system. Its been going a couple of months now and I have yet to see anyone on one.

Reading Cycle Campaign (I have no connection) seem quite vocal and really try to get the council to implement decent ideas. Their ideas are usually pretty good. Again, problem is Reading Council just don't listen to them, they just do their own thing.

How many careless motorists have actually been charged with 'dooring' cyclists in the past 5 years?

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The council needs to balance the needs of all road users and the only way to safely achieve this is by asking all road users to be aware of each other’s movements.

This isn't an answer to criticism of the cycle lane. They should answer the point about the cycle lane, and if on reflection they agree that it is crap, they should change it.

But to resort to vague, warm statements about all of us looking out for each other…not good enough.

Yeah gotta say it's not relaxing cycling in the middle of a lane to avoid doors when on some faster 30mph roads

The council needs to balance the needs of motorists to drive an unnecessarily large vehicle, to park it as close as possible to their destination so they don't have to walk more than 100 yards, and go unnecessarily fast, against the needs of cyclists to stay alive.

That's the problem on the talk of 'balancing needs of different groups' in general - one lot's 'needs' are actually more 'wants' but they get balanced against the far more basic needs of the other groups,

"Reading Borough Council [...] said the cycle lane was purely advisory"

The council is merely ADVISING cyclists to ride close enough to cars to get doored. They won't COMPEL you to get your body or limbs cut open by a door edge, they just ADVISE you to.

The cycle lane pictured lane in the reading chronicle is about as wide as a bikes handlebars and the lane isn't mandatory.

It's not a cycle lane, it's a get out of our way cyclists you're holding us up lane.

Problem here is they have used the cycle lane markings to denote the parking bays. I.E. its primary purpose is not to keep cyclists safe. The reality is that when the re-surfaced this stretch of road (2 weeks ago) they should have re-designed it completely. Typically for Reading there is enough real-estate to put the cycle lane on the other side of the parked cars which makes it properly safe. But the council don't bother thinking about it. If they did the job properly every time then there would be the beginnings of a decent cycling network. But there isn't, there isn't any will for it. Especially with Tony Page as a lead councillor.

Reading is a typical south west sh1t town - but it really doesn't help itself. Its got lovely riverside parks and loads of waterfront that it makes nothing of, and its choking on cars - but does nothing to provide for alternatives.

"It's purely advisory"

But as it's there all that will happen is people being harangued for not using it.

“We would also always ask drivers opening car doors to check for cyclists in their wing mirrors, as required by the Highway Code,” - Brilliant that's worked great so far hasn't it.

How stupid or naive are planners? Do they occupy the same universe as normal folk?