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Santa Monica door lane - Gary Seven - Flickr Creative CommonsMore door-zone cycle lanes for Reading despite backlash
Reading Borough Council has defended the creation of a bike lane in the 'door zone' of a series of parking bays despite campaigners pointing out that the lane does not meet the council's own standards. The council says there have been no cyclist accidents in the area, but campaigners say the position of the lane is inherently dangerous.
The new lane, east of the town centre on Wokingham Road, was claimed by a spokesman for the Reading Cycle Campaign at a recent council meeting to have been made against the advice of local cyclists, and in contradiction to the council’s own Cycle Strategy 2014 and the Department for Transport’s guidelines.
But the lead councillor for strategic environment, planning and transport, Cllr Tony Page, has defended the lane, because "there have been no occurrences of injury accidents involving cyclists recorded in this area for the past three years."
Campaigners say this lane, like one in the north of the town which we covered in August 2014, lies in the area of road immediately next to the parked cars where cyclists are at most risk of car doors being opened into their path.
The council’s guidelines on positioning cycle lanes adjacent to parking bays, which feature in its Cycle Strategy 2014, state that advisory cycle lanes should have a width of 1.2m and that there must be a buffer zone of 500mm to 1000mm between the parking bay and cycle lanes.
The Wokingham Road lane does not meet those requirements, as parts of the lane are only 1m wide, and there is no buffer zone.
The guidelines do go on to stipulate, however, that where a buffer zone is not possible the council “will consider the removal of the centre line and will end any cycle lanes prior to the bays as well as adding cycle symbols to the-carriageway to alert drivers to the presence of cyclists.”
Wokingham Road is currently without centre markings, but the council say the painting of the cycle lanes is currently incomplete because of adverse weather conditions in January, and that the centre markings are due to be painted in the near future.
Cllr Page claimed that the lane had been introduced in accordance with the council's Cycling Strategy in a council meeting on January 27, despite the exclusion of a buffer zone, because there had been no injuries on that stretch of road in three years.
He said: “It is acknowledged that, where possible, a door buffer zone should be given consideration when continuing cycle markings past parking areas.
"In this particular instance, and for consistency, the council has continued the new cycle markings without such a zone as the majority of parking along this section of Wokingham Road is residential and there have been no occurrences of injury accidents involving cyclists recorded in this area for the past three years."
Reading Cycle Campaign (RCC) member, Keith Elliott told getreading.co.uk that several cyclists have already complained to the council about the cycle lanes, and said: “in places the lanes are less than 1m wide and have been put adjacent to parking bays. This is contrary to all the official guidance and is exactly what Reading Borough Council say they won’t do in their own Cycling Strategy.
“The council seem to be in denial. It’s beggars belief that they should waste money on a cycle scheme that is contrary to their own policies and encourages cyclists to put themselves in the car door danger zone.”
Mr Elliott went on to reference The Department for Transport’s (DfT) notes on cycle lanes, which also recommend a buffer zone between parking bays and cycle lanes. He said: “[The DfT] even publish a poster that tells cyclists to ride a car door’s width away from parked cars as part of their THINK safety campaign.
“We urge the council to remove these cycle lanes before someone gets hurt.“
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23 comments
I commute along this road: it has definitely made things worse.
1. Typically, vehicles now pass closer than they did before. This, I believe, is a laminar flow effect: cars stay within their own well-delineated lane and drivers do not consider moving out to pass a cyclist who is not in their lane. To be fair, this is not true of all drivers, but enough to make it unpleasant. I remember a previous article describing some research quantifying this effect: it definitely occurs along here.
2. There are regular traffic islands along this road which form pinch points. As these, the cycle lane disappears. This means that any driver a little way behind you at the pinch point now ignores your presence and tries to force his way past you in the pinch point. Not pleasant.
3. One place along this road where a cycle lane could be useful is the Cemetery junction. Just after the junction the road narrows and it's a bit of a race away from the traffic lights to get to this point before being squashed by a passing car. Of course the cycle lane starts just after this.
Having tried riding in the cycle lane, I have now returned to taking my old defensive line, thus ignoring it.
My issue with this lane is that other road users will now have an expectation for cyclists to stay in it. So if I ride there and decide that it isn't safe for me to ride that close to parked cars then I will have to ride outside the lane, which will most likely anger other road users. If there really isn't room for a buffer zone and a cycle lane then there just shouldn't be a cycle lane in my opinion.
This is what it says in the Cycling Strategy:
"We aim to balance various road user needs including the provision of on-road
parking facilities. Such facilities can create problems for cyclists if there is not
adequate width between a car door and cyclist. LTN 02/087 recommends a bufferzone of 500mm to 1000mm around the outside of the parking bays
We will aim to provide a minimum of 500mm where possible to protect cyclistsfrom opening vehicle doors.
However where this is not possible, we will consider the removal of the centre line and will end any cycle lanes prior to the bays as well as adding cycle symbols to
the-carriageway to alert drivers to the presence of cyclists."
According to the Deputy Head of Highways and Transport " I have checked and am satisfied that this corresponds with our adopted Cycling strategy." The Head of Transport and Streetcare has endorsed this view.
It's not even worth trying to rationally discuss the council's motives as they are irrational.
Their mandate is to make X% of cycle lanes per year. So they make them. They do not care how, where or why, they just need to hit that target. They then trot out made up excuses when a few people complain but their target gets hit, move on to the next election.
Simple for me> I am not going to cycle in the door zone. And if the door zone is a cycle lane then I'll cycle safely in the main lane of the road where I can be seen.
There is no requirement for cyclists to use the lanes especially if they are dangerous, so don't. You'll only be cycling where you should be cycling if they put the cycle lane in the proper place anyway.
agreed, but why paint a line that is only going to cause agro? You will get drivers complaining that you aren't using the line, bikes don't pay tax, i paid for that facility, blah blah blah...
But by irresponsibly refusing to be doored you are encouraging the council to put more of these things in, as you won't feature in their accident statistics. Its your duty to cycle in the door zone and take the risk the council has assigned to you, so that they can collect meaningful stats about its effect. If you refuse to use the lane you are skewing their figures.
I like the graphic on the road in the photo. It wouldn't take long for a crack team of undercover operatives to cut out a similar stencil and add a visible protest to the cycle lane.
Stop, unroll, spray, roll up, go. 15 seconds max.
If a new road, junction or roundabout is built, presumably there are strict regulations (width of road, type of tarmac, height of curbs, nature of signs, white lines, etc) set down by Highways Dept or similar body, with which contractors have to comply.
Does anyone know if there are similar regulations for cycle paths? I mean regulations, rather than recommendations which can be ignored.
I often get the impression that the contractors or planners who put in cycle paths have nothing to refer to, hence the discrepancies and oddities we all see.
Not trying to make a cheap jibe here. Genuinely interested.
there have been no incidents on this road because no moron from the council has encouraged cyclists to ride in the door zone until now.
Now cyclists have a choice to either put themselves at risk in the door zone, or put themselves at risk from drivers frustrated that cyclists are ignoring the cycle lane.
When there is an accident the council and the individuals designing this and signing it off should be sued
If there have been no incidents, why bother with cycle lanes at all? They are a distraction.
While I'm no great fan of having a litigation culture where people are sued for not having a crystal ball, if there is a dooring incident on these cycle lanes (of course it's preferable that this doesn't actually happen), I hope the council get sued hard because they've been warned repeatedly. I would have thought that not following their own (and DfT's) safety guidelines is pretty negligent. They clearly don't care, and probably won't till they get hit in the pocket
yup...wait until a cyclist if forces out into the road into the path of a truck. just awesome
Gets slightly complex to put in proper infra, so intentionally endangers vulnerable road users.
This should be considered misconduct in his role.
So instead of doing something right now, Reading BC want to wait until a cyclist is injured.
The solution should be simple enough. Move the parking bays outwards, towards the road, and construct the cycle lane on the other side, between the parking bays and the pavement. That's how they do it in the Netherlands.
So lets permanently narrow the road which will create further congestion and potentially create more animosity between cyclist and drivers just to avoid a risk which a study has said doesn't exist.
Also, dont cars have doors on both sides..... ?
Yeah but if you get doored on the road side you get run over by a car or a bus. On the pavement side it's a kid on a scooter.
I don't like the idea of forcing bikes off roads and into cycle lanes, no matter how well planned they are. Whilst paths away from road traffic are great for some people, others want to get to places fast. It means cars have less experience of having bikes on the road for the times where it is unavoidable. It means cars don't expect there to be bikes on the road as much. Studies in Germany have shown that separate bike paths have actually increased the danger of cycling (mostly because of junctions). But mostly I dislike the idea because it suggests that cyclists are not real road users.
Nobody wants crap infrastructure but I think if you are honest, you are saying you don't want to be slightly inconvenienced by something that - if done properly - would be a massive benefit to the huge number of people who could cycle but, unlike you and I, are not prepared to put up with all the shit that comes with it. These people don't want to be road users, they could not care less about the politics of it, they would be happy to ride to work or school without having to tool up like a stormtrooper and battle through the HGVs every day.
Try touring Sweden, both the centre of Stockholm and also the greater rural areas. There are wonderful tarmac cycle paths almost everywhere and at least in rural areas are usually separated from the main road by at least 10m of vegetation. Some of them extent for literally hundreds of Kms. You could ride as fast as you like to your hearts content with facilities like they have. In the inner cities cycles tend to have priority over vehicles at most junctions and intersections.
If you actually experienced *proper* cycling infrastructure, from decades worth of political will and financial investment, then I'm sure you would prefer it over the utter mess we have in the UK.
Instead, for decades, we've had thousand of miles of roads constructed without any thought whatsoever given to cyclists' needs. Whenever I see cyclists in the UK sharing a dual-carriageway with vehicles travelling at 70mph+, in all visibilities and conditions, I shake my head in despair. Its not safe and it will never be safe.
This style of road set up is even more dangerous as the cyclist is hidden behind rows of parked cars. living in Brussels I have experience of this set up both as a cyclist and a driver. I have driven across the path of a cyclist on an unmarked inside cycle lane and was very lucky he had good skills and brakes. As a rider I have had many close calls on this style of path with cars, pedestrians,eratic kids, lampposts, dogs and their shit. Bike lanes when provided are obligatory in Belgium but I feel hemmed in. I would prefair to ride my road bike on a road
have there been no accidents, or have there been no REPORTED accidents? As the councils and Police aren't interested unless someone is actually injured many incidents can occur and are never recorded.