We popped down to Muller Road to make sure all was well with the new path, to see how cars and tax dodgers were using it.
What shocked us was how many of the tax dodgers weren't it. First someone careers off from the Farm Pub path at speed
And goes down the road, smirking at us. We don't know whether to praise him for at least having a helmet, or condemn him for the headphones.
Eventually we decided just to ignore the helmet issue and denounce him for being on a bicycle, but at least he isn't holding up traffic.
Unlike the bicycle a few minutes later.
Note also the bicycle heading towards the pub path: no helmet, no hi-viz. And how do these tax dodgers get there? Well, apparently the council is going to tweak the lights so they respond within a few seconds of the buttons being pressed. Currently they take about 30s to react -like all other pedestrian crossings along Muller Road. That 30s wait has a valuable function: it let's people know their place -at the bottom of the food chain.
It also lets us denouce scenes like this:
Rather than wait 30s for a crossing light, a reckless cyclist has veered over the road to get on the path. And without a helmet. These people should not be encouraged!
That's some serious curb hugging in the 3rd photo!
ReplyDeletePeople cycling to Horfield along muller road aren't happy with the buildout. The council expectation is that they will drop and off again, but you are left with a merge at the end that will have a car pull in to your area, and disputes over rights of way. Who has the RoW? The bike coming off the bike path or the car on a road that is itself veering leftwards?
ReplyDeletebest example I've seen of a way to suggest to do this is the end of Mina Rd when you're entering coming from St Pauls. Seems to work because you drop down into a marked cycle lane so driver expectation is that it's cyclists space.
ReplyDeletehttp://tiny.cc/minadrop