Bike Lanes considered harmful

There's been some new report published about bike lanes. Here is one of Bristols, underused by bicycles despite all the money put on a stretch between the building works on Dighton Street

And the junction with Marlborough Street. Despite all the money put in to supporting these tax-dodgers, for some reason, they don't use them. That really annoys us.

This new paper claims that cars drive closer to bicycles when there is a bike lane, as it creates a clear expectation in the driver that the bicycle will stay in the bike lane, regardless of its width or quality, while when they are not in lane, the driver has to make their own decision as to how to pass them, and they get more room. For cycling campaigners, it is an argument against bike lanes, the other being these lane's tendancy to vanish when the road gets complicated.

We in Bristol Traffic are against bike lanes for another reason. They create unrealistic expectations in the cyclists -that there are bits of the road there for them, and advertises to pedestrians and morally weak car drivers that there is some alternative to driving.

This is of course untrue. There is no bit of the road "for them". It is all for us, the road tax payer. We paid for it, so we can use it when we need it. That includes the bike lane and the pavements.

Take this contraflow on Cotham Hill. There is a delivery vehicle WU58OVZ doing something important. Does the cyclist stop and wait patiently? No they do not! They swerve into the oncoming lane. This bicycle is now illegally going down a one-way street. How can such criminals deserve respect?

Banksy Parking Logistics

Lots of new visitors coming to our site are not using the usual keywords "high viz fetish", but now "banksy parking". Lots of other people are either concerned that this criminal is stealing our parking spaces (now no parking allowed there, 24-hours a day), or looking for somewhere to park. We welcome the new visitors, even the one who denounced our concerns about the loss of parking spaces as petty selfishness. Selfish, maybe, but petty, no!

zulu1001 says:

"Oh please!"

"It's something that is really popular that does no-one any harm. Let celebrate this rather than complaining about a perceived traffic inconvenience."

Well, zulu1001, it is not just the loss of a few parking spaces that matters, it is the fact that all these visitors to the city are taking up our commuter parking spaces in/near Woodland Road and Tyndall's Park avenue, the last free parking area nearby, just when the students had all left for the summer. Because you need to be in that queue before 08:30 to be sure that you will get in the first 450, and not have to wait at least an hour for the first group to finish, so called "art lovers" who have driven over will be there grabbing the spaces before we regular commuters can get them.

For all those people coming to this site looking for the best place to park for the exhibition, can we therefore point you all at Montpelier? Come off the M32 before you reach the end of the road, go into Montpelier and park on an empty bit of pavement. It will get easier throughout the day.

Then walk all the way to the show via Stoke's Croft, Jamaica Street, Dighton Street and Park Row, past all the other free graffiti the city has to offer.

Having been inside the show, can we note that it is not very authentic. This "landscape near Hartcliffe" painting, for example, does not recognise the off-road skills of the locals, who can get a stolen car way further up a muddy track before having to torch it. That painting is more a Clifton-down class of off-road parking, which may give a new clue as to the graffiti-criminal's origin.

Finally, can we close by reminding the locals not to mention the fact that Boston Tea Party at the top of Park Street does the best coffee, cakes and meals of all the cafes in this area, because if word does get out its lovely garden at the back will fill up. Point the turists at Cafe Nero and Starbucks, it is all they expect and deserve.

Build outs

Some people view build outs on bike lanes as inconvenient and dangerous.

On Jamaica Street, for example, the buildout contains a tree, which forces you to be even further out -beyond the designated bike area.

Yet greenery in the city is to be cherished, and by pushing bicycles out of the bike lane, they are out of car door range of the Ford Ka W947MCU

And later on, this BMW YK52BPP, a car that its positioned carefully to stop the small child from running off the dropped kerb and into any bicycle that has swerved back in to lane

The buildout and tree is therefore protecting the pedestrians, the cyclists and the paintwork of the cars.

Update 19-may-2009: Ian W says "Those 2 pictures are on Dighton Street....It's becomes Jamaica Street at Kings Square." Thank you!

Safety Feature

The van K329PHW parked in the bike lane just by the Stokes Croft/Ashley Road junction is making the junction safer for bicycles.

That lane is a way to die, as the left turn lane is to the right of it. If a bike turning left comes up the inside of a car which turns over it, death. If a bike tries to go straight on while a vehicle turns left, death. The safe option for this junction is to acquire and retain the entire left hand lane, then either turn left or go straight on (into the bike lane there), as appropriate. Yet the signage misleads bicycles and sets up the wrong expectation in cars

1. By parking where it has, the van makes it clear to cyclists that they should not be in that lane.
2. By taking up half the left turn lane, the van stops cars, buses and lorries from using that lane
3. Therefore, it the lane becomes a bike-only lane. This is exactly what you need to get out of this junction alive.

Some people may be worried that the sudden appearance of vehicle across a bike lane and half the traffic lane may catch traffic out. This is why another vehicle is parked half on bike lane, half on pavement further back along the lane. This will push the bike out into the traffic lane, which is where it belongs.

You are now entering Free Monty

Leafleting cars on the pavements is one thing, are the police really going to turn on the car drivers and start persecuting them?

Oh yes.


This photograph is going to become one of those timeless pictures, the taxi NK55KYC given a ticket and a £30 fine for parking on the pavement of York Road.

Nothing like this has ever happened before. For Montpelier, this is as profound an event as it was in Northern Ireland when the army came in from the mainland in an attempt to impose order and provide an impartial police force.

Lazy Sunday mornings

I pity the poor residents along Gloucester Road. They have to put up with bad parking like this. On double yellow lines, blocking a cycle lane and the driver can’t be bothered to get it parallel with the kerb (rear wheel on pavement). The thing is, I photographed this on a Sunday morning with hardly any cars about and bags of legitimate parking spaces. I guess it’s just being lazy.

There are, of course, petrolheads who would say 'cycle around it'. Okay then, would, say, 20 other cyclists and pedestrians who read this blog care to join me in standing in the middle of Gloucester Road?. Drivers can just go around us, can't they.