BRITAIN probably leads the way in creating folly cycle lanes.
One of the best –or worst - must be Torquay’s cycle route down a 60-metre flight
of steps.
Did you get that? A cycle way down/up steps.
Steep steps.
This bizarre feature is now six years old. For sheer
stupidity it ranks alongside the Kingston upon Thames cycle lane which runs
through a bus stop.
The thinking that leads some councils in the UK to
authorise such dangerous infrastructure is alien to the Dutch way of thinking,
and Utrecht’s approach is a beautiful lesson in creativity.
In the Torquay bollocks, cyclists reaching the steps
must of course dismount and walk, with
the wheels in a gulley or narrow ramp provided at the side. Mid Devon RC’s Ron Keagan, 83 years young,
was doing just this last month. He was in his cycling shoes with cleats which
aren’t best designed for tackling steps and he lost his footing, somersaulting
three times to the bottom.
Luckily, he got away with cuts and bruises. Nothing
was broken; they told him in the hospital. Keegan described the stairs as
“absolute folly”.
Riders on electric bikes will find them next to
impossible to use, given the weight of their machines, as will riders towing
trailers and people with prams.
It’s absolutely mind boggling.
The cycle path links Shipway and Chelston and cost £350,000. The original design showed the path coming down a gentle slope through woods. But a dick head took the decision to build a 60 metre staircase instead.
 |
| Not the Torquay staircase, but similar. |
The Torquay beauty has set the bar so high for stupidity it deserves some sort of award.
It is an idea unlikely to catch on in Holland.
The Dutch cycle route network criss-crossing town and country
is the envy of cycling campaigners everywhere. The fact there are still very few decent cycle paths in Britain is evidence that many council highway planners, not to mention the treasury which funds them, simply cannot grasp the concept; or don't want to.
In Holland,, for instance, they recently demolished a school to make
room for a cycle route, rebuilding the school nearby.
Yes, did you get that? They demolished a school and
rebuilt it somewhere else to make room for the cycle path!
If you are still unsure what you have just read,
pause, then read it again.
Or move on, because the story gets even better.
There were
two schools. You’ll laugh when I tell you what they did with the second one. This
school stayed where it was and the cycle route was directed up a ramp onto the school roof.
Will someone share this story with the Torquay
councillors, bless them.
In Holland they have a saying: “Enabling cycling is
all about removing barriers.”
And so, to this end, with the opening of a major
cycle bridge over the Rhine canal a few years ago it became possible to cycle
directly from Utrecht city centre to a huge residential development.
Here’s the history to this ambitious project.
For over 50 years, the west edge of Utrecht was clearly marked by the
Amsterdam-Rhine Canal and the A2 Motorway to the west of it.
When in the 1990s, Utrecht was extended over the canal with the new
housing area Leidsche Rijn it was clear that these barriers
had to be removed.
So between 2007 and 2012 the A2 motorway was buried underground.
That was one barrier removed.
Plans had been in discussion about a cycle bridge over the canal but at
the most logical location for a cycle bridge two schools were in the way.
Whereas in the UK the cycle route would have been diverted a longer way around,
in Utrecht - holding to the belief that cycle routes must be direct - the city council simply decided to relocate
one of the schools and integrate the one which remained into the structure of the bridge – so
cyclists ride over the school roof.
The cycle lane approaches the school on a gradually ascending winding path
easy to cycle up and over the roof and thence to the bridge, which boasts a four metre wide cycle lane – the pedestrian path is
two metres wide.
All work was completed by 2016. Today there are 7000 cycling journeys a
day on this route. Total cost of all the work, 25 million Euros. The cycle
bridge cost 7 million Euros.
