I often criticise Oxford Council for providing bad cycle lanes, so it’s only fair to highlight a good cycle path, which runs along Donnington Bridge road. It connects with a cycle path along the river and so provides a good route into town. It is also used by schoolchildren cycling to a local school.
A good thing about the cycle path is that it is bi directional so schoolchildren can get to school without crossing the road. It is also not part of the pavement, but separated from the road. You wouldn’t want this on all roads but on this inner city road it works well.
A great advert for cycling – beat the rush hour traffic jam – go by bike!
Interestingly a few days ago, a report came out saying that cycle lanes led to motorists giving cyclists less room – they tend to drive close to the marked lane for the cycle path. This is most prominent on roads with 40 or 50mph speed limits. (link)
Improving cycling is much more than painting a few cyclist signs on the road.
More pictures below.
The link to the river cycle path
A nice way to get to work.
A white line just a metre from the road edge, can make quite a difference to safe cycling. We have one from Panteg to Swansea Morriston roundabout, here in south Wales, which cyclist use with some feeling of safety.
It wouldn’t cost a fortune to paint such lines on main roads to and fro towns surely.
I prefere to use such roads than I do cycle paths, which are full of people walking dogs running off the lead,and barriers, which means you have to keep stopping.
Also, they are not well swept.
These are some great cycle paths. Over here in Lincolnshire we are very limited as to the amount of paths for our trusty two wheeled vehicles (not motorbikes mind!). We are the flattest part of the UK, and yet we have so few cycle routes!
What makes me laugh is that this county possesses the same geography as our Dutch cousins over on the mainland. But they seem to have excellent, no, I would say AWESOME facilities – I’ve even been there and sampled them myself
http://www.hembrow.eu/cycling/photos.html
Let’s hope that the cities do get a bit too crowded with cars; then people will see that bikes are the best form of transport (and are a hell of a lot easier on the wallet too!)
Great advert for cycling, a great bike lane, and a massive traffic jam avoided!
Looks like a good lane and I think you’re right about raising the awareness of the good facilities. The only thing that ever irks me of cycle facilities is when they’re shared with pedestrians – I like to keep up a good pace and stay fit and I think its unreasonable to do that around pedestrians – yet many councils see the shared paths as the future.
I can see a time when we will be properly segregated from traffic and pedestrians, but I dont see this anytime soon. I also think it will have to be a concerted effort rather than the dibs and dabs we currently have..
..sorry rambling. Good pics!
Looks like you have some great facilities for cyclists in Oxford. Generally I am optimistic about the future for cycling, as we reach (or pass) the point of total congestion on our city roads, cycling is an obvious way to more people more quickly. People will want to cycle and planners will increasingly have to make room for them