Queens Lane
Commuting to work is always a little stressful. Coming down Iffley road, you have buses and vans squeezing past with, at times, a few inches to spare. Then you have Magdalen roundabout to negotiate. Five different exits, vehicles flying around – you need your wits about you. Then there’s High Street and a combination of more double decker buses and extra long coaches. I’m sure this sounds a familiar experience – where ever you commute.
But, then off High Street in Oxford, there used to be a marvellous road, completely closed to traffic. Just for 500 metres you could enjoy the experience of cycling in a car free city centre. You had no fear of an impatient van beeping at you because you’re not in the gutter. You can even cycle in the middle of the road and not worry about looking over your shoulder. Without the rush of cars, you could just take your time, and enjoy the commute.
no longer a paradise
The road was traffic free because of a barrier in the middle, physically blocking cars. Unfortunately that has been removed, and despite a sign prohibiting access, cars now use it. It’s not a huge number, but it’s enough to make a difference. Whereas once you could cycle stress free, it’s now like any other road – when at any moment an impatient driver beeps you because he can’t squeeze past.
This experience showed me, how much stress (either conscious or unconscious) there is sharing roads with cars. 90% of cars may be reasonable, but it only takes 0.1% to give you an accident. When you can cycle on car free roads – it really is a different experience. You can relax, enjoy the cycle. It was a transport paradise. If this was a common experience in city centres, if you could have this kind of cycle path through a city centre, who wouldn’t want to cycle or walk to work?
Cyclists and Pedestrians
Often on this road there are large groups of tourists / pedestrians. But, in the past 10 years, I never saw any problem or incident between pedestrians and cyclists. You just ring your bell and go round the edge.
Part of the reason is that the road has a few 90 degree bends so you don’t see any racing cyclists charging along. It’s also in a very beautiful part of Oxford which naturally encourages you to take it easy.
But, also it is a proper cycle way. A decent width. Not the usual two foot shared cycle path on half a pavement. Of course you will get friction between motorists and pedestrians if you give them a two foot path to share. But, a proper road like this, and it works very well. Just as you were happy to cycle in middle of road, you also felt very comfortable walking in the middle of the road.
It’s not particularly long, but it was a great place to cycle. I hope they re-erect the barrier.
Where the barrier used to be.
Related
I absolutely agree with you regarding the difference in stress levels. Most of my daily commute through Manchester is on a wide cycle path and it is a completely different world from sharing the road with other traffic.
On the cycle path I am free to turn up the X-Mini II speaker on the handlebar and just enjoy the ride, going at my own pace without fear of any vehicular traffic. Then once the cycle path ends I can feel myself mentally getting ready to claim my own bit of space with the other road users. Metaphorically I will fight for it too as I refuse to ride in the gutter.
As I’ve said the before the air horn usually has its say when a vehicle driver does not indicate, drives too close or more annoyingly sees a cyclist as something to overtake and then ignore once they have driven past, especially in slow moving traffic. But that never happens on the cycle path, which I am going to miss during the winter months.
Now I need some more physical training with winter coming up. This season renders cycle paths dangergous to use due to the build up of ice so I am forced to use the road and sometimes take up a whole lane (in four lane traffic) when there is an unending mound of slush next to the kerb.
So the choice is to try to use the road along with car / bus / truck / taxi drivers who do not want to share it or watch my waist line expand while I pay money to sit on a bus stuck in traffic. So I’ll be buying another set of winter tyres with embedded spikes. : )
Talk to the council – or better still a councillor, demand it be put back in! If enough people complain to the right people we can get things like this changed!
hi
any idea why this has been removed? surely it cannot be permanent.
Matt
possibly construction traffic to Queens college. Possibly for emergency vehicles. Perhaps someone lost key to gate. who knows?