Cycle Superhighway

geoff holman wrote:

One trouble is that any 'rules' for drivers keeping out of the blue lanes have not been widely publicised - nor have the lanes any notices about any restrictions as to whether drivers can ever drive on them. For instance, with a blue lane within an existing bus lane, if it is legal for drivers to be in the bus lane at certain times - does this mean they can also be on a blue lane?

Well you couldn't stop at many Southwark junctions for long without witnessing vehicles running the red light so there's no hope for new rules.

Re ssimps01 photo above which I assume was taken over the weekend.
I cycled down SBR sunday morning and saw lots of cars parked in the Blue Lane. The parking sign indicated that parking was unrestricted on Sundays. Can't remember exact wordage, but something like no parking Mon-Fri 7am - 9pm. We can't really expect long stretches of Blue Lanes to be kept clear 24/7.

Yes, that was a little dishonest of me. It was a Sunday. And I htink it is fair enough for residents and visitors to park here on a Sunday - you can't just paint the road blue, take away parking spots with no other arrangements.

But Geoff's point still stands. The rules are unclear.

Bus lanes have hours of operation.
The only rules we have now is that these new cycle lanes don't operate during hours of unrestricted parking?

Instead of having a Blue Cycle Lane on both sides of a road, why not have a wide two-way one down the middle, with an orange waiting area at each juction where one could turn right/left as the lights allow. Maybe the lights could have a safe to turn <-- BICYCLE --> symbol.

First Draft of suggested layout.

On my daily cycle commute this morning from South London to the City, I couldn't keep track of all the vehicles parked on the blue lane (with solid white lines) along SBR. Taxis, delivery vans, HGV's, and even a police van. These CSH routes without proper policing are just a waste of taxpayer's money.

Just where do you expect the delivery vans, taxis, police,HGVs etc to park when they're working. Not everyone works in an office and too many people on this site assume everyone has the luxury of cycling or walking to work carrying a dinky little bag to sit behind a comfy office desk. The blue lane should be a guide for road users to respect the cyclists by giving them more room whenever possible.

The problem is that parking in the cycle lane puts cyclist's safety at risk, having to park further away is an inconvenience. However planners do need to provide for more 'utility' type parking, even where it means there is less pay and display.

I take a massive bag to work on my bike, perhaps men have dinky bags but women carry their lives in their bags.

Jerry is spot on. People with big manly bags should be allowed to park where they want.

But more seriously, the point people are making is about how painting the road blue has caused confusion.
The highway codes states that cars should not enter cycle lanes that are bordered with a continuous line.

But as Jerry, reasonably I think, points out, people still need to park. So if you paint miles of London's roads blue and remove parking overnight people are just going to ignore it.

Which, I think is Zoe's point. If people ignore cycle lanes and park in them, then cyclists don't ride in them - which is potentially more dangerous than no cycle lane.

This is 8:00 on a Monday morning:

Quite simply TfL have managed to confuse everyone...who ever is in charge of road traffic management at TfL needs to be sacked (Boris a bit of cost saving here possible...no big payoff for doing a rubbish job...the sack)and replaced immediatley with someone who can explain how all users of the roads are going to have to share the space (obviously not going to please every(any)body) but not just making life difficult for all.