IT is good to see cycle facilities securing political support (“£6.5m cycle route should be finished by the end of 2018”, The Herald, December 5). However, Transport Minister Humza Yousaf explains that an expert panel in 2016 “was incredibly impressed with the high level of design”. It had not been designed in detail in 2016.
At a recent public consultation it was necessary for cyclists to point out to officers that provision shown for a right turn off Victoria Road in Glasgow was quite inadequate.
Only subsequently has the council announced it is proposing to use an innovative Dutch-style junction, subject to government approval.
Glasgow City Council’s good design is skin deep. Last week at a consultation about plans for Battlefield junction, the council displayed four options, none of which considered the needs of cyclists, and with only a couple of token pedestrian crossings shown. We’ll consider them later, was the explanation offered. Proposed road layouts with alignments skewed to permit junctions at right angles were drawn to suit cars, yet statistics presented showed significant pedestrian, cycle and bus usage, at times more people are using them than cars.
Why aren’t pedestrian and cycle facilities being considered routinely across the city when a project starts, and given priority?
The design mentality is still to consider them as something added on when vehicle needs have been designed for.
The council is providing high quality segregated cycle facilities on relatively wide uncongested roads, the South City Way; not so on recently upgraded Union Street. It has no facilities for cyclists because, the road being narrow, they would hinder vehicular traffic.
To provide safe space on inner city roads it is often necessary to give cyclists dedicated road space, something the council doesn’t yet do routinely on highways if it hinders vehicle flows. Look for the cycle box on the recently upgraded St. George’s Road; it is missing.
Sustrans’s Daisy Narayan wants to see “improving conditions for people who choose to walk or cycle”. Why then did Sustrans fund the tarmacing of a 50 metre length of footpath on Kelvin Walkway that is less than 1.5 metres wide for cyclists to use instead of the designated national cycle route across the river through the Botanic Gardens arboretum?
Pedestrian facilities have been downgraded. Sustrans is credited on a council sign that invites cyclists to bypass the proper cycle route that closes at dusk.
The sign was erected just before the arboretum was closed for three weeks for the commercial Jurassic event. Coincidence? Now Land Services at the council wants cyclists to use the footpath permanently, instead of arranging to keep the national route open all of the time.
And what about the steep cyclepath link off Garrioch Drive, funded by Sustrans, that has been permanently closed at a loss of £6,353? The council ignored a warning that it was hazardous.
When a cyclist fell off Sustrans acknowledged it wasn’t fit for all users, so the council had to close it; not exactly the best design or funding decision.
Mr Yousaf trumpets the virtues of the South City Way, a segregated cycle facility.
Is anyone telling him that across Glasgow are poorly designed and maintained cycle facilities? When are they going to be put right?
Pat Toms,
Flat 1/2,
68 Shakespeare Street,
Glasgow.
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