Tuesday 25 February 2014

The motorway in all but name

Today, an article on BBC News appeared showing the attempt of one cyclist to use the M25 as a shortcut home. The police officer explains how the cyclist was spotted on the M25 and how he got him to safety on the A30.

The A30.

This road here:

:

Essentially the cyclist was removed from a dual carriageway with hard shoulder, to a dual carriageway without hard shoulder, for his safety. It would be mad to cycle in either of these places, but if I had to pick one, I know where I would prefer to cycle.
Surprisingly, its not difficult to find some examples of cycling infrastructure on these type of roads:
Why is it that cycling is accommodated on these sorts of roads at all?  I assume providing this sort of infrastructure is a box ticking exercise. Unless there is a Cycling on Dual Carriageways pressure group which would appear to have more success than the #space4cycling campaign. The fact that this infrastructure even exists suggests that Space for Cycling isn't just needed in the urban area, but it needs to link them too.

2 comments:

  1. Those roads that are officially motorways are supposed to have an alternate route for cyclists and pedestrians, so where would the alternate path for the M25 be? Also, if i was an MP, I would have a bill introduced to have the speed limit for the motorways (and only motorways, not dual carriageways) raised to 80 mph/130 km/h, so that A there is a reasonable speed for motorways, the Netherlands also has a 130 km/h limit, a more reasonable speed for a road like the M25, and to entice the DfT to build good quality cycle infrastructure so the limit can be raised.

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    Replies
    1. And to be clear, that cycle infrastructure must be a completely separated cycle path at least 100 metres away from the motorway or dual carriageway.

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