Pedal power wants barriers on the bike lanes.

And it shall be.

Even if they do not have a champion like Stanhope in power to get the idea up, they do have the ear of the road transport krew; that road chief is known to be a keen cyclist. So Pedal Power will win.

As provision will also need to be made for buses and for stops, not to mention for the barrier itself, I predict that the car lanes will be narrowed once again, maybe reduced to 2 lanes, with one lane dedicated for buses. As the lanes will be so narrow, the speed limit on the road will be reduced to 40km/h.

One small problem: the early morning lycra clad bunch of bike warriors will not be using the bike lane. As they like to ride in a peleton, they will shun the bike lane and ride in the bus lane. To prevent this, I suggest very strict enforcement policies be handed over to Pedal Power to be able to confiscate these bikes and on the 3 offence be able to crush them.

@Grail

First off I don’t have a car, so don’t assume that i am some kind of car nut who has a fearless driving complex. Second, I’d fancy a look at the source of the lane width claim too.

I walk the path networks – great fun to be having a good walk. I can’t say that I have ever been on a path where dogs and feral children and the like are on the same length of path at one time. Perhaps that is just because I walk the deserted paths of Kambah.

The first bit heading heading north from the city is way too narrow.
I enjoy the rest of Northebourne.
I handle left indicating motor vehicles by pulling out of the lane to the rear of the last one.
The next vehicle doesn’t get given the chance to turn on top of me (if they neglected to signal).
Barriers would stop me from making life safer for me and easier for everyone.

As for a lane in the middle, how to we get off it? I sometimes ride through Civic, up Northebourne and turn left onto MacArthur. That doesn’t work.

doomguy1001 said :

What do the cyclists have so far?

1. Bike paths
2. Pedestrian pathways
3. Bike racks on buses
4. Bike lanes on roads

and now they want a special barrier. Geez. Pedal Power needs to work with what they’ve got already. The first two are perfectly reasonable

Have you tried riding on the shared paths? It’s fine when you are only riding with other cyclists. Doesn’t work too well when you’re sharing the path with people walking their little yappy or big bitey dogs. Or feral children. The paths are awesome for scenic rides, but cover about twice the straight-line distance so they don’t particularly lend themselves to commuting.

doomguy1001 said :

limit was reached in my opinion with the narrowing of existing road lanes for the bike lanes.

And yet Canberra still has the widest lanes in the country. What do you want? 500m either side of your car to prevent your $60k “special” lancer’s paintwork being scratched by that commoner’s BMW?

doomguy1001 said :

What’s next Pedal Power? Special bike intersection lights? Closing roads to regular traffic so they can only be used for cyclists.

That are actually on the table – we already have special pedestrian lights at many intersections (David Street x Macarthur Avenue is the one I use most often). The nonsense about 40km/h on the Tuggeranong Parkway, obviously not.

doomguy1001 said :

Stuff them. Catch a bus at least, at least your armoured from all the evil cars trying to use the road!

There wouldn’t be a need for cyclists to defend themselves if only you would learn how to drive with consideration for other road users.

BicycleCanberra said :

It is important to note that cycle facilities like cycle lanes are not on major arterial roads in the Netherlands, certainly not on roads that have speeds higher than 50km/h. (lower speed limits in residential areas, 30km/h).

In the newer suburbs of Amsterdam that I visited, the bike path was a specially marked part of the “pedestrian” pavement, entirely off the road. The distance between buildings and the road in these areas was about 10m.

BicycleCanberra said :

All in all I am pleased to hear than Pedal Power now support physically separated infrastructure on ‘High speed high volume’ roads. There are guidelines pertaining to cycle facilities on certain type of roads, that the dutch introduced decades ago yet only now we are deciding to consider them.

I feel quite safe on the current on-road facilities except for a few intersections on Northbourne Avenue. The worst of the bunch is Northbourne Avenue x London Circuit, in the South-bound lane. But I’ve already harped on about that in this thread.

Apart from giving bikes a priority light at some intersections (like busses have at many) or shifting bikes onto the pedestrian crossing (like is done in many places throughout Amsterdam), I can’t think of any particularly elegant ways to solve current problems. Note that in Amsterdam the bike and foot paths are side-by-side, but each is specially marked. Both cycle and foot traffic crosses on the same signal.

There is already at least one intersection in Canberra where pedestrians are given a three-to-five second “crossing time” before the cars are given green lights.

As much as I like the idea of Copenhagen-style bike paths, I really can’t see that fitting particularly well into the Canberra environment without extensive adjustments to footpath & road widths/alignment. Perhaps something to aim for as a 10 year plan. Which coincides with my plans for world domination!

I have sent some pictures of Amsterdam cycleways to images@the-riotact.com, let’s see if they end up posted here somewhere.

What do the cyclists have so far?

1. Bike paths
2. Pedestrian pathways
3. Bike racks on buses
4. Bike lanes on roads

and now they want a special barrier. Geez. Pedal Power needs to work with what they’ve got already. The first two are perfectly reasonable, the racks on buses are okay but the limit was reached in my opinion with the narrowing of existing road lanes for the bike lanes.

What’s next Pedal Power? Special bike intersection lights? Making the Tuggeranong Parkway 40km/h so it’s safer for cyclists? Closing roads to regular traffic so they can only be used for cyclists.

Stuff them. Catch a bus at least, at least your armoured from all the evil cars trying to use the road!

Grail said :

Deref said :

In Amsterdam (and, it seems, most of Europe) the dedicated bike lanes are part of the footpath, not part of the road – a sensible, safe, and practical idea. We, of course, do it differently.

The bike lanes are dedicated lanes, regardless of whether they are running parallel to the road, Copenhagen-style, or off the road, Canberra-shared-path-style. But at least there is a marked lane for bikes, separate to the path for pedestrians. If you actually look around Amsterdam you’ll find a mixture of Copenhagen-style, Canberra style (bike and pedestrian paths entirely separated from the road) and half-way between, something along the lines of having marked bike lanes on the concrete path up Northbourne Avenue from Melbourne/Sydney buildings to the Jolimont Centre.

But suffice it to say that there are better options than Copenhagen-style cycle paths, which someone in Pedal Power seems to have developed a full-blown hard-on for.

I use the on-road cycling facilities in Canberra. They work well when everyone’s cooperating, but fall apart dismally when idiots in cars think that the bike lane is a special lane reserved for them when they’re in a hurry. Or the folks who can’t handle looking to their left before veering into the left-turn lane at South-bound Northbourne vs London Circuit. Not that this particular 50m stretch of road is particularly friendly to cyclists, buses or cars. That particular intersection could be handled by having bikes move up onto the concrete path, and cross with pedestrians on a special pedestrians-only cycle of the lights (the same timing of lights happens at David St vs Macarthur Avenue, for example).

It is important to note that cycle facilities like cycle lanes are not on major arterial roads in the Netherlands, certainly not on roads that have speeds higher than 50km/h. (lower speed limits in residential areas, 30km/h). Also not all major roads have cycle facilities like separated paths next to them, rather than cycle routes are usually the most direct routes to destinations like work,shops and schools, motor traffic usually has to take the longer route.
“Rat running” has been stopped in many dutch towns unlike here in Canberra. Many city centre are closed to car traffic and the only way to get there is by bike,walk or public transport.
All in all I am pleased to hear than Pedal Power now support physically separated infrastructure on ‘High speed high volume’ roads. There are guidelines pertaining to cycle facilities on certain type of roads, that the dutch introduced decades ago yet only now we are deciding to consider them.
The ACT has a good road hierarchy w,hich is why we have Australia’s safest roads, that could have easily adopted the dutch model. But that would mean lowering speeds limits in residential areas (not on the Bus route collector roads), Oh no! now wouldn’t the sky fall in if we did that.

Yes the cycleways should be separated, however they should be in a similar position to what is now the footpath. The extra distance between the traffic removes them most of the blind spots that currently exist with having them travelling in a 30cm piece of road immediately beside the traffic as they are now.

Seeing a cyclist in that space is difficult, especially as they don’t like giving way to the left turning cars in front of them that have right of way and also reduce the risk from the drivers who don’t look at all.

The cycle lanes as they currently are on Northbourne should never have been built, the road is simply not wide enough for 3 lanes and a cycle lane and bus stops. They are not safe for anyone, cyclists because them competing with the buses stopping and a lot of left turning traffic and for the other road users who are forced to drive in lanes which don’t fit trucks and buses properly and driving the sections where the gutter actually becomes part of the road.

Madman said :

Surely the cost involved in this will come from the revenue of car registrations….

Nah, don’t think so. The revenue from car regos pays a fraction of the cost of roads so will more likely come from GST money allocated by the federal government. The same place that they get the money to cover the short fall in cheap car rego.

I’m a cyclist and as someone else has mentioned, unfortunately there’s some people I know (who love to ride side-by-side) that would find those lanes too restricted for that, and still ride on the road (which they would say is still legal) and piss drivers off even more! I love all the work PP has done over the years, but as a cyclist, we really have to be sure we aren’t seen as perpetual whingers. First we wanted on road lanes, now we want them to be ‘barriered’. Fair enough, but motorists are really going to get the sh1ts I think.
I suppose maybe if it was only for a couple of major cycle ways it wouldn’t seem too unreasonable…. Like most things in life, there’s gotta be some sort of compromise to make everyone happy!

won’t make a different AT ALL. The people who hit cyclists are turning into driveways, and there won’t be a barrier there anyway. waste of time and money

Have Pedal Power thought of safer options like riding on footpaths/cycle paths? instead of encouraging people to ride bikes on roads in traffic??

If I read this correctly, Pedal Power wants a seperated offroad cycle path AND on road cycle lanes along Northbourne Avenue. I don’t believe keeping on road cycle lanes when seperate lanes are installed is ‘maximising cycling safety’. Cars and bicycles don’t mix very well. I think the off road barrier seperated cycle lanes are a great idea along this stretch of road as long as they were dedicated for cyclists. This would solve the ‘dangerous conflict’ of mixing with pedestrians. I suspect the desire for the on road lanes to remain in addition to seperate lanes is for the benefit of those cyclists who wish to push themselves as though they were training to avoid the slower moving commuters. Northbourne Avenue is not an ideal road for training purposes. The cycle lanes should be only for commuter use. There are numerous other roads which are far safer for those cyclists who want to ‘train’ on the road. If these lanes were introduced, I can’t see a problem with cyclists giving way to vehicles turning left at intersecting streets, as long as we are still talking about maximising cycling safety.

Stuff them, seriously stuff them.

Gungahlin Al said :

The Northbourne on-road cycle ways are damned dangerous and a bit of kerbing would not fix how close many buses go to you.

Maybe the next pedal power issue, will be to get buses off every road that has an on-road cycle path?

Gungahlin Al said :

And Basketcase: I’m glad it’s all cut and dried for you, but the reality out there is cyclists do need a certain degree of protection given the sheer number of ACTION drivers

Well, this is where the problem arises. You want the same rights as cars, trucks, cars and buses (ie. to use the road), but you dont want to share it with them because theyre bigger? There exists an off-road option, but pedal power claim it is “completely unacceptable” to look at anything but an on-road option.

Gungahlin Al said :

Because while a vehicle-vehicle accident is usually just about panel beaters, a vehicle-cycle accident is a completely different matter.

vehicle vs pedestrian accidents are a different matter too, hence why pedestrians dont walk along the road, they use the off-road alternative.. that option is too good for cyclists?

To those complaining about the buses encroaching on the cycleway, think about this. Before the bike lanes were installed, the lanes [3 of] were wide enough for all the vehicular traffic, including the likes of buses, trucks and semi trailers. Instead of widening the road to make a cycle path, they just re-painted the lane markers and narrowed the car lanes down to what is now a dangerously small space if there are two large vehicles driving side by side. I fear for my mirrors when a bus and truck are on either side of me on Northbourne.
Basically, the bicycle lobby has created this monster and now want the taxpayers to make it even worse. What happens to the slip lanes, driveways and bus stops when there is a permanent barrier by the left hand side??? Unworkable and poorly thought out idea. Typical cyclists – wanting all and giving nothing.

Deref said :

In Amsterdam (and, it seems, most of Europe) the dedicated bike lanes are part of the footpath, not part of the road – a sensible, safe, and practical idea. We, of course, do it differently.

The bike lanes are dedicated lanes, regardless of whether they are running parallel to the road, Copenhagen-style, or off the road, Canberra-shared-path-style. But at least there is a marked lane for bikes, separate to the path for pedestrians. If you actually look around Amsterdam you’ll find a mixture of Copenhagen-style, Canberra style (bike and pedestrian paths entirely separated from the road) and half-way between, something along the lines of having marked bike lanes on the concrete path up Northbourne Avenue from Melbourne/Sydney buildings to the Jolimont Centre.

All traffic-light crossings in Amsterdam serve both pedestrians and cyclists with no bizarre need to have a separate set of lamps to give cyclists permission to cross, which light at exactly the same time, off the same circuit, as the lamps for pedestrians (well, at least the ones I saw).

It’s worth noting that in Amsterdam (and surrounding areas of the Netherlands that I saw) mopeds use the cycle paths too. So pedestrians use the cycle path at their own peril. Here in Canberra the black tar paths are “shared paths” which means pedestrians, cyclists and horses all use the same space. Which doesn’t make for safe commuting when you’re trying to pass a guy walking his untrained yappy dog when there’s a horse coming the other way.

But suffice it to say that there are better options than Copenhagen-style cycle paths, which someone in Pedal Power seems to have developed a full-blown hard-on for.

I use the on-road cycling facilities in Canberra. They work well when everyone’s cooperating, but fall apart dismally when idiots in cars think that the bike lane is a special lane reserved for them when they’re in a hurry. Or the folks who can’t handle looking to their left before veering into the left-turn lane at South-bound Northbourne vs London Circuit. Not that this particular 50m stretch of road is particularly friendly to cyclists, buses or cars. That particular intersection could be handled by having bikes move up onto the concrete path, and cross with pedestrians on a special pedestrians-only cycle of the lights (the same timing of lights happens at David St vs Macarthur Avenue, for example).

Why do people use cycle lanes on Northbourne Ave anyway? I commute every day from North Canberra to Civic and could go down Northbourne, but it scares me sideways and I always ride on the bike path (which is – at some stage in the near future – going to be lit up – yay). Anyway, yes it takes me a bit longer and I have to go slower, but it is just so much safer and a much more enjoyable ride. Admittedly I ride to commute, rather than for sport or fitness.

Why dont we develop a bike path that runs along the Dickson/Braddon side of Northbourne – not on Northbourne but running a few streets behind. Leave the on road lane but have another option for the non-lycra warriors.

The numbers on the Sullies Creek bike path in the morning vs the numbers riding down Northbourne Ave suggest the vast majority of people will go down a bike path given the option.

Having said that, a pedestrian path alongside the bike path would be useful at times…

Gungahlin Al said :

The cycle lanes for Northbourne need to be in the middle, with the bus/rail corridor, but the other side of the tree line.

By far the best place for them, but it assumes the bus/rail corridor will be built.

Until that happens, where does PP propose that these barriers be built? In the already too narrow car/bus lanes? In the existing bicycle lanes? Widen the road?

Gungahlin Al said :

…Because while a vehiclevehicle accident is usually just about panelbeaters, a vehiclecycle accident is a completely different matter. And there are already far too many of them.

Is there anywhere that stats on car/bike crashes are available? I’ve often assumed it can’t be as bad as one might think, otherwise more serious efforts would be being made to resolve the situation.

In Amsterdam (and, it seems, most of Europe) the dedicated bike lanes are part of the footpath, not part of the road – a sensible, safe, and practical idea. We, of course, do it differently.

The cycle lanes for Northbourne need to be in the middle, with the bus/rail corridor, but the other side of the tree line.

The Northbourne on-road cycle ways are damned dangerous and a bit of kerbing would not fix how close many buses go to you.

But on a number of other roads, this solution would be superb. I had an ACTION bus scare the willies out of me again this morning by coming over the line on Flemington Road (on the bit where there is no alternative at all).

And Basketcase: I’m glad it’s all cut and dried for you, but the reality out there is cyclists do need a certain degree of protection given the sheer number of ACTION drivers who delight in using more than their alloted lane. Because while a vehiclevehicle accident is usually just about panelbeaters, a vehiclecycle accident is a completely different matter. And there are already far too many of them.

I’d feel safer with some sort of barrier on the on-road paths – both as a cyclist and a driver. I was passing a pair of cyclists on Northbourne yesterday who were riding next to each other in the cycle lane. Ever so social for them, but the nearer one was right on the edge of the cycle lane and in danger of being clipped.

I’d prefer a decent off-road path any day, particularly between suburbs – like the lovely path that goes up past Florey and then veers off to Charnwood (where the planner lived?). It’s amazing how busy that path is. After that, anyone heading on to Kippax and surrounds gets to either risk the road or go a really roundabout way for a while, fuming about the long length of ‘burb edge that looks like it should have a continuing path.

Absolutely stupid idea. Pedal Power need to rethink their insatiable demands for a bubble wrap protected world for cyclists, it aint gonna happen. Pedal power would be better off educating their members that;

There are other people in the world
That cyclists need to ride defensively.
Cyclists should never ever expect motorists to do the right thing
Cyclist must obey road rules
… and the list goes on …

The stupid thing about yet another barrier is that it is yet another thing to crash into.

Someone needs to talk to Pedal Power, no one minds people pushing for a cause, but creating further obstacles to driving and cycling comes straight from the looney bin.

Provision of an off-road path as the ONLY means of cycling on Northbourne Avenue is completely unacceptable to Pedal Power and many individual bicycle riders. This would require breaches of the ACT Government’s own stated policies, put bicycle riders into dangerous conflict with pedestrians

This statement basically sums up their stance. The fact that any option not involving cyclists on the road is ‘unacceptable’, but then to claim that bikes using bike paths creates a dangerous conflict. Do they think this danger is greater than the danger of bikes sharing the same space as cars/trucks?

If we eventually got light rail in the ACT, would these same people like to put the light rail running along the same routes as roads and bikes too? Or do they realise the dangers of cars and rail, but not realise the dangers of bikes and cars?

The trouble with barriers is it still won’t fix problems with cars turning left.

The trouble with barriers is that bikes will still often ignore the rules of the road. We can put all the barriers we like up.. until those people who use bikes on the roads are aware and held accountable for the road laws and their actions, this will always be a problem.

As a daily bicycle-commuter, I have a particular hatred for on-road cycle lanes: 80 cm of drain, a gut-full of exhaust, dodging buses and having cars speed up to pass. Cycle paths need to be suitable for everyone – not just adults on high performance road bikes. An off-road path would be a thousand times better than the current situation – especially for young & old people, parents carrying kids, and other cyclists happy to take their time. Except for designated freeways and motorways (which Northbourne is not) cyclists can still chose to ride on the road if they so chose. Pedal Power should represent all cyclists and support the off-road path. While they are at it, there needs to be some decent cycle paths to cross Northbourne at Wakefield, Ipima/Condamine and Haig Park, so one can actually get from one side to the other.

I like this idea.

I assume Pedal Power would be in favor of separated cycle lanes as it will allow simpler installation of the pushbike toll gates required to fund the creation of further separated cycle lanes.

“The trouble with barriers is it still won%u2019t fix problems with cars turning left.”

Not to mention the tree cutting, or whatever activity is going on in the background of the feature pic.

The theory of better separating motorised traffic from the treddlies is not too bad, though.

They already have a barrier – it’s called a footpath and a gutter!

Surely the cost involved in this will come from the revenue of car registrations….