Westfield Road Bridge cycle and pedestrian works

@FionaRadic @eddiemurphy4pcc View of cathedral will be gone. View of trains on the railway will be gone. And people will be unseen + unsafe.

— New Listener (@New_Listener) March 13, 2016

@FionaRadic @eddiemurphy4pcc Part of the railside barrier is to conceal trunking. The raised roadside barrier is completely unnecessary.

— New Listener (@New_Listener) March 13, 2016

Wrong side of the road in Peterborough

Northern cycle route exit from Long Causeway

The previous cycle route ran to the RIGHT of the vehicular one. (It was one of two city centre roads which require moving to the wrong side of the roads and was a top local knowledge quiz question.) It was used by cyclists to EXIT Long Causeway onto Broadway. During recent new surfacing work, inexplicably the old route has been blocked off by a new bit of fence.

Long Causeway is one way for vehicles but two way for cyclists.

No entry signs at the EXIT of Long Causeway don’t make sense, even to car drivers, who wouldn’t see them, if they were driving in the right direction. The road is one way for cars, (isn’t it?) which would be coming towards you in this picture. The only vehicular exit is via Cathedral Square. Which is behind you.

Only council permitted vehicles are allowed in past the rising bollards. Although they are not currently working, it looks as if a new monitor has been installed.

An exit is required onto Broadway for cyclists. At the moment cyclists are cycling straight past the completely pointless no entry sign and over the potentially rising bollards.

Is the council planning to

• reinstate the previous cycle route and remove the fence? This would separate cars from bikes and leave a favourite quiz question intact.

• remove the no entry signs?

• add a cycling contraflow sign (as at the roundabout end of Cowgate)? But if it is going to do this will it explain how it intends to ensure cyclists aren’t accidentally impaled on a rising bollard they haven’t noticed?

We did have a Council Leader who wanted to abolish cycling in the whole city centre. He lost his seat in May.

While he is gone, I for one am hoping the Council will be able to resolve this particular road sign nonsense quickly, sensibly and constructively. And if whoever is responsible for traffic signs in the city wants to comment below, he or she is very welcome.

There is hope.  The view in the other direction makes a little bit more sense, (except for the temporary signage).

Long Causeway towards the Cathedral

 

twinkle twinkle polished car

Interesting row of three cars parked across the south bound cycle lane in Park Road. I wonder if they are attending a Tory event in that newly poster boarded house?

View up the road from the cycle lane looking north. Ah! This car is a jag. Nice clean well tended car.

Second and third car. Hum. Another fancy, perfectly groomed car.

Not sure if this car is part of what looks a bit like a set

Car number two. Oh a a Peterborough City Council ELECTED MEMBER badge on this one!

Picture of the ELECTED MEMBER badge. Difficult to forge: (shares some attributes with a bank note.)

twinkle twinkle polished car

Cllr Peach did not opt to move his car while I was there: to this day I don’t know how well he can get in and out of driveways. But this is not the first time I’ve seen him use the cycle route for stopping on.

Owner of car number one (the jag) comes out and not sure how but that car moves from behind me into that driveway as fast as lightning. He tells me “We’re pale green, you know.” Good Afternoon, Cllr Fitzgerald. Behind his right shoulder Tory candidate for Park Ward Steve Allen with a stunning smile and friendly folded arms

Cllr Fitzgerald enjoying the lovely warm sun, with his car newly tucked into the drive.

You see, our Park Ward councillor team (two Labour, one Conservative) went for what they describe as “aggressive pavement cyclists” recently and tasked the police with talking to shocked children and middle aged women cycling along gently as well as people who couldn’t speak English. (My sample was tiny: but I did one.) They fined about a third of the people they stopped: most of them probably incapable of being polite and apologising nicely to a policeman.  (Some offenders just got warned, although whether or not cycling on a pavement is an offence in all circumstances is a moot point.)  So I think it only fair to point out that cycling on the pavement can be a perfectly logical and reasonable response to dangerous junctions, roads and cycle lanes and is a better place to cycle if your lights have just packed up.

Cars which park in the Park Road cycle lane, or across it or on the pavement are a regular feature of life at this end of Park Road and I for one don’t think it is safe.  I think badly behaved drivers are one of a number of contributory factors encouraging “pavement cycling”.

I didn’t paint in the double yellow lines (which most people don’t even believe are there any more: they are virtually worn out).  The Conservative council did.  So I think elected Conservative members of all people should be able to show us how we can all live happily with their decisions.

Are Peterborough cyclists cannibals now?

I’ve blogged before about Peterborough and the attitude to cyclists held by the Leader of the Council and the centre of the city has just experienced “aggressive pavement cyclists” targeted by police. (I deplore the use of a word like “aggressive” to stereotype a wide community which cycles on pavements.)

But here we go again, this time with a word which suggests one superior tribe (maybe driving Chelsea tractors?) looking down on another primitive and uncivilised group (maybe all these things because they can’t afford a Chelsea tractor?).

Given that bicycles can’t really eat one another, I assume the police peep believes that the cyclists are stealing each others’ bicycles?  I’m really not sure how such a useless assertion will help the police catch thieves.  What I can tell the police is that this use of language is calculated to annoy cyclists with even the smallest bit of linguistic and political sensitivity.  Like me.

I wonder when Peterborough’s leading political and police peeps will make it into the twentieth century and or cycling enlightenment?

Anti Social Cycling

I recommend an excellent post about attitudes to cycling and cyclists in Peterborough and Cambridge:

http://cottenhamcyclist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/operation-pedalo-2.html

My thanks to Rohan Wilson for sharing and to Peterborough Cycling Forum, whose members are talking about it.