With the so called summer now here (although you wouldn’t know it from the weather) I’ve been getting out on my bike a bit more. I’ve also read a few articles on cycling infrastructure that were interesting and resonated with my experience.
Firstly, War on the Motorist posted a piece on the disparate and interim nature of the National Cycle Network. While there are many miles of quality cycle routes, many of the routes include sections that are still at an interim standard (and may not really be cycleable). I have also found that they are not well linked — especially in towns and cities.
I cycled along the NCN75 last weekend, heading east along the Clyde to Uddingston. This was a good route with some caveats. The diversion around the new venues for the Commonwealth Games is not mentioned on the Sustrans website, although it was reasonably signed on the ground. The bigger problem, was that as soon as I entered the more built up areas, I had to pull out a map to try and ascertain where on earth the route went. Especially through Uddingston and Coatbridge, where I gave up trying to find the signed route — if it even existed, and went on to use minor roads and common sense.
A separate study (by Dave Horton at Lancaster Uni), has been looking into the attitudes towards cycling. He concludes that the only way to increase the number of urban journeys by bike, rather than by car, is to construct good quality segregated cycle infrastructure. He has written an interesting article on Bikehub — however, I fear the likelihood of this happening soon is rather small.
And finally, on a lighter note, an excellent video by Casey Neistat about not riding in the cycle lane.