Consultation on Bellenden Road - Holly Grove - Lyndhurst Way Cycling and Walking Improvements

[gm99]

Catma, as a daily cyclist I find there are few things as stressful as hoping that a car approaching a side road junction (often at speed) is actually going to stop. The Choumert/Bellenden junction you mention is one where my experience is that cars often stick their nose out a foot so it's not ever really clear if they *are* stopping, and meanwhile I'll have an impatient car driver too close behind me hoping to complete a mad overtake before the traffic island outside the bike shop. I'm sure I've scowled on occasion.

Incidentally, going the other way cars are even less tolerant, often resorting to a last gasp dash out of the Choumert junction, apparently ignoring the possibility that cyclists turning left off Bellenden may need to use the right lane to turn N (right) onto Lyndhurst Way.

[Earl Aelfheah]

I really don't like segregated cycle lanes and I don't think they're great for changing the idea that roads are for car users.

[peckham_ryu]

ed_pete Wrote:

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>

> For what it's worth, I use this route as a cyclist

> most working days and although I can see that the

> proposed changes would make it better for cyclists

> I really don't think it's that bad at present and

> I think the changes unnecessary.

A year on, I think the OP 'won' this thread.

The main loser on the current layout is the motorist, stuck on Bellenden Road when vehicles are attempting to pass each other and the parked cars and vans. The changes don't improve the motorist's lot.

Pedestrians are adequately catered for. You can't rely on right of way at some of the zebra crossings (especially at Warwick Gardens), but unfortunately that's the norm everywhere. I don't see my walk to/from the station improving in the changes.

Cyclists have to be on the ball when changing lanes, and assertive in their road positioning, and thick-skinned when it comes to impatient motorists. I don't understand the drawing well enough to know how much the cycle lanes will improve life: cycle lanes inside parked cars sound to me like a recipe for passenger door collisions, and cycle lanes with parked cars on them are not really helpful. As rendelharris points out, the cycle lane takes a less safe line than an assertive cyclist. Some posters have said they are not confident on the existing route: I strongly the suspect that some proper training would be far more use to address this than the the physical changes proposed.

Overall, I'd have been happier for the consulatation and highway budget to have been spent on something more beneficial. For example, a crackdown on careless driving in this area. All the main problems I see around Bellenden Road are from impatient and inconsiderate road users: overtaking and parking on the zig-zag lines; forcing progress past the parked cars; failing to stop at zebra crossings; driving too fast; cycling the wrong way in one-way sections. Just fine the buggers, and forget about fiddling around with paint on the road! Oh, and give cyclists some decent training :)