Shared-use Pavements

I feel your pain. Coventry City Council have embarked on a 2 year project called cycle Coventry. They have been granted £7m to increase/improve cycling infastructure. They also seem to be in favour of the shared use paths. I have been attending meetings at the council house every six weeks and have aired my views on shared use paths.

Local Transport note 1/12 gives guidence and information on the shared use path. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil...

This document expresses a general preference for on-carriageway provision for cyclists over shared use in built up areas, where cycle and pedestrian movements are frequent. Altough in green areas it does vote in favour of the shared use path.

The Sustrans handbook for cycle friendly design also discourages shared use paths due to their lack of continuation and reduced room for future improvements. Also transitions from the road to a shared use path are usually drop curbs, the handbook states that these must be flush to make cycling comfortable and attractive. 

Here is a dropbox link to the handbook. https://www.dropbox.com/s/fvgoku1niprbxqn/cycle%20design%20handbook%2011...

I believe that if they are going to widen the pavement then there must be a clear separation and the cycle path must be a minimum of 1.5 m wide.

I have discovered the only way to deal with shared use paths is to buy a loud bell! Maybe as pedestrian/cyclist conflicts increase it will force a re think?

Ryan

I have been told, both  by my LAs cycling officer, and by cycling officers in a neighbouring LA, that shared paths are now preferable as:

• they are more maintenance free (no white line to periodically repaint)
• People generally ignore the segregation and walk whereever they feel most comfortable
• It allows the space to be "shared" more effectively

In my experience, pedestrians do seem to ignore the lines and walk furthest away from the traffic. IF the shared path is wide enough >3m and pedestrian traffic is fairly light (which it is for me), then it's not much of a problem in reality. 99% of people will quite happily move once they hear a cheery shout. 

Gaz

See if you can create an alliance with a local pedestrians campaign.  They may be suspicious, but hopefully you can convince them you have interests in common.  In edinburgh we recently had shared use proposed for an important link.  So many cyclists and pedestrians both complained about it that they went back to the drawing board and current plan is for very nice segment of segregated cycle lane.  They're scared silly of he pedestrian campaigns, so if you can get them to object, you should be in a good position. 

We also tweeted and blogged a lot  about the really random bits of shared use that the council had put in recently, got the local paper to highlight them, and generally made it clear that they're not suitable except in very certain places - out of town, low footfall, very wide paths.

sorry. double post.

It is not just where you live it is universal.

As far as highway engineers (and indeed the vast majority of the non-cycling population) are concerned shared use pavaments ARE cycle paths. If you campaign for cycle paths this is what they think you are asking for - and if you don't oppose them then they think they are doing a wonderful job.

they like them because they are cheap and they don't interrupt traffic flow...

all they need are a few bits of paint and some small signs... no expensive re-engineering of the junctions to raise the paths across side streets and put in calming to slow turning motorists down.

In my opinion, shared-use can actually work extremely well; the problem is that it works best in wide open spaces where there is plenty of space for pedestrians and cyclists to move around each other.

In Shoreham there is a shared-use footbridge of at least 5 m (if not more) in width, and both cycling and walking here is pleasant. However, this only happens because the bridge is wide and there is plenty of space for users to move around each other.

Shared-use pavements are typically an 'on-the-cheap' conversion to create cycle infrastructure on paper that tends to be weak or sub-standard in practice, because pedestrians feel threatened and cyclists must slow down. If a council proposes a shared-use pavement because of 'space restrictions' we should ask if segregated footways and cycleways can be created by taking road space away from motor vehicles. Only where this and all other options (e.g. re-routing cycle infrastructure) are impossible and or extremely impractical should pavements be converted to shared-use.

I would also agree with the opinion that they are cheap to implement, as they are basically a wide pavement which doesn't involve any extra work remodeling junctions etc. A local council / Sustrans can then say that they have provided cycling infrastructure for all to enjoy.

I think that shared-use pavements work the best when there is a low amount of cycling traffic, I once read that as a general rule of thumb this is 20% and below. Any more than that then the route should be fully segregated to avoid conflict.

However, a lot of modern cycles are capable of relatively high speeds 20-25mph and weaving around pedestrians in such circumstances is unsafe. Sustrans have a ‘Code of Conduct’ on their website about this matter http://www.sustrans.org.uk/change-your-travel/get-cycling/cycling-code-conduct-shared-use-paths But surely, cycling infrastructure should be aimed at providing a quick, safe and easy way to get between A & B. Leisurely cycling is not the same as someone wanting to make a daily commute on a well oiled, 29” wheel, 21 geared, £1,000 bike for example.

In this case for example; http://road.cc/content/news/109548-bath-bristol-path-not-place-reckless-speed-cycling-says-sustrans-after-9-year I feel poor design was just as much an issue as high speed cycling. Sustrans can’t seem to admit that they are also at fault for building substandard paths, as the first reader’s comment from the above article states:

If someone were to walk their horse on the M1 and it got hurt, society would gather round to pile mutual contempt on the feckless owner. Why? Motorways are for cars and shared use cycle paths are a PR exercise to convince the greater public that government cares about sustainable transport solutions...they are follies not to be confused with credible transport links.

The so-called ‘Bikelash’ issue is also worth considering, as a high quality fully segregated cycle path would need to be quite wide at say 3 to 4meters, plus and extra couple of meters or so for pedestrians. People would then start to grumble about the path taking up too much space. A 3m wide shared-use path is well just a path, but just a bit wider than normal. Only when Transport for London (TfL) or someone else has actually built some high quality infra that people will be able to look and say; ‘that’s what we want and look at how well it works!’ Hopefully this may well happen with the new cycle superhighways in London.

Thankfully things are now changing and more voices are pulling together, i.e. thru the work of this blog and many others.

All depends on context.  Have just been involved in building a huge cycling scheme around the Nissan plant near Sunderland.   All shared use, but an out of town low footfall location.  The car/truck roads are around 7m wide, the new bike road 3m wide with a better surface.

But depressingly the idea that shared use next to the carriageway in urban areas is acceptable provision seems alive and well.  Budgets, roadspace and parental demand are the excuses but have even seen this proposed in a new development. 

Yes, all agreed, cycling on not-wide-enough, side-road and kerb-interrupted pavements, i.e. footWAYS, is rubbish.

But the quotation in the original post was all about sharing footPATHS in parks, and that's an altogether different proposition. Those paths are not instead of but additional to the road network. It doesn't matter so much if they're a bit rubbish, because they may offer a short-cut and link up otherwise disconnected no-through-roads, creating new routing possibilites for avoiding busy roads. And since these paths and their signs are NOT alongside any road, they do not invite drivers to swerve, hoot and yell at any cyclist who has the temerity to ignore the inconvenient pavement (i.e. footway) alternative and remain on the carriageway.

I take the point that your council is over-fond of inviting cyclists to share narrow pavements, i.e. footways, but that is not what they're proposing with that policy. Extra routing possibilities are always welcome, and if they're a bit rubbish, if pedestrians complain as someone has already suggested, it's always possible in a park, to widen or even provide two paths should the eventual level of footfall and cycle traffic demand that.

The downside of welcoming cycle access to these across-parks footpaths, is that the council will also fail to understand why you have a different attitude to sharing footpaths as opposed to footways and thus be encouraged come back at you with even more of the latter! 

I'm completely against them - as as a cyclist I find that the pedestrians get in the way ! Too many people walk around with earphones on, trying to become deaf prematurely, so they can't hear your bell. Not only do the pedestrians slow you down but without priority at junctions it's just continual stop/start. I get a lot of complaints about pavement cycling - particularly from senior citizens - and these just make it worse. My officers know I'm completely against shared paths so, strangely enough, they tend not to propose them:-)