Plans to remove cycle lanes brought in three years ago in Hove have been criticised by Labour and Green Party councillors. Under the £1.1m scheme, cycle lanes in Grand Avenue and The Drive would go.This story from the BBC caught my eye not least of all because I have a connection to the area in question. I was shocked when the cycle lanes were put in. A wonderfully free flowing two lane road became a congested single lane as soon as the work began. It still is now and that's before the buses stop. Yes, they really have turned two lanes into one (the cars on the right of the shot are parked as they always could do) and then put the bus stop in the middle of that lane.
That's not to say that I think some kind of provision for a cyclists would be a bad thing. The pavements in the area were wide enough before all the alterations that they could easily have accommodated a cycle lane and left the traffic freely flowing. I wonder if the location of Kings House, a council office that overlooks this traffic nightmare, in any way influenced the original decision?
So what has been said about the cost?
Councillor Gill Mitchell, Labour group leader, said removing the cycle lanes was a "terrible waste of taxpayers' money at a time of unprecedented cuts".So how much did creating this massive bottleneck cost?
Green Party transport spokesman, councillor Ian Davey, said the cycle lanes cost more than half a million poundsWhich begs the question why the fuck was it done in the first place? I'm in favour of cycling, I am a cyclist (not as frequently as in the past), but this scheme was designed not only to aid cycling but also to hinder car drivers. Had it been less aggressive towards motor vehicles then I might think twice about supporting its removal.
What I would really like to see is a layout that is sympathetic to all road users. Is that really too much to ask?
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4 comments:
That original £0.5m has been wasted, so that is not relevant to the decision.
The question is, if they spend £1.1m removing them again, is it worth it?
Make up your own figures, but if 10,000 car drivers and bus passengers a day lose five minutes of their life each morning and each afternoon each working day, that's a third of a million man hours per year, let's value them at a modest £5 per hour = £1.7 million pounds.
Therefore, using these figures, the removal programme has paid for itself within a year. Maybe it's only 1,000 drivers and passengers, in which case the annual saying is £170,000 a year, so the scheme has paid for itself within seven years and is still worth doing.
Explain it to me, I am thick.
How does re-painting the road signs cost 1.1m.
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Hi Anonymous.
I assume that it's not just a respray of some signs but the physical removal of the bike lane. To have a better idea of what this entails look at the link under "buses stop" in the post .. .. .. it'll take you to google map streetview of the area. Head north and you will see the amount of work that will need doing to remove the lanes on both sides of the road.
They've been doing this thing with putting bus stops back into the main carriageway for some time now. It is clearly anti-carism; on one faily important local road they built out the bus stop hardstanding into the left hand lane such that the yellow box "BUS STOP" is largely on the other carriageway thus blocking traffic in BOTH diections whenever the bus stops.
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