Admiral/MitchamsCorner

AlexChurchill doesn't find it too bad, post-traffic lights...

The lights messed it up a little, and there's far too much confusion as to what bits of the pavement are cycle paths and which aren't. --Admiral

Actually, I think it's an improvement as long as you use the cycle lanes. The red bits on the pavement are where the cycle lanes are, and the traffic lights crossings can be cycled across. It's my route home, and after about a week of finding it irritating, I got used to it. I certainly feel a lot safer going by the cycle lanes than I did trying to push into the middle of two lanes like I had to before - SunKitten

PeterTaylor just sticks to the road. He strongly dislikes cycle paths on pavements. Although he had an amusing incident there a couple of weeks ago - crossed the river, turned left in the right-hand lane to loop round Staples and up Milton Road, saw a car approaching from the other side (i.e. along Chesterton Rd) and, mindful of long experience with those traffic lights, started waving at the detector. Car comes through lights, stops, winds window down. It's a police car, and the driver thought I was trying to attract his attention. Oops.

The problem with that now is that the right hand lane from Victoria Avenue to Chesterton Lane has been narrowed, in order to have a decent wide cyclelane *on the road* on the left hand side. I cycle on the cyclelane, which is on the road, to the traffic lights crossing Chesterton Lane, than use them to cross over and cycle up Victoria Road. None of that is on the pavement (except between the two sets of traffic lights), it allows a decent road width for the motorists, and is hugely less dangerous than cycling on the right hand lane, even when it was wider, before the adjustments. For Milton Road, I'd do the same, but instead of crossing the second lane of Chesterton Lane, I'd join the right hand lane of the roundabout at the traffic lights on the right-hand side - SunKitten

AlexChurchill pretty much agrees with SunKitten here.  Although not all the on-pavement cyclelanes are marked - like those along the pavement in front of Staples, on the right-hand side of the road, which I believe still has the blue sign indicating "pavement for both pedestrians and cyclists". It's a little hairy going from that pavement to the left-hand lane to turn off onto Victoria Road, but still less so than it was pre-roadworks.

Hah!  On the subject of semi-marked cycle lanes, I got stopped by an off duty (I think, no uniform, with wife) PoliceMan who refused to believe that I was on a cycle lane.  Because the next bit of pavement did have markings, and the bit I was currently on did not, although it had signs.  Wasn't worth arguing, although I did ask him how he thought I was supposed to navigate the junction.  His answer was to go onto the dual carrigeway, cross, and then mount the red bit of pavement where there was a high kerb.  --Vitenka (I'm ignoring him, of course)

To be fair, the Milton Road / Victoria Avenue directions have been improved by the cycle lanes. Victoria Road, however, has not - and is the one I take more often. It's also no better to get out of by car (you still hang right back, so you can see - then leap forward when you see a gap approaching), which is a shame. -- TI

Requiem has to go via this area to Churchill boathouse. He considers that he is taking his life in his hands every time he goes round it, because at insane times in the morning you get insane drivers on the roads who don't seem to understand that cyclists don't like being cut up.