2 November (Part 2) - Censoring cycling
There has been another email about
last week’s Transport Users’
Sub-Committee meeting and it prompts me to make an admission. Every Transport
meeting report on BiB, as far back as I can remember, has omitted mention of one topic. Cycling.
Bexley Council doesn’t allow any member of the public to speak at Council
meetings. Their rules permit it but no Chairman has yet failed to exercise their
prerogative to ban such questions and threaten eviction if the questioner persists.
Unless you are a cyclist at a Transport meeting.
Believe it or not a member of the public who is a keen cyclist is allowed to sit with the Committee
and take part in the meeting pushing his pro-cycling Agenda.
Until a bus passenger, a rail commuter, a pedestrian and a motorist is afforded the
same privilege he will get no publicity here. It is bad enough that TfL puts
cycling above all other forms of transport without Bexley Council doing the same.
Now another biker has emailed me on the subject but not, I am pleased to say, for being censorious…
It was pleasing to hear about the plans for more cycle stands and cycle training
but are Councillors really interested?
I rode to the Civic Offices and used the cycle rack provided. My bike was very lonely.
Travelling home along Albion Road the absolutely crass Bashford approved cycle lanes were
amply demonstrated. They simply disappear whenever they meet an
awkward bit such as side roads or roundabouts just where a segregated route
would be really appreciated. Straight bits are not the problem. When will road
designers ever learn?
It might be appropriate to mention here that when I left the Civic Office in the dark
I crossed the Watling Street safeguarded by the traffic lights and found myself
with nowhere to go on the other side. I had to walk in the road a short distance
to Gravel Hill where there was no approved pedestrian route to the traffic
island in the middle of the road.
Having safely got that far there was an opening by the Marriott Hotel through
which to get to the footpath, effectively replicating the Watling Street
situation. It would be a silly bit of temporary road design
by F.M. Conway for daytime use but at night
one simply couldn’t see where free passage was blocked.