We have a new contributor, "flytopia", who has some good news about the Coronation Road bike path. It's been made more dangerous. In their own excellent words:
On this blog you've often mentioned the excellent Coronation Road cycle path. The path does a fantastic job of bringing cyclists and pedestrians into conflict, as cyclists swerve round the many large trees and streetlamps into the paths of angry oncoming walkers.
If the cyclist chooses instead to ride in the road they will face abuse from drivers, who rightly point out they should be using the cycle path provided. This sends a clear message to cyclists in Bristol - you're not welcome.
However, the immobile nature of the trees leads to a problem - people get used to them. The cyclists know when to slow down, and the pedestrians know when to expect cyclists to try to squeeze past them. What we really need is a few extra obstacles to shake things up a bit.
Now these signs may look a bit obvious - after all they're designed to be seen from a long way off, so the cyclist has time to react, slow down and avoid swerving into old ladies. But the fun comes in the evening when the cyclists are returning from town.
The backs of these signs are invisible in the failing light, especially for those cyclists that are not using lights (which is pretty much all of them, right?)I've stuck a brief video on YouTube. Unfortunately I didn't catch anyone crashing into the signs and it was raining so I didn't stick around. I got a cyclist sticking to the road and a sensible hi-viz runner
We thank flytopia for their contribution -both photographs and commentary! We hope for more in the future!