Cycling - Daft Cycle Lanes - NCN13, Scarning, Dereham
These photos and descriptions were emailed in to me by Helen, I haven't seen the paths in person, but they seem no different to the paths I've seen elsewhere in the country.
Instead of staying on the road to carry stright on, or and making a safe left turn to get on the side road, the cyclist is forced to stop at a junction. If the cyclist wishes to go straight on at this point, he/she has to cross the junction to the halfway point, turn right to face the t-junction and then make a left... if the cyclist had been wishing to turn either left or right at this point on the cycle path, has to stop, check for traffic and then cross... all of which increases the danger to the cyclist. Of course the needs of the cyclist are made clear by the strategic use of white paint to paint road markings on the shared use cycle path..
Ed note, how narrow are those lanes at the dropped kerb? Is it actually possible to cycle them?
Obviously Sustrans are thinking of the 'extreme' sports section of the cycling community here by the introduction of bollards in the middle of the cycle lane to encourage stunt cycling..
Showing that a cyclist coming down the road and wanting to turn on to the cycle lane immediately has to negotiate a bollard in the middle of tha lane which is cunningly partially hidden from view by the hedge. Makes for exciting stunts when trying to avoid pedestrians on the path cycle path.
Directly opposite the exciting bollards on the other side of the road is the continuation of NCN 13, which takes cyclists off a lovely wide road on to a normal width footpath with a sharp turn to the right.