Original draft plans for the work going on all this weekend 17/18 February. The plans shown here were replaced with later plans, strangely the section uphill towards Mossley Avenue with ASL dosent appear on designs…
There is still a chance these plans can be abandoned, although it seems after my repeated attempts Poole engineers are likely to remain stuck in the past struggling to provide modern road changes . An excellent Blog outlining an even more radical alternative is here, well worth a read if you are interested.
Alder Road Plans, advisory hatched cycle lane paint on uphill sections only. Junctions not dealt with, nothing on flat sections. Update- one of these sections to be removed, adding even more discontinuity to this unnecessary and dangerous addition to the roads.
My Reply to Poole Borough on schemes Alder Road and QA drive which are covered in Points 4 and 5 posted here. Alder Road closures will occur from 12 February details here. As of 09 February :- no changes made to plans included in this blogpost.
These advisory uphill lanes that are proposed for Alder Road are tokenistic, dangerous afterthoughts at providing for cycling. Those unfortunate souls who might have had to commute on these hills will be put at Significantly more danger by adding this paint. Please do not even add this useless paint advisory lines onto a road that is an arterial road with lots of HGVs on it Its wasting the Boroughs money in 2018. HGVs need the space and will be increasingly put into conflict and irritated by bits of hatched lines appearing and disappearing all the time, as will drivers who want to be able to drive in a straight line, and riders that are forced into conflict every time the lane disappears. Thats answers Mr Pincrofts single question to me from my last email (“There are sections of Alder Road where road space could be reallocated to provide uphill lanes for cyclists – why wouldn’t we do this” How designers in 2018 can even suggest this shows staggering lack of design knowledge and skill.
Please dont endanger everyday cyclists with poor quality work, I really would rather you saved the money- theres lots of ‘easy wins; if you can get money allocated.
I received responses to above concerns and have quoted significant answers and my own replies:-
Alder (Hills) Road .
Response 3 “The objective of the proposed lanes are to allocate space for cyclists, to legitimise undertaking of slow-moving or stationary traffic” Please- read from user perspective- It is very unskilled and dangerous to undertake vehicles through small gaps, I never teach it to anyone in 13 years of doing road cycle training. (perhaps when theres a mandatory lane with width its acceptable)
“(Alder Road is frequently slow moving, especially in the peaks),” yes it is, the road is so narrow riders do not have room to undertake.
“to allow cyclists to maintain momentum with more confidence on uphill gradients (the proposed lanes are all on uphill sections)” they cant because they will always be stopping, and, HGVS and even normal cars WILL need to fill the proposed advisory cycle lanes.
“to visually narrow the running lanes to encourage lower vehicle speeds and to raise the profile of cyclists along this route.” This is muddled thinking, Youve accepted traffic is already slow, then why try and slow it down anymore? actually when there are cycle lanes being provided in faster roads, the guidance is now to remove centre lines which then forces drivers to interact with oncoming vehicles. You really havent got the room to do that here.
“Nothing has been decided” I urge you to not proceed with these plans for Alder Hills, Doing Nothing would be better than something like the planned.
Response 4. “Any proposed scheme(s) following input from CLAG ” good to get more than just my voice.
“will be safety audited, hence, if changes are proposed they will be checked by a RoSPA qualified highways road safety auditor. Following this any subsequent changes would be monitored post implementation with a full audit 12 months post implementation.” (this auditor is employed by the Borough) I have no faith in these Road Safety Auditors, they are of weakest experience and clearly have no idea what being a 2 wheeled user is like, could you really tell me that the picture shown of previous work at Boundary Lane (downhill, after a roundabout exit) is safe….
boundary lane