Now THAT’s A Short Bike Lane

This image comes from the Crap Cycling & Walking in Waltham Forest blog, and is pretty astonishing. Looking at the white zig-zags on the road, it’s near to a pedestrian crossing, but what’s it for? If you were riding on the road, you’d have to give way to pedestrians, though by the time you passed this bike lane, you’d have already also passed the pedestrian crossing, as we drive & ride on the left in the UK.

So it’s for people already riding their bikes on the pavement. Except look at the angle of it - seeming to come from the crash barrier. So maybe it’s for crazy BMX kids who’ve just ridden along the crash barrier itself. Or perhaps it’s an encouragement to try and get anarchist menace cyclists off the road (where they’ve been riding against the flow of traffic), and up on the pavement.

At least that way, any pedestrians they hit will make great victims for the more swivel-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth elements of the press to write about. This is much better than writing about the number of pedestrians run over by motorists every day. And, as an added bonus, the bikes won’t be on the road, so motorists can drive much faster on their important journeys.

Now that I write it down, it suddenly all makes sense.

Filed under: Bike Culture, Cycle Infrastructure, Photographs, Ranting, Road Safety