I just read two rather good blogs about the failure that is cycle lanes/cycle infrastructure here in the UK.

I’m sure that I have ranted about this before*, as I’m very sure that it could easy be much better here if there was a will to do so. When the Danish architect and urban designer, Jan Gehl, visited some years ago. I’m sure that all the UK town planners fell asleep and only woke up to hear the words “green paint” to then fall asleep again.

* Oh yes here is the old post contested streets, you should read it. There is come great videos there to watch but they do show how well it would be. Even here in London if TfL ever learn, listen to the cyclist and just ask the city planners in Holland, Denmark and Germany, whom we can learn a lot from.

A random layer of green paint isn’t the answer, there is much more to it. And before you say “there is no room here in London”, have you been to Amsterdam? The centre there is rather small too but everyone shares, the cyclists, car users, buses and the trams, gets by just fine.

Have a look at this post over on hembrow.eu where they compare typical roads in the UK with some in the Netherlands. Looking at these photos there isn’t much different between them, the only think is the road layout. I know for sure where I rather would cycle.

Then I found these two good posts about the Advanced Stop Line (ASL) which pretty much sums up my thoughts about them, HGV blind spots to be marked at junctions and Advanced stop lines the most useless cycling facility.

On the first link there are two great photos which shows that the very “inviting” green bit of paint for a inexpedience cyclist are very much a maker for where the HGV blind spots are. I pretty much say don’t use them, hang back wait, they are more trouble than they are worth.