http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10667623

Good idea but the problem is that cars and other vehicles used them as well so it really becomes pointless. Having cycled that route in the morning in the past it could help, all that are needed now are cameras to keep vehicles out of the lane.

If they have to share them with normal road traffic, then they are doomed to fail from the get-go. If it is a cycle lane, then it should be a cycle lane, not an any traffic lane, with a cycle painted on it! Either block it off, so that normal vehicles can't get on it, or fine people for using it with a powered vehicle, otherwise it is a waste of paint...

Oh, and painting the roads is generally a bad idea, because the paint can be very slippery, especially when it rains and it is covered with the remains of exhaust fumes! That is the first less you learn as a motorcyclist, NEVER EVER ride over / along any bit of road that is painted!

I have to agree on both points. It looks like a good idea but badly implemented. Since it rains a lot in the english winters this could be a way of making if fail over the winter.

When I did my driving lessons I was taught that cycle lanes are to be treated as just bog standard regular bits of road, unless there is a cyclist in them, or they are marked with a solid line.

Not good when they are stopped in the lane blocking it.

England vs Demark.

My Dad used to live/work in Copenhagen, Denmark and the cycle lanes there put us to shame...

England... (note that there is a central island behind the truck)


... vs Denmark...


I know where I'd rather cycle.

I'm sure I could easily come up with some examples that show the opposite. However on a whole Denmark is better than the UK. I think councils should do more to spearate the types of traffic, and if that means reducing parking and/or lanes then so be it. Parking is a hell of a waste of road.

Holland have similar schemes to denmark. They are very bike friendly. Unlike here, where even the 60' wide Hove seafront is banned to bicycles.

Also, to be fair, in a lot of places around England (and Wales) they've started putting cycle lanes on pavements, rather than the road.

There are cycle lanes on the pavement in lots of places around Bournemouth and Portsmouth too.

As for parking wasting roads, what else can be done?

Not much without causing an issue unfortunately.

. . . and Oxford and most towns in the Netherlands.

I imagine the locals are used to it, but since I'm not I don't usually realise there's a cycle lane until I get run over. Pedestrians don't usually have to look for road markings except when crossing the road.

Germany is very biker friendly as well. My girlfriend was horrified, when she came to England last year. We were driving down country lanes and she couldn't understand a) why the trees were so close to the road, b) why there were no footpaths and c) why there weren't cycle paths (or at least wide foot-/cyclepaths).

My gf was also horrified when she experienced her first proper country lane, narrow and overgrown it was more like a tunnel.

That looks like MK. Oh how I laugh at people who laugh at MK.