Pulrose Bridge

[0bserver]

9 hours ago, ManxTaxPayer said:

Well I think it's a jolly nice bridge.

It should be for the length of time it took them.

[The Phantom]

I've finally cycled across the bridge specifically using the new cycle lane.  

It's bloody awful. 

From Pulrose, you need to swerve across the other lane of traffic at Middle River Industrial Estate to get to the cycle lane.  The bollards appear to have no logical layout at the junction.  Then crossing from the bridge lane onto Peel road, I thought was a pelican crossing, but it isn't, so you have to guess when there is a gap in the traffic between the lights and then pedal and pray crossing 3 lanes of traffic. 

From Douglas it is slightly more sensible, however you'll still need to do a bit of random slalom through the bollards.

I'd go as far as to say that it is significantly worse than the Prom.   It used to be a sensible junction on a bike with the two lanes and a bit of filtering.   

Both directions I saw a couple of cyclists not using the cycle lane.  They won't do this to be awkward, if you see a cycle lane that is actually more of a nightmare and I'd warrant actually more dangerous than no cycle lane at all, you clearly aren't going to use it. 

 

[The Phantom]

18 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

Sadly, we are not the tolerant sensible Dutch

 

This reminds me of Austin Powers! 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by The Phantom

[Jarndyce]

5 hours ago, Roxanne said:

we are, in the main, assholes who hate other assholes.

Oh, I say!

[Happier diner]

6 hours ago, The Phantom said:

I've finally cycled across the bridge specifically using the new cycle lane.  

It's bloody awful. 

From Pulrose, you need to swerve across the other lane of traffic at Middle River Industrial Estate to get to the cycle lane.  The bollards appear to have no logical layout at the junction.  Then crossing from the bridge lane onto Peel road, I thought was a pelican crossing, but it isn't, so you have to guess when there is a gap in the traffic between the lights and then pedal and pray crossing 3 lanes of traffic. 

From Douglas it is slightly more sensible, however you'll still need to do a bit of random slalom through the bollards.

I'd go as far as to say that it is significantly worse than the Prom.   It used to be a sensible junction on a bike with the two lanes and a bit of filtering.   

Both directions I saw a couple of cyclists not using the cycle lane.  They won't do this to be awkward, if you see a cycle lane that is actually more of a nightmare and I'd warrant actually more dangerous than no cycle lane at all, you clearly aren't going to use it. 

 

Even as a cyclist I am confused. It's like one of those Spanish EU subsidised motorways. It doesn't start anywhere useful or end anywhere useful. It's easier to bypass it. Maybe there is a master plan but I can't see what it is. I would choose to avoid the cycle lanes if I have to cross the road to get on it. Maybe the plan is to have a cycling super highway all the way into the city. 

[John Wright]

11 hours ago, Happier diner said:

Even as a cyclist I am confused. It's like one of those Spanish EU subsidised motorways. It doesn't start anywhere useful or end anywhere useful. It's easier to bypass it. Maybe there is a master plan but I can't see what it is. I would choose to avoid the cycle lanes if I have to cross the road to get on it. Maybe the plan is to have a cycling super highway all the way into the city. 

Do give an example of one of these Spanish ( EU funded, or not) motorways, that start/end nowhere useful

[skins]

11 hours ago, Happier diner said:

Even as a cyclist I am confused. It's like one of those Spanish EU subsidised motorways. It doesn't start anywhere useful or end anywhere useful. It's easier to bypass it. Maybe there is a master plan but I can't see what it is. I would choose to avoid the cycle lanes if I have to cross the road to get on it. Maybe the plan is to have a cycling super highway all the way into the city. 

And it now has a bus stop built in the middle which narrows that section down to half the width of the rest anyway; traffic calming for cyclists 🤷‍♂️

[Happier diner]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

Do give an example of one of these Spanish ( EU funded, or not) motorways, that start/end nowhere useful

HaHa. Good spot John. As a regular traveller in Spain yourself you  know all about Spanish motorways which are fantastic in the main. I should have said random sections of shiny new motorway that are not greatly used because the links are not yet completed.

Here is an example

https://www.worldhighways.com/wh8/news/spains-a21-motorway-gets-eu182m-financial-help

 We tried to use it in 2018, as some sections were open (we could see traffic moving), but we couldn't find a way onto it so stuck with the old road which was fine.

[Non-Believer]

12 hours ago, Happier diner said:

Maybe the plan is to have a cycling super highway all the way into the city. 

There is no plan, it is simply the squandering of hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money by a random and dysfunctional Department to provide equally random and dysfunctional year-round facilities in order to pander to a seasonal minority interest who happened to have a couple of now ex-politicos as participants.

With that seasonal minority interest now as confused as everybody else as to the point.

[Happier diner]

21 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

There is no plan, it is simply the squandering of hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money by a random and dysfunctional Department to provide equally random and dysfunctional year-round facilities in order to pander to a seasonal minority interest who happened to have a couple of now ex-politicos as participants.

With that seasonal minority interest now as confused as everybody else as to the point.

Surely there must be a plan. No one would embark on building random short sections of cycle lane without there being a master plan....would they?

Edited June 8, 2022 by Happier diner

[The Phantom]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

Do give an example of one of these Spanish ( EU funded, or not) motorways, that start/end nowhere useful

There is one slap bang in the middle of Cape Town CBD.  I'm sure there must be some Saffas in DoI. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreshore_Freeway_Bridge

[The Phantom]

36 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

With that seasonal minority interest now as confused as everybody else as to the point.

I've been called many names, but never a 'seasonal minority interest'!

But isn't that how the world works now?  Pandering to the minorities.

[John Wright]

1 hour ago, Happier diner said:

HaHa. Good spot John. As a regular traveller in Spain yourself you  know all about Spanish motorways which are fantastic in the main. I should have said random sections of shiny new motorway that are not greatly used because the links are not yet completed.

Here is an example

https://www.worldhighways.com/wh8/news/spains-a21-motorway-gets-eu182m-financial-help

 We tried to use it in 2018, as some sections were open (we could see traffic moving), but we couldn't find a way onto it so stuck with the old road which was fine.

 

58 minutes ago, The Phantom said:

There is one slap bang in the middle of Cape Town CBD.  I'm sure there must be some Saffas in DoI. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreshore_Freeway_Bridge

I’ve travelled bits of the A21. It’ll be a useful route when (if)completed.

The penultimate section opens next month.

The final section is paused. The N240 it replaces is OK. It’s taken 17 years. Lots of infrastructure programmes in Spain were put on hold/delayed after 2008.

The Struma motorway in Bulgaria is the same. Going from Sofia to the Greek border at Kulata, part of the EU E79 corridor, has advanced at snails pace. Odd sections, completed but inaccessible and others terminating in a roundabout exit with a gravel track connecting to the original route. 15 km left to tunnel at Kresna.

Its not an EU, or recent, thing. The first motorways in England were a bit like that. M6 Preston by pass, M6 Lancaster by pass, M180 before the Humber Bridge. There were spur/slip road/flyover intended to the A57(M)/A635(M) ( Mancunian Way ) at its A34 and A6, London Road, junctions, that was exactly like that one in Capetown, for 40 years. The one at the A34 was demolished in 2018. The other, A6/London Road, one went several years before that.

[WTF]

 

[Andy Onchan]

In the noughties Eire was littered with unfinished road projects funded by the EU; bridges that never met in the middle, slip roads going nowhere, one major east/west road even though open went from tarmac to mud to tarmac in several places along the route. It was quite bizarre, like being in a former soviet state that had run out of money. Mind, some would probably say the EU is a communist state anyway!