News
Danger or time saver?
Mark Sutton Jun 4 2008, 10:41am
Cyclists granted against-the-flow access on one-way routes
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has decided to test two-way access for cyclists on six of its residential roads.
The scheme is a tester to see whether legalising against the flow of traffic cycling:
a. makes any difference at all. (as many already cycle against the flow to save time)
b. causes an increase in collisions.
If there is no 'significant' increase in collisions, then the scheme will be extended to other streets in the area, which will likely provoke other councils to follow suit.
In some boroughs, cycling contraflows already exist, but uptake of these lanes has not been huge due to cost of segregating cyclists from traffic.
A complete article offering a for and against comment is available here.
Comments
“Danger or time saver?”
Posted by: Eddie Eccleston - Jun 6, 12:40pm
I have now lived in Gent Belgium for two years now, It is almost 100% of the "One Way " roads are open both ways for cyclist. As a student town the cycling population of Gent is large, I have had no bad experiences at all and furthermore I do not no anyone who has been involved or know someone who has been involved in a trafic accident due to travelling in the opposit direction to the trafic flow. A yes it saves a hugh amount of time.
“Re: Danger or time saver?”
Posted by: Gary - Jun 17, 4:59pm
Eddie, great post, but I think that the general car driving public of Belgium are a lot more tollerant of cyclists. Cyclists tend to be portraid as the 'scum of the earth who jump red lights and hold people up on narrow streets' over here by a very car friendly media and government.
I think this is a good idea and hopefully it will work.