So the big news for cyclists is that the town council has finally given up built the cycle lane they have been promising would be in ‘next years budget’ since long before we arrived here.
The lane should have been built when the town hosted the state garden festival sometime last century, but the money was needed for other important things, like a seven metre high plastic carrot which pokes into the ground at the exact geographical centre of the town and is surrounded by a circle of giant luminous pink and yellow rabbits, without which the garden festival and the town would obviously have been incomplete. I am not making this up.
Anyway, despite being only a couple of hundred metres long, and a vital link between two large sections of the town, the cycle lane remained unsurfaced, as in: “a field”, meaning that children going to school had to ride on the pavement/sidewalk alongside a major road for several hundred metres. This didn’t stop the town including it on their ‘cyclists network’ map (nor did it discourage one councillor from repeatedly claiming it was surfaced and we should all shut up and go home). Finally, the dogged persuasion by the local cyclists club has finally paid off and the government recently made a big announcement that at a cost of €20 000 (which would buy about 5cm of Autobahn) they had now put a cycleway in place.
It is 90cm (3′) wide*.
Some of the councillors are wider than that.
This, remember, is a major link for cyclists and pedestrians between the two largest parts of the town. It could reduce short car trips by providing an way to travel, if it wasn’t too narrow for a pedestrian and a bicycle to pass. Or even a pedestrian and a small dog.
The council have answered this criticism by saying it is a ‘good compromise’ and the cycle lane can’t be any wider for ‘environmental reasons’.
I’m not making that up either.
*How did they manage to make a 90cm wide gravel path cost €20 000? Is there gold dust in it?
10 comments
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March 3, 2012 at 11:37 am
Tony
If ever an article demanded a picture its this one! Spoilt for choice, giant carrots, psychadelic lagomorphs and councillors with wide load on their backsides. Come on! Spoil your readers!
March 3, 2012 at 11:42 am
Tony
Hah! Google to the rescue 🙂 They look like Hares, admidtedly giant pink and primrose yellow ones, but very hare like 🙂 Wheres the carrot!
March 4, 2012 at 1:07 am
Kim
€20 000? Probably mostly on legal fees, to draw up the contract for laying the gravel…
March 6, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Andy in Germany
Hello Tony: Fair comment. I’ll try and get a picture this week and publish it soon, so you can see them in all their psycadelic wierdness: the google results don’t really do them justice.
Hello Kim: Probably something like that, or consultant’s fees.
March 4, 2012 at 9:05 am
Nick
And next, ladies and gentlemen…the footpath that consists merely of a series of tarmac patches the size and shape of footprints, spaced just under a metre apart. After all, what’s the point of wasting money surfacing the bits that don’t actually have to get stepped on? And of course, small children, whose steps are too small to fit the new path, should in fact be carried by their parents anyway rather than being forced to walk, poor things!
March 4, 2012 at 9:32 am
Zweiradler
Which drugs do you have to take to think that yellow and pink hares are a good idea? That Google photo looks awful.
I too have heard the “good compromise” argument from our city, when I asked why they squeezed an only 1 to 1,5 m wide bike lane between parked cars and two lanes of car and lorry traffic.
Nico
March 5, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Iain Robinson
None of this surprises me, but it’s depressing all the same. The usual story of corrupt councils and self-interest. The psychadelic rabbit, too. Crazy.
March 6, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Andy in Germany
Nick: Small children shoud be carried in cars, surely? Preferably expensive ones.
They’ll keep the pavements continuous though because they’re so hard to park on otherwise.
Nico: Great question… the previous mayor was known for commisioning (expensive) ‘Art’ pieces: there are several more around the town.
Funny how when there’s a ‘compromise’ the road width is never the point that is compromised…
Iain: That’s probably not far off, although I suspect it’s also that most of our council are of a generation which can’t see past the idea that cars will always be the main form of transport.
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