This weekend is likely to be a bit busy as we’re off to a friends wedding in Freiburg, which if all goes to plan will involve picking up a car share car at a railway station in the middle of nowhere, driving to the wedding and thence to the reception and back without driving into anything, coming home on Sunday and then catching a train to Rotterdam to meet the ferry to hull on Monday, so I leave you with a small dilemma I discovered this week.
On one of the routes I cycle frequently here, there’s a point where the mandatory cycleway I follow alongside a busy road becomes a mandatory footpath, meaning I have to go onto said road or ride illegally. Nothing new there of course, but there’s a catch. I have about two hundred metres of this road before turning left (and crossing two lanes of traffic) onto a quieter road. These two hundred metres are on a blind bend, and we all know how aware most drivers are of cyclists on blind bends. There is no way there will ever be a cycleway on this bit of road: even a filter lane into traffic was dismissed out of hand by the town as it ‘would be abused by cyclists’, presumably by cycling on it…
Where the cycleway ends there’s a pedestrian crossing with lights, and I’ve discovered that if I press the button on the lights and ride onto the road, I can pedal around the corner and be turning off before the first car catches up, saving me the stress of being buzzed or possibly overtaken dangerously closely on the blind bend. Is this adaptive use of poor infrastructure, or abuse of a pedestrian crossing?
(Tales of the UK come next week: I doubt there’s W-lan on the ferry so responses to comments may take time…)
People Powered 
11 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 11, 2012 at 9:14 am
Bernhard
I’d say it’s inventive _use_ (not abuse) of a pedestrian crossing …
August 11, 2012 at 10:12 am
Tony
Press the button, press the button, its what your index fingers for!!!
If you are UK side see if you can find us 🙂 big welcome here to all who make the journey around the Bonsai Mountain:)
August 11, 2012 at 11:07 am
teigl
Adaptive use of poor infrastructure. Press the button- there’s no doubt when your life is at stake. Enjoy your UK break!
August 11, 2012 at 12:19 pm
perthcyclist
I think you need to do what you can in a place with crappy infrastructure. This is one of the reasons why I hate other cyclists preaching about what one ‘should do’ on the road. I sometimes cross intersections on a pedestrian signal (without dismounting), which is technically a red light for a cyclist who is on the road going with the flow of traffic. I only do it when I have some dodgy rev-head car behind me. It would put me on the wrong side of the ‘thou shalt follow the law at all times’ crowd but sometimes keeps me safer! I have the same attitude to cycling on paths, sometimes it is necessary and often it’s not clear if its a shared path or a pedestrian only path, but if it’s helpful to you then go for it.
August 14, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Andy in Germany
Bernhard: thanks for dropping by. It would sem the same to me, but I wanted oher people’s take on it (preaching to the choir, of course, but still…)
Tony: Thanks for the invite, one day I’ll make it around the Bonsai mountain, it’s a bit far from York though…
Teigl: That’s my thinking too. Thanks: I’m in York now, hopefully some sampling of the cycleways here will be possible…
Perthcyclist: That’s the problem isn’t it? We sometimes have a choice between following the law and being safe. And it’s the rev-head types who probably howl loudest about ‘pavement cyclists’ et c.
August 11, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Phil
Press the button.
August 11, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Randall
Sounds like a win to me. I’d go with personal preservation as well. What about walking your bike on the ped path?
August 11, 2012 at 8:52 pm
John Romeo Alpha
I often stop at such buttons, put my weight on one foot on the ground to turn myself into a pedestrian, push the button in that mode, than remount and ride on when the sign changes, thus slicing directly through the dilemma and turning it into a legally defensible method.
August 12, 2012 at 10:45 am
PK Freiburg
well, in Freiburg you’d even have the chance to see car drivers get out of their car and press the button at the pedestrian crossing so to stop the other cars and be able to fiddle in to the highly busy street next to the Dreisam river, the main connection east-west… 🙂
August 12, 2012 at 8:57 pm
disgruntled
Given that I always press the pedestrian button whether I plan to cross or not, I see no problem! we have a toucan here which is actually designed (in so far as any cycling infrastructure is designed in this country) to allow cyclists to make a right turn – you press the button, and use the gap in traffic to get across the lane. So go for it
August 14, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Andy in Germany
Phil: Thanks for that: good to hear a comment from someone on the ‘other side’. I don’t want to wind drivers up (except on here of course), just keep safe and get where I need to go quickly…
Randall: Fair question: I’m a bit stubborn about it because I see a bike as transport, so I don’t see why I should push it so car drivers can go faster. (and the ped path goes in a different direction, and it’s a bit narrow for pushing the Bakfiets anyway)
John Romeo Alpha: Ha… I like it. I think I have to fully dismount to ba an official pedestrian, but I’ll bear that in mind…
PK Freiburg: I did see some interesting driving in Freiburg, including several drivers on cycle lanes by the railway station. I was mostly impressed with the inrfrastructure you have there though…
Disgruntled: I thought you may approve after yout adventures in Vauxhall I have been known to do the same if I have a bad day: I long suspected that traffic light crossings are there to keep pedestrians off the road as long as possible, rather than help them cross it…