Saturday 26 June 2010

‘I have given up riding my bike in Waltham Forest’



























I have given up riding my bike in Waltham Forest because of poorly maintained cycle lanes. Riding into over hanging vegetation and cut off branches in poorly lit conditions is both painful and dangerous. Riding on routes that are blocked by parked cars, cycle lanes that end leaving you arguing for road space with a bus or a lorry is hardly conducive to being safe on a bike. The money spent by Waltham Forest on Cycle networks to date is a joke. It is typical of Clyde Loakes to blow his trumpet on how great his administration has been in spending money on projects, but he never ever considers the costs of maintaining, or implementing maintenance plans of what has been put in place.

Writes ‘Tony in Chingford’ in one of many interesting comments (thanks ‘Tom Thumb’) to this story. More on this news report tomorrow when I’ve checked a few things out… In the meantime here are a couple of pics I took on Bike Week day six (i.e. Thursday) on the prize-winning Orient Way cycle path (‘Best cycle path in London, 2001’), in the section that links to Temple Mills. The first photo above shows the two-direction cycle path to the right of the continuous white line, and the photo below shows the same path just round the corner.