Never mind cyclists, pity the poor pedestrian
SIR – I have had two bad falls tripping over uneven paving stones in London in the past two months, bashing my face on the pavement.
Why do councils spend millions on cycle lanes, but don’t repair pavements that are perilous for pedestrians? Simon Edsor London SW1 SIR – In Kingston upon Thames, the Portsmouth Road has been reduced by a third in width to provide a segregated cycle lane used by only a handful of cyclists.
The council is proposing a “miniHolland” project to provide 10 more cycle lanes, funded by Transport for London, to the tune of £30 million. It claims this will transform cycling facilities and improve road safety.
Yet the project means that turning into a main road of greatly reduced width is now a difficult manoeuvre. Richard Leeson Kingston upon Thames, Surrey SIR – Having spent three years as a student and cyclist in Maastricht, I would say that Jennifer Zulfiqar (Letters, July 15) is right: the Dutch do cycle better than the British, but not because they cycle on pavements – they seldom do.
Across the Netherlands cyclists have their own infrastructure, their own lanes on all major (and many minor) roads, their own short-cuts across town and country, and even their own traffic lights. They never cross junctions when cars do.
A truism about cycling systems is: if it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much. Samuel Bruce St Cross College, Oxford