2people1bike demonstrates the problem nicely with this photo showing how to get a tandem past the barriers.
Cycle A 2 B has a couple of posts with clear photographs of the barriers, Fallowfield Loop 2 and Fallowfield Loop Barrier.
And, if you can cope with wobbly video from a head-mounted camera, there is also a video, though not of the section I cycled.
Here by comparison is Rowland Dye's rather better made timelapse video of the Bristol to Bath Railway Path - notice the lack of barriers along the path.
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If you are yet to be convinced as to why all cycle routes like this should be open to non-standard pedal cycles then watch this programme - jump 17 minutes in to see just how important cycling is for people with a disability.
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Interestingly CycleA2B contains this note
"As is this page where I found out there is actually a tunnel underneath Sainsbury's on Wilmslow Road, the design was a cock-up though so it's not in use."
Now, whilst the page linked to is no longer available, it links to this web site... http://www.steveessex.com/jobs/, a name which also turns up in this document about access barriers.
And this document contains a photo of the Fallowfield Loop which explains the horse shit on the path and, quite coincidentally, a photo of my Brox.
I didn't know that link was down. He must have removed the page as some of it wasnt very promotional. The photo of the Sainsburys tunnel was just a thin, dark & dingy breezeblock tunnel which it had been decided was so unfit for purpose that it wasn't safe to be used by the public.- most likely built like that on purpose. No wonder they didn't use it.
ReplyDeleteI rode the whole of the Fallowfield Loop a fortnight ago, and while most of the trip was pleasant I was dismayed by the proliferation of barriers across the pathway (ten or twelve, as I recall) and by the way that building works have encroached on the start and ends of the Loop - Metrolink platform building at the Chorlton end, and house building at the Fairfield end, the latter rendering the pathway to no more than a narrow trail through the woods, making it impassable on anything other than an MTB.
ReplyDeleteBut as we're talking about barriers, my obsetavtion is that they preclude safe and fair passage for anyone not riding a standard bicycle.
My partner rides a Pashley tricycle. He'll never be able to lift it over the barrier.
I tow my son in a trailer. Again, it has to be uncoupled and lifted over the bar- with him in it, if he's asleep.
Safe riding for all? No chance.
Don't know if you're already aware of this, but the Fallowfield Loop article which used to live at that address can still be found on the Wayback Machine:
ReplyDeletehttps://web.archive.org/web/20090615105759/http://www.steveessex.com/jobs/Fallowfiled.html
Very interesting insight into the early days of the cycleway we know so well. Understandably, but unfortunately, no pictures.