logo
  • Welcome
    • Darlovelo History
    • Contact us
    • SiteMap
  • Membership
    • Borrow a Bike
  • Campaigning
    • Cyclists, Cycles, Cycle Paths
    • Our Manifesto
    • Current Campaigns
      • 20s Plenty for Darlington
      • Fill That Hole
    • Darlington Cycling Campaign History
      • Darlington Cycling Symposium 2007
  • Top Post Categories
    • News
    • Inspiration
    • Infrastructure
    • Politics
    • Cars
    • Pedestrian Heart
    • Bikes
    • Cycling in Europe
    • 20MPH
  • Donate

Pages

  • 2013 Annual General Meeting
  • 40 Darlo Deaths in 2014 Due to Dirty Air
  • Borrow a Bike
  • Campaigning
    • Current Campaigns
      • 20s Plenty for Darlington
      • Fill That Hole
    • Cyclists, Cycles, Cycle Paths
    • Darlington Cycling Campaign History
    • Darlington Cycling Symposium 2007
  • Donate
  • Hire Shop
  • McMullen Road / Yarm Road Roundabout Consultation
  • Members Documents
  • Our Manifesto
  • The Darlovelo Family Pack
  • Welcome
    • Festival of Thrift – Darlovelo Bike Hire Special
  • About
    • Darlovelo History
    • In the Press
  • Become a Member
    • Join Us!
    • Become a Verified Member
    • Benefits of Membership
      • Thank You
  • How to Hire
    • Darlington Cycle Map
    • Step by Step Hiring
    • Periods of Hire
    • Submit Your Deposit
    • Hire a Bicycle for a Season or a Year
    • The Darlovelo Contract
  • Our Bikes
    • Our Model Range
  • Contact us
  • Useful Information
    • SiteMap
    • Looking after your bike

Archives

  • November 2019
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • January 2018
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2015
  • September 2013
  • May 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • May 2004

Categories

  • 20MPH (20)
  • academic research (3)
  • accident (4)
  • admin (10)
  • aggression (1)
  • assertive (1)
  • beauty and the bike (13)
  • best practice (7)
  • bike hire (1)
  • Bikes (34)
  • Bremen (7)
  • buses (3)
  • Car-free Darlington (7)
  • cars (39)
  • children (10)
  • Copenhagen (2)
  • critical mass (3)
  • cycle forum (1)
  • cycle paths (2)
  • cycle touring (3)
  • cycling (16)
  • Cycling Cmbassy of Great Britain (1)
  • cycling in Europe (28)
  • Darlington (6)
  • darlovelo (3)
  • Denmark (2)
  • DVD (1)
  • environment (19)
  • ETC (4)
  • Europe (8)
  • events (1)
  • Fahrradstrasse (1)
  • film (5)
  • girls (3)
  • habitus (4)
  • Haughton Road (11)
  • health (6)
  • Hessle Road (1)
  • Hull (1)
  • infrastructure (73)
  • inspiration (86)
  • local motion (6)
  • London (1)
  • McMullen Road (4)
  • meetings (13)
  • motorists (2)
  • Newcastle (1)
  • News (258)
  • Newton Aycliffe (2)
  • NGO (1)
  • non-cyclists (7)
  • North Road (8)
  • Northern Echo (2)
  • noteworthy (6)
  • NTSC (1)
  • online (1)
  • pavements (6)
  • Pedestrian Heart (38)
  • pedestrians (14)
  • petition (3)
  • politics (43)
  • pollution (1)
  • Prague (1)
  • protests (3)
  • psychology (7)
  • Public transport (2)
  • rides (10)
  • Ring Road (3)
  • river Weser (1)
  • Road allocation (3)
  • routes (16)
  • safety (4)
  • schools (6)
  • Schwerin (1)
  • Shopping (1)
  • speed limits (13)
  • Stockton (1)
  • stories (36)
  • summer (1)
  • survival (2)
  • symposium (5)
  • thefts (4)
  • traffic calming (10)
  • trains (13)
  • transport (4)
  • USA (1)
  • Vancouver (1)
  • velodarlo (4)
  • Whinfield Road (1)
  • women cycling (2)

WordPress

  • Log in
  • WordPress

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Monthly Archives: January 2007

The City That Never Walks

Posted on January 30, 2007 by admin Posted in Bikes, cars, environment, Haughton Road, infrastructure, McMullen Road, North Road, noteworthy, Pedestrian Heart, pedestrians, politics, routes, trains 6 Comments

In The City That Never Walks, Robert Sullivan discusses the changes that some American cities are making to encourage their residents to walk or cycle, rather than taking the car:

places like downtown Albuquerque, where one-way streets have become more pedestrian-friendly two-way streets, and car lanes are replaced by bike lanes, with bike racks everywhere

Some of the schemes listed are already taking place in Darlington, but lots are not.

* a walkable town centre
* purposely limited parking
* a new bus plaza that is part of a mass transit renaissance
* an urban walking and biking trail [linking] neighbourhoods
* charges drivers a fee to enter the core business area
* police sting operations arrest speeding drivers
* replaced parking spaces near a subway station with rows of bike racks
* some traffic lights are programmed to change for approaching buses

We have the Pedestrian Heart, but what of some of the other schemes?

Someone needing to travel between Bishop Auckland or Newton Aycliffe and Darlington for work or education has very little choice but to drive. Should Darlington not be pushing for changes to the train timetable?

Any new scheme in the centre of town seems to need more car parking. When the TK Maxx building was built on the Crown Street car park, why did it need the car park addition? When the Commercial Street development takes place, will the multi-storey car park built near Gladstone Street increase traffic in that area? What will this do to the residents’ health and lifestyles?

Some work is being done to increase the number of off-road walking and cycling tracks around the town, but could more be done? I can almost get from my house to the town centre without touching a main road. Almost. Whatever way I go, I end up having to make the last part of the journey on North Road or Haughton Road. We need these last missing links putting into place.

We could go even further than that, it is possible to link Hurworth village into the Riverside Path/McMullen Road cycle path that gives an off-road link to the town centre and both Further Education colleges, but part of the route is along a muddy bridleway. Imagine being able to ride from Hurworth to the town centre without having to use a main road. It’s possible.

I’ve seen speed cameras on North Road recently, but not as often as I’ve seen speeding cars. I’ve seen traffic wardens, but I see a lot more illegally parked cars, vans and trucks. I see buses sat in queues of traffic, and cyclists on the pavement because they’ve been hounded off the roads by bad driving and too many cars. I hear of people driving to Northallerton, Teesside or Tesco to shop, because it’s so hard and unpleasant to get into the town centre.

Anything put forward as an idea to kerb car use is “branded as anti-car, and thus anti-personal freedom”. Increasing parking charges or a bringing in a congestion charge or road toll is seen as yet another tax on the motorist.

But as matters now stand, the pedestrian [and cyclist] is taxed every day: by delays and emissions […]. Though we think of it as a luxury, the car taxes us, and with it we tax others.

So, let’s see some of the car parking spaces in Abbots Yard or Skinnergate replaced with bike racks. Let’s see some pressure on the train operators to make their timetable useable and useful. Let’s see a crackdown on irresponsible driving before a crackdown on irresponsible cycling. Let’s see buses given more priority at more junctions. Let’s see some effort put in to try and create the missing last sections of the cycle network. Let’s see a blanket 20MPH speed limit across the town.

Let’s stop ‘taxing’ our pedestrians and cyclists and let’s make Darlington a real Sustainable Transport Town.

2007 AGM, Saturday 3rd February

Posted on January 27, 2007 by admin Posted in admin

You are cordially invited to the Annual General Meeting of Darlington Cycling Campaign, which will be held in the upstairs meeting room of the Red Lion Hotel, Priestgate, Darlington, on Saturday 3rd February, commencing at 12.30pm.

Members of the retiring committee have kindly offered to provide a light buffet for members wishing to attend, so you can all enjoy a day out in Darlington town centre! Could you please let us know well in advance whether or not you’ll be attending so that we can get the quantities about right.

This is the first AGM since our formation in 2005, long overdue, so I hope you’ll all make an effort to attend. The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

1. Report of the retiring committee
2. Election of new committee
3. Debate : Cycling Campaign Symposium March 17th
4. Any other business from the floor.

Please let me know if you are able to attend.

Best wishes

Richard Grassick
Chair, Darlington Cycling Campaign

Can I ride my bike in the Pedestrian Heart? – Part 3

Posted on January 25, 2007 by admin Posted in Pedestrian Heart

The front page article on The Advertiser this week came about, in part, because of this ‘series’ of posts related to the Pedestrian Heart. While there are a few inaccuracies in the article (the 6 month trial on bike access, for example, was established in November 2004, not after recent campaigning from the cycle campaign), the points raised in favour of cyclists having access were all valid. However, the article didn’t really address the main concern we have at present; the unclear signposting, and the ambiguity of where we can and can’t ride (and in what direction).

We appreciate that there will be disruption during the works, but the signposting has been non-existent and there has been no clear notification for cyclists. There also appears to be some confusion on behalf of the Community Support Officers in the town about where we can ride, which has led to two members of the campaign almost receiving £30 fines; one for riding on a road which was closed to vehicular traffic, the other for riding on a pedestrianised former one way street in the wrong direction.

The council have, once asked by us, been good at answering most of these questions and we’ve published their responses in previous posts on this topic. The rule of thumb appears to be to obey any signs currently in place. This leads to some odd routes through the centre, as I’ve detailed previously, or doing odd things like stopping and dismounting at ‘No Entry’ signs, pushing the bike past the sign and then remounting, which is just silly.

According to the published timescale, work began in February 2005 and is not expected be completed until summer of this year. That’s two years and 5 months of disrupted routes through a key part of this Cycling Demonstration Town’s cycle network, with poor or no signposting and limited communication with cyclists. Imagine the same happening to motorists using the ring road.

This is what this recent series of posts (and emails to council officers) have been about, rather than the issue of whether we will receive any access once the work is completed which we hope is an accepted fact, although that remains to be seen, given the reaction of DAD presented in the Advertiser article.

The continued confusion suggests that there is a deeper problem – getting traffic engineers, the disability lobby, council officers, politicians, the police, not to mention motorists and pedestrians, to come to terms with the fact a bicycle is neither a motor vehicle nor a pedestrian, and new rules need to be developed to encourage its use. This is a complex issue, one that surely merits the consideration of a feature article rather than a simple “conflict” news story. Will the Northern Echo please take “Cycling Demonstration Town” seriously? Please – give us a call.

(Update: A slightly different version of the article appears in today’s Northern Echo: Cyclists can use pedestrian area of town. This is closer to what we were expecting. Thankyou Northern Echo. We’d still like a feature article though.)

Can I ride my bike in the Pedestrian Heart? – Part 2

Posted on January 24, 2007 by admin Posted in Pedestrian Heart 2 Comments

With all the confusion surrounding where and how we can ride though the town centre, yesterday and today I took a slightly different route to work. I wanted to see whether it was possible to go through the town, as I think it’s a nicer, safer route for me to take to work.

I think I go through the centre without passing any ‘No Entry’ signs, by detouring down Crown Street, but I’m not 100% certain of the right turn I took at the top of Priestgate (map). I’m certain we could turn right there before the works, and there’s no sign currently. However, riding up Priestgate while signalling right is an odd experience when you can hear a number 20 bus approaching behind you.

I think this uncertainty I have as to whether I have ridden where I should underlines the confusion cyclists have at the moment and the lack of signposting there is for bikes during the works.

(Update: I think I’ve figured out a route for getting home that avoids riding on the St Augustine’s Way section of the ring road and doesn’t pass any ‘No Entry’ signs! (map))

Saving 50p could cost someone’s life

Posted on January 23, 2007 by admin Posted in cars, non-cyclists, pedestrians, psychology 3 Comments

The Northern Echo website carries a story about car drivers parking on and blocking pavements, and the danger this causes, Saving 50p could cost someone’s life.

This, and cars going through amber lights, is one of my current pet hates. We’re back to pushing a single pushchair, but when we had a double buggy our way was frequently blocked by cars with two wheels on the path. I see it as one more example of drivers putting cars before people.

Contact Details

PLEASE NOTE
We are a voluntary organisation. Our phone may be on silent when our volunteer is at his/her day job. Sending an email is usually quicker.

Email:
cool(at)darlovelo.org
Phone:
07519741734

Darlovelo on Twitter

My Tweets

Blog Archives

Categories

Our History

  • Beauty and the Bike
  • Darlington Cycling Campaign
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next
CyberChimps

CyberChimps

Marketed By Neil Patel
© Darlovelo - Bicycle Hire in Darlington