'Confusing' cycle lane on Holyport roundabout questioned by visitors

A ‘confusing’ new cycle lane at the Holyport roundabout has some left residents scratching their heads – but a cabinet member insists it is ‘better all around’ for safety.

As part of the upgrade at Holyport roundabout, a new cycle lane has been introduced on the pavement, taking cyclists past the roundabout.

Because they go past a ‘pinch point’ on the bend of the roundabout, there are ‘give way’ symbols painted on the ground, so cyclists are aware of others potentially coming the opposite direction.

This cycle path that ‘leads to nowhere’ has been compared to the widely criticised one near Waitrose in Maidenhead and has left some cyclists feeling ‘genuinely confused’.

That was how Andrew Ingram felt when he encountered it on his bike. When he posted about it on Facebook looking for some clarity, it fetched a flurry of comments from others.

One of the voices was that of James Camplin, a Holyport resident who has long been critical of the new Holyport roundabout design.

“People don’t know what to do with [the new cycle lanes],” he said.

“In reality, people riding on the road from Maidenhead going towards Windsor are not going to get off the road, go onto this short length of cycle path, hit a give way sign and wait for another cyclist to pass.

“No, they are just going to ride on the road like everyone else.

“These are completely pointless.

“You only get about 10m before you meet a give way sign, with about 12m of shared cycle path between the two signs.”

Moreover, also part of the design is ‘raised white painted line’ which is ‘smooth’ and may present a slip hazard, visitors feel.

Some Facebook onlookers said this might very well topple people off their bikes in wet weather – and that overall, the changes are more dangerous than what was there before.

Concerns were also raised during the design stages by a highway engineer in correspondence with RBWM last December.

Legally the minimum width of a cycleway is 2m for two-way cycle traffic. For a single direction, it is 1.5m – which this design achieves, RBWM wrote.

RBWM said the 2m width ‘was not achievable’ throughout the length of the stretch, hence the use of give way markings – to reduce cycle traffic to a single lane through the narrow section.

The consultants replied that this was ‘a concern’ and stressed their broader safety concerns over the roundabout design.

“It has always been maintained by residents and qualified experts that the introduction of these particular cycle paths has been at the detriment to motorists and pedestrians,” they wrote.

“We believe that it is the introduction of the cycle paths that have forced various features of the [roundabout] design to be unsafe.

“Lose the cycle paths everything could work with a bit of tweaking.”

Speaking to the Advertiser, Cllr Geoff Hill said: “The idea is very simple – get cyclists off the roundabout, as many of them as possible, because it’s cyclists who have been involved in the injury accidents.

“We’re trying to make it as safe as we possibly can for cyclists, given the amount of space and money that we have.

“It’s not an absolutely perfect solution, but cyclists will be much safer than they were previously because they’ll be off the roundabout and away from the vehicle of traffic.

“As long as people use it respectfully to both cyclists and pedestrians, the injuries should all but disappear.”