The Thames Path below Barton Fields is very muddy on this sunny December day.
More birds are visible in the trees – now without foliage. They flit away as you approach and look shy.
Looking up from the bottom of the field, across through the willow herb and bare trees, the office buildings along Barton Lane are visible.
The newly surfaced Sustrans cycle path allows cyclists a smoother ride.
Similar surfaces have been introduced this year between Drayton and Abingdon.
Through Abingdon Town Centre cyclists are guided by a couple of signs back towards the cycle route, but nobody has solved how to get the cycle way through a town centre as a joined up cycle way
In December there are very few flowers. Berries are getting eaten or are drying out.
At the top end of Barton Fields – where wild flowers are such an feature in Spring and Summer, the grass is cut, the small trees are bare, and piles of hay provide a place for animals to remain warm during the winter.
Brown has taken over from green as the main colour.
Thankyou to the Abingdon Naturalist Trust for the chance to enjoy the fields for a monthly exploration in 2020. Barton Fields provided a green space for people to walk and cycle during the lockdown. But at the same time more people have been walking over what is intended as a wildlife habitat. Mini thicket fence barriers have appeared at some junctions to keep people on the main paths.
Surely there doesn’t need to be a joined up way? What’s wrong with dismounting at the end of Lombard Street and walking to the Abbey Arch? It really isn’t any effort and takes less than a minute! I’m afraid I do sometimes make disapproving remarks to my fellow cyclists who insist on cycling the wrong way along West St Helen’s. I suspect they are too much enslaved to their fitbits and Garmins.
walking from there requires more breaths, as opposed to free-wheeling on a bicycle. More breaths (walking) is far far worse (CO2 output) for the environment than breath free (or reduced breath) cycling.
The ultimate solution, Daniel, is simply to stop breathing… There are, of course, consequences.
Ah. Silly me. I should have known …
It is a connundrum PPJS and ultimately the “unmentionable” reality of the ‘climate crisis’; just too many people.
Watch Ch4s “Utopia” on catch-up….it’s a good drama, but with an undertone that no one wants to acknowledge.
Maybe Greta will mention it….but I won’t hold my breath.
How about getting the car drivers to get out of their cars and push just because no one has the presence of mind or wherewithal to design and build a joined up route?
I don’t mind getting off and walking a bit, thats not the issue, but this situation is symptomatic of the second class status afforded to bike riders (with or without Garmin/Lycra/Strava) and its a situation that really has to be addressed for all sorts of reasons.
Really? That seems rather a silly response. Cars are rarely able to take a direct route. They have to give way, follow one way systems, obey the rules. There are routes we can’t drive. There are routes we can’t cycle. There are routes we can’t walk. And that’s actually ok. It’s ok to be inconvenienced in a minor way from time to time to make use of limited space in a measured and sensible way.
Driving a car is made to be an inconvenience now.
Oh. And I feel in no way demeaned, inferior or second rate by choosing to hop off my bicycle and walk 150 yards instead of navigating the whole of the one way system, as the rest of the traffic has to do, in order to head off towards Oxford. I find when driving I am also quite happy to give way and adapt to the rules of the road. When walking, I’m happy to wait for it to be safe to cross, and to have to make choices as to which roads it feels safe to walk along. At no point do I feel outraged that my will has been thwarted by so doing. No single group is entitled to absolute precedence over any other.
I’m glad that no ne here is outraged, that is a positive sign. If I choose to hop of my cycle and walk then I too am not demeaned. But returning to the issue, if I am obliged to get of my bike its because other traffic has been awarded precedence, which, by your own admission, is not acceptable.
Tim – Please also consider that the services and infrastructure which mildly inconveniences you was paid for by car and fuel taxes which you do not pay or contribute to as a cyclist.
Car and fuel taxes are not hypothecated to pay for roads. Any tax that I pay for any reason goes to make a contribution to the building and maintainence of the Public Highway. My VED and fuel taxes get used for defence, NHS, education etc, just like yours.
Tim – we (mostly) all pay tax depenent on what we earn and buy, car drivers pay extra – road and fuel tax. We also pay car insurance, which includes possible payments to cyclists. Cyclists have no such liabilities.
Nobody has paid Road Tax for many decades. Vehicle Excise Duty and fuel duty are a levy on the emissions produced by driving. If cyclists did have to pay these, they pay exactly the same as those who drive electric cars – i.e. nothing, because there are no emissions to be taxed.
It makes no more sense to suggest that the needs of motor vehicle drivers should be prioritised because they pay these taxes than it would to suggest that there should be lanes reserved for higher rate Income Tax payers.
Surely if you cycle and are more active you need more calories, which is added draw on food and water and all takes energy. You will in turn create more heat – bad for the environment, and CO2 of course as you huff and puff. You may get sweaty enough that you shower more often – more use of high-energy refined drinking water to go down the plughole, and of course the environmental impact of heating that water. …and all those “soap” chemicals flooding the waterways!
That’s a good idea about the higher income tax lanes though!
We all pay tax on what we buy, buy a car, pay tax, buy fuel, pay tax, buy a bike, pay tax. The suggestion that car drivers pay extra is bizarre. Also, I know very few people who have cycles as their only form of transport. Most bike riders pay the same VED, tax on the fuel that they buy and insure their cars. If there is gong to be an erroneous connection between paying tax and entitlement to road space it really should be consistent.
You are not obliged to get off your bicycle. You are making a choice between dismounting and walking to take a short cut or cycling along with the general flow of traffic around the one way system.
While following a route aparently devised as being particularly suitable for cycling, I am obliged to get of my bike because the infrastructure has not been provided. I would be interested to know if this is ever the case for cars because I cant think of any. As indicated above cylists pay for the Public Highway just the same as everyone else, so it does seem strange that only car drivers are given this degree of consideration.
There has been an increase in cyclists who cycle on the pavement up East St Helen Street towards the town centre. As all the houses’ front doors open directly onto the street, it is only a matter of time before someone coming out of their house is hit by a pavement-riding cyclist. I had a near miss a few months ago coming out of my door and having a cyclist racing along the pavement only just stop in time. Parents with baby buggies coming out of their house onto the pavement are particularly at risk.
No sensible person would condone that sort of behaviour. There are idiots on bicycles, there are idiots in cars, there are idiots who walk. The answer is to address the individual behaviour, not any particular form of transport.
It’s telling that as National Cycle Route 5 passes through Abingdon you cannot cycle along it.
Instead of a cycle route, parked cars are given priority.
Sure. You can walk, but if you planned on walking why would you have chosen to drive to town? Same for cycling. The point of choosing to cycle, and also the provision of cycle paths should be so that you can cycle.
Poor infrastructure is particularly tough on the less bold, fit or able. Some people rely on bikes for mobility, while they struggle to walk.
It’s also particularly difficult for families to cycle around Abingdon. Many are effectively forced to drive. It’s a nightmare trying to cycle to Abby Gardens. Subsudised / free parking encouraging driving and removes choices for anyone who wishes to leave their cars behind.
It’s the same for the European School. The cycle lane finishes on the corner of The Burycroft. You have the choice of crossing a busy road to cycle on the road, or you need to teach your kind that it’s better to break the rules and cycle on the footpath.
Leaving no choice but to drive by always prioritising cars isn’t helping anyone.
There is also the problem of cyclists, mainly teenage schoolchildren, cycling through the pedestrian precinct, Bury Street. Good luck, Tim, trying to ‘address the individual behaviour’ of these cyclists. All you get is an earful of obscene language in reply.
Such cyclists on pavements are a real and increasing problem. Sure, it would be great if there were dedicated cycle lanes for them, but in a small town historic town centre like Abingdon there just isn’t room to create a dedicated through-route for bicycles. And would cyclists stick to such cycle lanes anyway?
In an ideal world, the whole town centre would be pedestrianised, with no cyclists or cars endangering pedestrians. But that isn’t realistic when the majority of people who live in it need a car, and we are not only an important north-south and east-west travel route but also a river crossing. This ain’t a perfect world, cyclists! Like the rest of us, you have to compromise sometimes.
I’m not anti compromise. I like the suggestion that all cyclists should be banished because of the behaviour of a few because by that measure we would have to ban cars as well but, as you say, that ain’t going to happen. On the topic of compromise, how about we return to the original point of this discussion and ask why no compromise has been found to enable a continuous route through the town, its still not a big ask. And why is it that whenever a decision is made about which road users have priorty, it ALWAYS goes to the cars? Where is the compromise from the drivers? Its a Public Highway, paid for by taxes raised from the entire public, yet one group consistently and persistently gets a better deal.
Tim, the facts are that there are over 40 million motor vehicles in Britain, while there are only about 2.5 million cyclists. Far more people need to drive or bus to work than cycle. And, as has already been pointed out in this thread, we all depend on lorries and vans to deliver the necessities of life to shops. So it is reasonable that our road system gives priority to motor vehicles. Abingdon is just a microcosm of the country in this respect. It is simply a reality that the wider needs of society must take priority over the wishes of cyclists to have special routes for themselves. And – to end where I began – cyclists need to be more considerate and not endanger residents and pedestrians by cycling on pavements just because they don’t like the inconvenience of sometimes having to dismount and walk.
If pure numbers are all that matters, then by those figures cycling should then get 1/17 of the consideration (ignoring the fact that comparing motor vehicles and cyclists – instead of bicycles – is a bit apples and oranges). In reality it only gets a tiny fraction of that.
And if we did, for example, spend 1/17 of the roads budget on cycle provision, cycling would become a much more attractive option and numbers would rise, so we should give even more than that.
And there would be more than 2.5 million cyclists if there were decent, continuous and safe cycle ways.
I agree with Tim. Priority IS always the car. All hail the car. We’re encouraged to exercise, use public transport, be green ….. yet when we try to we find there aren’t sufficient cycle ways.
For instance – the cycle track down Lodge Hill into Abingdon disappears and continues on the other side of the road. The end of it one side occurs on the bend of Lodge Hill and is dangerous to cross, there is no slope to get across the road but instead you need to finish the track at the garage entrance, back track up the road a bit and hop across the road. There is no crossing, no markings on the road, nothing to help cyclists cross. The cycle track on the other side is very narrow taking you near to the road.
There are good cycle lanes in the town centre, but the most precarious areas where you need protection, the cycle lane disappears.
We built more roads and what did we get?
More cars.
So how about we build more cycle lanes?