Today I went to Ashton-Under-Lyne. Ashton is one of the towns in the periphery of Manchester, probably one of the closest at around 12 km out from the city centre. The fairly short distance combined with the fact that it is largely downhill into Manchester would make Aston ideal for commuting into Manchester from, an easy ride in (mostly downhill) for when you are feeling less motivated (on the way to work) and slightly uphill on the way back (but at least you’re going home). The reason I went to Ashton is the market stall “Sweets of Yesteryear” who sell pick and mix of nice quality and a good range for about half of what you would pay in the city centre. The road to Ashton (Ashton old Road) isn’t that bad to cycle on for a fairly busy A road, I think there was the odd bit of painted on bike road but nothing consistent. At Snipe retail park I turned left onto Lord Sheldon Way, a recently (ish) built dual carriageway leading to Ashton Moss leisure park and IKEA and then the town centre. lord Sheldon Way had some particularly useless cycle infrastructure:
The cycle lane is on the pavement, raised off the road. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if the bike path had the same priorities as the road it is a part of.
At this traffic signal, cyclists are expected to go left, stop, use the pedestrian crossing and then re-join the rest of the road where the path continues. It gave me the distinct impression that the lanes were painted on as an afterthought when they realised the pavements were slightly wider than usual. Surely its not too big of an ask to have the bike lane go straight along the road with anyone wanting to turn left having to give way to the traffic in the bike lane. That is how they do it in countries which don’t actively discourage cycling like we do. There were about 5 of these civil engineering failures along the length of the road. I am only thankful for the fact that facilities such as these remain optional in this country, you can just use the road instead. Still its a shame to see an opportunity missed, and money thrown away. The roundabout at the end of the road used a similar arrangement for the bike lane, but by this point it had long been abandoned in favour of the road.
Once in Ashton, the search for bike parking began. There are a number of multi-storey car parks in Ashton but a long search revealed only two bike parking stands
The people of Ashton interpret the meaning of bike parking quite loosely.
After buying copious quantities of sweets, the decision was made to have lunch at Ashton Moss, a leisure park containing several restaurants, a cinema and bowling lanes. Ashton Moss is owned by the property developer King Sturge, a rather large company, and despite the fact that it was 2-3 km out of Ashton town centre 9easily cycle-able by a novice), provided hundreds of car parking spaces and was surrounded by the attempted bike infrastructure discussed above, there were no bike parking facilities at all. I was genuinely surprised, I didn’t expect anything good, maybe just those wall mounted locking points which are great if you really love your front or back wheel but are not too fussy about keeping the rest of your bike, but there was nothing. Quite unbelievable in 2010.
Anyway, Ashton is nice for the sweets, not so nice for the bike infrastructure.
Before anyone judges me for that seat angle, its merely a reaction to the seat-tube angle of the Kona being at odds with the riding position the bike naturally promotes. I will do a longer term review of the bike sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteWhereabouts were those stands exactly?
The only ones I was aware of were next to the TSB, and on the carpark north of the council offices.
That no bicycle parking has been provided on the retail park, pretty much tells the story. The infrastructure is indeed crap - but considering disgraces like that are installed at all, is it any wonder that some of us oppose the idea almost point blank? David Hembrows site shows how it should be done. Some say that 'anything is better than nothing', without considering that we almost 'had' to use these facilities until the proposed Highway Code revision was challenged.
P.S: the seat angle does look a bit painful, but I'll take your word that it was otherwise!
The stands were to the reat of the newly finished old market building, next to what looks like a drop-off point on the road (maybe a taxi pick-up point) across from which is a giant Wetherspoons bar.
ReplyDeleteI can understand the fear of being forced into using such awful infrastructure. It is useful to have some infrastructure for newer riders and if it had appropriate priorities and was useable I wouldn't mind using it too. I would hate to be forced to use the terrible infrastructure as it currently is as most is designed to keep us out of the way of other traffic, with little thought to how useful it is to us (See the post about Trafford Park).
I contacted King Sturge about the lack of facilities and they got back to me eventually with a picture of five parking spots for bikes. They are those tiny coils which only secure one of your wheels. They are also at the back of the cinema, out of the way by the bins. Says it all really.
I contacted King Sturge about the lack of facilities and they got back to me eventually with a picture of five parking spots for bikes. They are those tiny coils which only secure one of your wheels. They are also at the back of the cinema, out of the way by the bins.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, a box ticking exercise.
Says it all really.
It does. Yep, read your Trafford Park post last night. Great blog btw.
Yea, those curly cycle stands on the floor are really useful for securing your bike to, going in the cinema, coming out to find your bike pushed over. This is good cause your secured wheel now matched the curly bike stand. What a good idea they are. I now avoid them, surprisingly.
ReplyDelete