two wheels bad, four wheels good

Of nearly hypnotic interest is this monthly archive of cycling paths and such kept by the Warrington Cycle Campaign (UK). These are the most amazingly perfunctory and ill-considered so-called accomodations imaginable. Month after month of them, with understated comments pointing out the "benefits" of each facility.

This bull trap can be found Sustrans route number 53 from the North coast of the Wirral to Chester. It is to protect cyclists from being trampled by the herds of migrating wildebeast common in this corner of Cheshire.

See foot-wide paths squished between pedestrians and opening car doors, fourth-dimensional hops, embedded obstacles, and dead ends. Every one of them is, seemingly, designed to fail by bureaucratic hires attempting to fulfill some sort of mandate they don't give a tinker's dam about.

Have you ever noticed how cycle paths accumulate litter, or that there is never anywhere to get rid of your sweetpapers? Well this could be the solution of the future.

The facility has been carefully placed in the middle of the cycle path so that it can be used by cyclists passing in either direction. Note the precision engineered tilt to accomodate cyclists leaning into the curve.

It may be of comfort to U.S. bicyclists to know that officials in other countries care just as much as those in our own.