Current Clifton Green junction layout should remain say emergency services (From York Press)

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  yorkshirelad wrote:
  One reason the UK lags way behind some other countries in terms of safe cycling is that we design cycling facilities that run out when you need them most...
  
  We've been hearing that for years and here, in 2012, we reverse a perfectly decent cycling facility that went all the way to the lights.
  
  It really shows that all the cycling facilities are just token gestures...not really designed to genuinely make cycling safer.
  
  What is the point of the green box if all the cyclists are dangerously trapped between vehicles in lanes that are too narrow?
  
  And yet once the stupid (and costly) promise had been made they had painted themselves into a corner. I wouldn't underestimate the votes that will be lost for Labour next time from this fiasco...and not just in that ward.

  Indeed. This is just one of many points that are worthy of repeating. Others include "why not just use the money to fill potholes or something", "like all traffic problems, the real problem is other peoples' cars". A key problem with cycling provision is that it is "retrofit", ie built to fit in with current motor vehicle provision. We then get stupid setups like at Monks Cross whereby if you have come from Rogers Carpets and are going towards the park and ride site area, you can cycle on the shared pavement up to aldi, then are expected to use the road, then rejoin a cycle lane just after the pram shop - with that corner and the entrance to the aldi carpark as a gap. why is there a gap? Or what about Field Lane, whereby traffic from Heslington that now waits at the traffic lights due to a narrowed road, but cyclists can't go into Windmill Lane because there is no dropped kerb for access to the shared pavement, and otherwise to get onto it requires going beyond the stop line (contravening the red light) and facing oncoming traffic to get to the dropped kerb. Same applies for Clifton Moor going into Hurricane Way - that and all the other abominations around Clifton Moor. In the city centre, there is the expectation that cyclists should get off the bike and walk - but this is a completely different mode of transportation. Would you put bollards at Tadcaster Road and tell everybody to walk to York from there? no because it is a stupid concept as it'd suddenly force people to change to a different transport mode - but when it involves cyclists suddenly people think this is OK. The we have cycle lanes that are too narrow and thus invoke driver to pass too fast and too close, or lanes that have a Toyota Yaris or similarily small car blocking the way as the old person driving pays "road tax" and expects all the road space they want.
  
  As for Water End, take a look at the roadworks on Blossom Street... last week the left hand lane of Blossom Street onto The Mount was closed and all traffic had to share the right hand lane - this caused massive tailbacks going all the way through the city centre and onto Peasholme Green (a typical 5 minute bus ride for somebody took an hour)... and the reason this happened is because the vast majority of traffic approaching that junction is going southbound in the left hand lane. At Water End this is not the case: there the vast majority of traffic either turns right or goes into Water Lane.
  Motorists using Westminster Avenue from Water End into Bootham are, quite simply, utterly stupid idiots. Not only do they have to turn right against unregulated opposing traffic to get into Westminster Avenue, they then have to turn right against TWO directions of opposing unregulated traffic to get onto Bootham from The Avenue (and then you get the 'buffer jam', whereby cars stopped behind the driver turning right into westminster avenue then creates its own traffic jam). Local residents complaining about rat running along there shouldn't really be counted into this scheme because (1) all they want is a shiny bollard in the middle of the road and won't shut up until that is done, and (2) when purchasing their house they seemed to completely overlook the fact their road is open at both ends. You'd have to be pretty dumb not to notice that, and even dumber to then have the ball$ to go so far as complain about it!
  
  The emergency services have a very valid point: if there are two lanes of vehicles waiting, there will be nowhere that drivers can move across into should an emergency vehicle need to get through... let's imagine there's a Park and Ride bendybus coming towards leeman road and two lanes of vehicles at the Water End lights on red and a fire engine comes along - the bus can't move over as there's a fence to the side, and the cars can't move over as there's another line of cars and hardly any pavement. Currently the cars can move into the cycle lane and pavement if a fire engine needs to get through, as there is enough room for that and, as a cyclist, I wouldn't begrudge temporarily losing the road space because a fire engine is going to put out an inferno somewhere. If the engine was going to YOUR house to takle a blaze and a member of your household was trapped inside, would you be saying "these 2 lanes of traffic is fine as the fire engine isn't using this road every day" or would you be saying "if only there was just one lane of traffic then the fire engine would already be at my house and my family member would be safe"? people like Retrorigg (a few comments above this) might want to give that some consideration before making rash comments. The Emergency Services need to get to an emergency quickly, and if you pack out every road like a sardine can then peoples' lives will be lost."
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