Weird cycle lanes of Brighton

Weird Cycle Lanes of Brighton
(and now Hove, actually)

For more up-to-date stuff, check out my weblog

This website is just a random collection of my personal observations
as I cycle around the wonderful City of Brighton and Hove.
It is not meant to have a go at our Council or its officers,
who are doing a grand job promoting and encouraging cycling.
Since I started this website there have been many improvements to the cycle network,
and I always aim to document them and give credit where credit is due.
However there is always room for improvement
and although I'm used to it now
I still find some bits of the cycling infrastructure I encounter rather amusing.
I hope you do too.

Nice to see some restoration work on the short lane that joins the scary
middle-of-the-road lane in Oxford Street
with the calm and safety of The Level.
This is how it looked when new.

Meanwhile, elsewhere the older cycle lanes are fading away -
no wonder pedestrians walk all over them!

The Hove cycle lanes near the King Alfred's Leisure Centre, resurfaced in 2010,
and what an absolute joy they are to cycle on,
however, cycling along most of the wonderfully wide esplanade is still banned!

Crossing places for pedestrians - some have bike symbols...

... others don't! Or maybe it's still work in progress (June 2010)

How they made the dotted lines!

Cycle counter

Jim Rennie writes: I just noticed this while cycling down the Lewes Road
the other day (19 May 2010), and stopped to take a couple of pics -
sorry for the lousy quality, I wasn't feeling very photographic that day.

Here we have a noble initiative: the installation of a bicycle counter
intended to commend cyclists for using the cycle lane,
and hence encourage us to use it more.
Ironically, the installation works entailed closure of the cycle lane,
forcing cyclists to use the busy inside lane instead.

Seaford

Mark Easen sent this one in - It's on Marine Parade, Seaford.
'Absolutely pointless!!!', he says. [Except maybe to annoy pedestrians!]

University of Sussex

Adam Pride writes: This wonderful little snippet of cycling infrastructure
is by the main entrance of The University of Sussex.

I particularly like the artistically curved bit of white line
to helpfully guide cyclists around the lamp post just in case,
being the poor, dim-witted sods that they are,
they decided to ride straight into it!

In the couple of minutes I was there taking these photos this morning
about 10 cyclists went past but not surprisingly not one used it - even
though I shouted to a couple of them to 'Use the bike lane!'

The good news…

The new fast surface on the seafront, between here and the West Pier.

The new continental-style shared space of New Road,
where cars, taxis, bikes and pedestrians co-exist happily.

Grand Avenue, Hove, looking north – our gorgeous new cycle superhighway,
stretching from the seafront to Hangleton

Looking south along Grand Avenue, Hove – what a joy!

Then the not so good

Our steepest cycle lane, at the top of Trafalgar Street.
Note how suddenly it ends!
It provides a much needed link to the station,
but in Victorian times this hill was deemed too steep
for the horse-drawn Hansom Cabs,
which instead were diverted up a long gentle incline beneath Platform 8
(the doors to which can be seen opposite The Prince Albert pub).

View to the west – note the cyclist pushing his bike up the hill!

This website grew out of an article in The Guardian long long ago
claiming that some cyclelane up north was the shortest in Britain.
What! I thought, we have many many much shorter lanes!!
The shortest at the time was the weird one by the Gloucester,
but as time went by, even shorter and weirder ones kept appearing!!
Take a look for yourself.
None of these photos have been retouched in Photoshop, honest!

The original short lane – now a ghost of its former self – has the council abandoned it?
[Photo taken June 2008, looking longer than in the original photos!]

More strange cycle lanes and paths

The original short lane
Short cycle lanes
Short, but not that short, lanes

Asda at Hollingbury
Cobbles
Coome Terrace
Cycle lanes ending with metal posts
Dead bikes
Dyke Road
East Street
Hove, Actually
Marina

Miscellaneous weirdness
New Road
North Street Quadrant

Oddness on The Level
Scary cycle lanes

Scenic cycle lanes
Seafront cycling
Seafront posts
Skips on cycle lanes
Weird islands at Ditchling Rise
York Hill

East Grinstead
Labour Party conference 2004
Pride 2004
Streets of Brighton (performance art!)
Sustrans Shoreham to Newhaven route

Cycle bobbies
Meet the striking firefighters

Build your own cyclelane
Are cycle lanes really a good idea?

Guest photos!

Links

Keep up-to-date: a weblog

Meet the creator of this website!

Please contact me if you know of any short
or just plain weird cycle lanes (or cycle paths) elsewhere.

Ring my Flash bell!!

If you support cycling in Brighton and Hove, join Bricycles!

As featured
in The Argus, 12 June 2008 (a centre spread!)
The Argus, 4 June 2008, in an article on a short cycle lane at Telscombe Cliffs
The Guardian G2 section 7 March 2007
on BBC South Today 16 January 2003
and in the Daily Telegraph 22 March 2003,
BBC Southern Counties Radio 21 April 2004
The Argus 4 February 2003
Metafilter, Schnews, The Big Issue …

Blimey! this simple site was a runner up in
the Brighton and Hove Virtual Festival web awards 2002
in the Community section and I got a free t shirt and certificate –
& 2 free pints of Harvey's!

Thanks to everyone kind enough to vote for me.
The rather wonderful Alex Hallett won the Personal section prize.