Topic: Broken Glass on cycle routes

[Alex]

There he was, 2 weeks ago, the old man,  trying to save the planet and cycle to work - from Old Town to Dorcan & got 3 punctures in one week due to broken glass from our friends the local yobs who've smashed as many bottles  as they can get their hands on all along the route.

So what did I do?

I emailed SBC to ask them what their intentions were regarding clearing this up and making it a viable proposition to continue to use these cycle routes- so that we could save money - not keep spending it on repairing punctures. I asked them to acknowledge reciept of the email too.

Guess what happened?  Go on, guess.   Oh go on.       

   

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[ZPW]

I guess that SBC told you they were looking into the way in which they could make broken glass less dangerous to the vitamin deficients that were playing with it.
I guess they are going to provide a grant to the delinquent's parents to allow them to buy their offsrping plastic bottles of cider to show them there is another less dangerous material for them to imbibe from.
I guess they are going to provide counsellors to the oiks to help them deal with the invasion of cycle paths on their patch.

I want you to know Alex that I claim the stop smoking now prize.

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[Alex]

Well ZPW,

 sadly you didn't win the prize for guessing correctly about SBC- you weren't even close. Your entry suggests some action would have been considered and actually taken. 

Which pretty much gives the answer away.

As you were the only entrant you could give me a call or email me and we can discuss your stop smoking prize!

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[Simon]

Looks like I was far too slow off the mark to enter this competition, although I'm familiar with broken glass on cycle routes (luckily no punctures yet this year), and the council don't seem to do anything about it.

There's also an infrequent but regular problem with trees on the cycle routes in West Swindon. Every so often, one of the trees planted around our nice green coridoors / cycle routes keels over due to high winds or whatever, and falls across the path. Annoying to pedestrians, and highly inconvenient to cyclists. Not that I blame the trees, you understand.

The subsequent events seem to follow a pattern.

1) The tree gradually gets dragged clear of the path by a succession of unknown passers-by (including myself), who put various amounts of effort into the task, presumably depending on the amount of effort involved in moving it so that they can get past it compared to the amount of effort involved in getting past it as it is (and some unknown factor relating to their public-spiritedness).

2) The tree suddenly resumes almost its original position across the path. Possibly the same people responsible for the broken glass are also responsible for this, although I have no evidence for this.

3) Repeat (1) and (2) a few times

4) After a month or so, the offending tree has been removed from the site completely. Presumably this is the council's doing, although I couldn't be sure.

I was talking to Cllr Greenhalgh recently and he said that I ought to report things like this to the council when they happen, so that they know they need to do something, although from Alex's experience, it doesn't seem that there's much point in doing so.

I notice during the winter months when I'm too much of a wimp to cycle to work, and I catch the bus instead, that there's always one of those street-sweeper vehicles active both in the morning and the evening, but only in the town centre. They ought to be taking a regular tour of the cycle routes as well, but as far as I can tell the only thing which clears debris from cycle routes at the moment is the feet and tyres of the traffic on those routes, and the occasional public spirited passer-by.

I'd like to draw a contrast here with the regularity with which the council re-paint the walls of the underpasses around the West Swindon Centre, presumably to obscure the works of the artist known as FNOK and his/her contemporaries, and to provide them with a blank canvas to resume their tagging afresh (usually the same day).

Regardless of whatever received opinion has to say about graffiti, it doesn't obstruct the cycle routes. Fallen trees and broken glass do, and I feel SBC have their priorities wrong here.

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[Alex]

Couldn't agree more Simon- not exactly an incentive to be green is it? Despite SBC's requirement to achieve certain targets they continue to shoot themselves in the foot.  Makes you wonder how can there be so little joined up thinking nowadays.

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[Tel Hudson]

Of course it is no incentive to be green. The only green thing this administration has done is to reduce landfill by getting maggots to eat the refuse in West Swindon. (and the only green things are the colour of the refuse when it is eventually collected and the colour of the residents faces when they smell it.)

If this administration wanted to be green rather than doing the minimum to reach Government targets and those targets are ridiculously to low, we would have had full kerbside recycling by now with by-laws as well as a properly maintained cycle network.

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[Simon]

Could I add trolleys to the broken glass and trees please?



Ever since Asda painted those red lines across the cycle paths and installed whatever it is that wheel-clamps the trolleys when they cross the line, there always seems to be a trolley obstructing the cycle path. Or four, in the case of this evening.

Also there seems to be an inordinate amount of broken glass on that path today.

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