Y Safle

(The title is Welsh for “Kind to nature, unkind to people”).

In a recent badly thought out cyclists-against-the-world rant, the writer of the Caredig i Nature blog (we will call him CIN) said about Plascrug avenue, a route where he would like to ban children from using the safest route so that cyclists could be afforded exclusive use (and to which an anonymous poster said “Having a go at school staff for walking their pupils to and from the leisure centre along the safest route is not going to get my sympathy vote. “):

We disagree on the safest route and are unlikely to come to an agreement. So be it. In the interests of investigating further one of the Aberystwyth contacts passed that way a few times today. Amongst their comments they said:

“Twice during the day there was no traffic at all (well, one car at one point). Definitely not a main road. Only at one time was there lots of vehicles, and that was at school hoem time. Then it was chocker, with parents blocking each other in and dashing out impatiently when they could. It definitely felt like the children’s parents were the real danger.”

This “investigation” does not have the ring of truth. No cars at any point? I think I spend more time in the Avenue than CIN, and there are always cars. As for the school pickup time – yes the avenue gets full then because three schools disgorge onto the junction with Llanbadarn road, and a tail back forms every day. Nevertheless I do not recognise the “dashing out impatiently”. Only those illegally parked up by Ysgol Gymraeg do that (and thats a timy minority even there).

So in the interests of a somewhat more scientific poll, I have just conducted a traffic survey. I took my lunch at Plascrug Avenue (at the exact location the CIN writer photographed children on a school activity and published the pictures to the web without permission – against NSPCC guidelines).

Here are the results:

Survey period: 12.40pm – 13.10pm (30 minutes) on Monday 14 November 2011

The count is of the number of vehicles or people who passed my survey point. Thus it is a count of traffic at that point, not of unique people. Many vehicles will have been counted twice because they turned at the roundabout and came back (usually after dropping people off or picking people up). Likewise I saw many pedestrians travelling both directions. There were exactly 2 unique cyclists. One of these chose to ride on the road, and only one was observed cycling on the pavement on which cycling is permitted.

So let’s be clear about our results: Pedestrians are the largest users of the Avenue, but are closely followed by motor vehicles. The CIN writer wishes all those pedestrians to take a route that puts them in potential conflict with all those motor vehicles so that he, and he alone, can make use of the cycle path.

To be fair, at school leaving and arrival times, many more people ride bikes on that path. But then, none of them are complaining about all those hundreds of troublesome pedestrians.

Finally, CIN said:

As such it seems like the safest option would be to block off that whole road to traffic (apart from emergency vehicles). It is unlikely to happen though – imagine the outburst if people had to walk!

An outcry indeed as at least two families would have to remove their children from the school because the parents are disabled and cannot bring them any more. Many more parents would have to brave the bridge where a school child was run down by a cyclist who ignored the instruction to dismount and rode into her because she could not hear his bell (being deaf). But the biggest nonsense here is this:

If CIN thinks vehicle users should walk in the avenue, why does he not set an example and dismount until he is past all the people? Imagine the outburst if a cyclist was expected to walk.

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