Cycling in Wrocław - it's not exactly Amsterdam

I highlighted some nice infrastructure that Wrocław has to offer earlier. The bad is that such infrastructure is neither perfect nor consistent. I haven't had to look hard for examples for this post, unfortunately.

When the going gets tough - the cycle lanes get going

Firstly, and most crucially, the segregated lanes frequently give up when you need them most. Coming into the city centre there is decent segregated infrastructure that comes to an abrupt end from a few directions.

Coming from the West (on Kazimierza Wielkiego), this lane gives up on you to make way for a third lane of traffic. Notice the cyclist in the photo, who (just after I took the photo) hopped onto the pavement instead of joining three lanes of traffic. I'd do the same, frankly.

Left turn lane prioritised over cycle safety here

(See Street View for a better view of this)

Coming from the South (along Grabiszyńska), there are some OK cycle lanes, to here where there's clearly no room for any cycle infrastructure. Just look at how narrow these roads are!

Cycling paths taking me round the corner, but the city's straight ahead

No, taking me to a parked car and a no cycling sign

Just after the cycling path ends there's room for on pavement parking and three lanes of traffic

And a little further towards town, no room for cyclists here

Elsewhere on Grabiszyńska, the cycle path reverts to shared use in places and is on some horrible surfaces at others.

Four lanes for traffic, shared use for cyclists and pedestrians

Shared use and rubbish surface - no room for a smooth dedicated cycle track here

Finally for Grabiszyńska, the cycle track swaps side of the road, and to legally cross you must wait at three sepatare red/green signals. It can take as long as 4 minutes to cross all three if you're unlucky (yes, I timed it). We'd never ask motorists to wait at three light phases, so why cyclists (and pedestrians)? It frequently feels like being a second class citizen.

No room for continued path on this side of the road, must swap sides taking upto 4 minutes waiting at red lights

Another major street in the city, ul. Świdnicka, there is some comically painted bikes on the road. Not even an advisory lane. As you can see, there'd be no room for high quality Dutch style infrastructure here.

Braving it on ul. Świdnicka

It seems like planners are willing to take the easy decisions, but ultimately not take away space from motor vehicles. You'll never create a significant modal share, nor a cycling culture, this way

Infrastructure from Hell

Advance Stop Lines. These have been covered extensively by other blogs (probably never better than here). They're somewhere between useless and worse than useless. It's no surprise that most cyclists on this road are to be found on the pavement.

Fancy trying to share this three-lane junction with a bendy-bus? No, me neither.

Useless infrastructure. Why bother?

Lanes too narrow to be usable. Difficult to pass one other cyclist, imagine the ambition in building this?

Not a great surface, and so narrow

And conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians

Good luck giving way to pedestrians coming out of the park - no way to see them until it's too late

Similarly, there's an exit from the park round this blind corner. No better place for the cycle path here.

Signage - Where is It?

Spot the sign for cyclists in this photo.

Excellent signage, but where?

No? Here you go.

Ah, there it is. But what does it mean?

Ah, the R9. Could you imagine if motorists were provided with rubbish like this? No destination, no number of kilometres, no times, just R9. Useless. I need to be able to get on my bike and go to where I want. Normal people don't go on the Internet or check a route map to find out where the R9 goes before they set out, and nor should they. Lack of signage has landed me on a fast and busy dual carriageway (when the path I was on came to a sudden end), but a parallel road had a continuing path. I had no way of knowing this. Motorists don't have to tolerate this, neither should cyclists. This stuff is comparatively easy to fix, an absolute no-brainer.

I think it's fair to say that Wrocław may have some stuff right, and it's certainly better than many UK cities, but it has a long way to go to.

Cycling in Wrocław, Poland - Let's start with the positives

We hear a lot about cycling in Europe - Denmark, Germany and, of course, The Netherlands. I'm currently living in Wrocław in South West Poland; it's not exactly known as a cycling nirvana internationally. I'm going to write a few posts on cycling here, the good and bad (there's a fair amount of both).

Since this is the first post on a new blog, I'm going to start out with three big positives.

1) Wrocław has a decent number of cyclists. It's no Amsterdam, but I've seen all sorts of people on all sorts of bkes. Lots of really practical Dutch-style bikes, lots of women and older cyclists. Very few people wear helmets or Lycra and I've seen no-one with illuminous clothing so far. Cycling doesn't seem to be any kind of statement, just a means of transport.

2) There is some really nice, if somewhat patchy, segregated cycling infrastructure.

Great example of a 'floating' bus stop

Priority over side roads (I assume...)

Cyclists separated from pedestrians and cars here

Nice continuity of the path over this junction

The above pictures were taken on a ride from the city centre, to a shopping centre about 5km out of town. There's also an excellent segregated path to the Airport (about 10km from the centre) and a fair few more dotted around.

There are a good number of so-called 'floating' bus stops, avoiding conflict with pedestrians (common elsewhere in Europe and soon to be trialled in London - see Evening Standard

3) There's a decent cycle-hire scheme, run by NextBike. It has around 30 docking stations and use for upto 20 minutes is completely free (no access charge as in London). After 20 minutes the tariff is very reasonable. The scheme is simple to use (there are machines at each docking station and there's an excellent mobile webstite/smartphone app). Bikes are locked and unlocked using a simple 4-digit code on the lock. Unlike London's scheme, if a dock is full you can simply chain your bike to another so you're never stuck with your bike. There's a guide to the system in English at Wrocław Uncut  and some usage stats at here . 

However, in terms of overall cyclists in Wrocław, Nextbike users are a pretty small proportion (I'd hazard a guess at 5%). In terms of a cycling revolution, cycle hire is always going to be on the periphery.

Docking station next to the entrance of a major shopping centre

The machines are a little fiddly, but you can use a smartphone app instead