Dear Danny,

Thank you for your further thoughts on this subject. I too am an experienced cyclist who regularly uses the Railway Path for commuting and I and my colleagues are in no doubt that the humps were extremely dangerous for cyclists and that fact was the reason for doing this work.

As you say, there is a need to slow cyclists at this point and the choice is between horizontal measures and vertical ones. The vertical measures (humps) are extremely difficult to see in the dark (even with street lamps) and can even be missed, or misjudged, in the day. Those we have taken out were particularly vicious.

Bollards placed across the Path at 45 degrees (horizontal measures) were chosen because they present little or no obstacle to most bikes including tandems, trikes, recumbents and trailers. Equally importantly, unlike humps, they will not trip pedestrians or make life difficult for wheelchairs. We have even taken account of a tandem recumbent trike which is owned by someone in Bath who wishes to use the Path. You miss the point by saying we have narrowed the Path - the rationale is to create a horizontal deflection which slows cyclists but still allows machines through that are wider than the apparent gap, provided they slow down and steer round the bollards. It is incorrect to say that we have not considered cyclists.

I do not understand your statement that bollards would work better on a wider path where they could be placed further apart. They are very precisely spaced in order to slow cyclists without making them dismount - if they were wider apart they would not work. I suspect that your recumbent machine with wide handlebars is more difficult to steer round the bollards than most bikes and that you personally preferred the humps. We however have to look after the interests of all Path users and we believe there was a serious hazard from the humps which had to be eliminated. They were also an obstacle to disabled users.

Clearly the bollards have to be visible and that was why we illuminated them - unfortunately the local youth did not agree and they were very quickly vandalised. Since my last e-mail to you on 23/10/01 you may be interested to know that I have ordered some new bollards which are white with red reflective tops and will replace all six black bollards (with white and red reflective tops) at this site. This should help to make the bollards more visible to those cyclists who do not have lights until we can hopefully install a street lamp at this busy crossing point as the ideal solution.

Please get in touch if you have any more queries.

Regards
John Richfield