For Castle Hill & Epping Rd cyclists

[CommuRider]

In today's SMH letters

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/ ... 1jshz.html

Cycling madness

I am a cyclist. I am also a Sydney bus driver and, of course, a car driver (''For cyclists, a metre matters as much as life itself'', September 3-4).

What I would like to see added in articles such as yours is a challenge to cyclists to use commonsense. Where is the saving to the environment when 30, 40, 50 or more cars or trucks have to brake and re-accelerate around a single cyclist? For example, on the 80 km/h zone of Epping Road last week and on Castle Hill Road almost any day.

Please help get bikes off major thoroughfares. They are costing us all in fuel, in hassle and in tolerance of cyclists. I always give cyclists a metre or more. I don't want even a pest cyclist injured. But please ask cyclists to remember cars and heavy vehicles do not have the same swerving and braking capabilities cyclists have. I love riding my bike as all cyclists do, but it is pure selfishness and bastardry to ride on major traffic routes. And it is dangerous.

Jim Orman Castle Hill

M2 closure? Lack of infrastructure? Yes, blame the desperate cyclists from the northwest who have had to put up with no public transport.

[familyguy]

I 'kind of like, kind of don't like' this. Motorists with no vested interest (unlike the writer) don't see the removal of infrastructure that has led to this. Nor do they see or particularly understand the lack of foresight and planning in provided infrastructure (numerous cycle ways with stops, starts, obstacles, etc). I also have a thing about 'there's a time and a place', and high-use main roads in peak hour are generally neither the time nor the place. There are the unavoidable links that must be made to connect a journey. It will be interesting to see any boganic vitriol in agreement, in any case.

Jim

[queequeg]

For Epping Rd, I can understand his point. Except for the downhill section of the bus lane, outside of peak hour, I stick to the SUP. However, this is mostly in a 60km/h zone. Once you get past Lane Cove Rd, the path magically vanishes. So, you have two options on a bicycle: 1) illegally ride on the footpath, or 2) legally, but questionably, ride the ups and downs of Epping Rd in the 80km/h zone.

Castle Hill Rd is entirely another matter. It is two lanes each way, it is a 60km/h zone, and there is no other alternative (unless you are illegally riding on the footpath). In the morning peak hour, Castle Hill Rd is fine. The cars are barely moving anyway. The only thing that makes it dangerous is motorists who don't know how to drive!