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Street marking seems a fairly straightforward task, but two freshly painted bike lanes in the UK have locals scratching their heads.
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Biggleswade Today |
| Cyclists rule the center of Stotfold Road, in Arlesey, England. The bike lane was supposed to have been painted on the side of the road. |
In what the Daily Mail calls “the dumbest cycle lane in Britain,” a painting crew that was apparently too busy to wait for parked cars to be moved from the side of the road decided instead to paint the bicycle lane down the the street's center.
‘Epic Fail’
“Dopey workmen,” the newspaper said, painted the large white bicycle symbols in the center of Stotfold Road in Arlesey, Bedfordshire.
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Reprinted with permission |
| As Roy Scheider might have said, you’re going to need a smaller bike to fit in the eight-foot bike line in Exeter, Devon, England. |
The local council has declined to comment on the paint job, but a cyclist who lives on the street has vented vigorously.
“The National Cycle Network Route 12 runs through this area, and I think these symbols have been added to the road to bring more cyclists to the area,” Pete Holland told Associated Newspapers.
“But it’s so strange to see them in the middle rather than at the side.”
The Mirror News called the paint job “a blunder.”
Holland called it an “epic fail” that could have been prevented by notifying residents to move their cars.
“Now, we have these random signs in the middle of our road, and if they do move them, it will be taxpayers’ money that’s used to make the changes.”
Another neighbor, who did not want to be identified, told reporters: “It’s a complete waste of money.”
Life in the Short Lane
In Exeter, Devon, meanwhile, officials are defending the painting of an eight-foot bike lane that has confused area residents.
The green painted strip is on a busy main road.
“What’s the point of it?” cyclist Paul Kavanagh, 42, asked the Daily Mail. “The first thing I thought was, ‘What on earth is that?’ It doesn’t make much sense.”
Officials say the itsy-bitsy bike lane is no mistake. They say its purpose is to alert cyclists to another cycle lane across a nearby canal.
‘It’s the start of a cycle path which continues off the road to join the dedicated cycle paths along the flood relief channel and across the Exe Bridges,” a spokesman for Highways Authority Devon County Council told the Daily Mail.
“The stretch of green highlights to cyclists travelling along Okehampton Road that they can join the dedicated off-road cycle path safely at the drop curb.
“The drop curb entrance to the cycle path would be easily missed by cyclists if there was nothing on the road to indicate where it started.”
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