I've held off from posting about this before as I didn't want to add to the anti cycle lobby but............I was in town yesterday and how narrow the main road now is immediately outside Bailey's (can't remember its new name) where the coaches drop off and pick up was very apparent.
How a bus or a lorry or other large vehicle will be able to go along that road if a coach or coaches are parked up will be an 'interesting' event to witness.
On the other hand perhaps my sense of space is not as it should be.
Still, we'll all be finding out sometime soon.
Will the coaches still be disembarking outside Baileys and if so do people disembark onto the cycle path as I gather the cycle path would be nearest to the road if my understanding of the proposed layout is correct?
@Dil - a good point, from what i've seen the coach passengers would have to cross the new extended section of pavement. i believe this new extended section is for the thousands of cyclists that will beseige our town during the summer with immense amounts of money to spend in dawlish.
Maybe they will be painting small zebra crossings across the new extended section so the cyclists will stop for those passengers disembarking from the coaches. Or are the coaches going to be given a new coach park on the site of the old allotments they have just put the new cycle path along side!
The whole cycle path project is nothing but a complete joke. Tax payers money being wasted on ill conceved schemes just for the sake of it. There has been no traffic monitoring carried out prior to construction so the effects on ease of road use is totally unknown. We need this forthcoming summer season close monitoring of the increase in visitors and financial benifit to the towns traders which have all along formed the justification for these useless paths to nowhere. If none can be proved then the paths need to be ripped up thus restoring the road widths to traffic and the people responsible for their ill thought out conception sacked for incompetence.
Just as an added point of interest, has anyone seen confirmation of any Road Traffic Orders as issued by the department of transport for any of these road changes around Dawlish because if these have not been applied for and approved then anyone who has suffered losses during these works will be entittled to compensation from DCC. Also on a point of safety will local by-laws be put into force making it a legal requirement for cyclists to use the paths where provided and not the road.
At 10am this morning there were 3 coaches in the bays and a double decker bus had a struggle to get past, a large lorry would have been unable to pass.
Well isent this what the cycle path investment is all about . Preventing motorised transport travelling arond and through the town centre. You can bet your life the incompetent, over paid, brainless planners responsible havent a clue how big a coach, lorry or bus actualy is.
Perhaps Stagecoach should consider turning buses around at John Nash Drive and Sandy Lane thus avoiding Dawlish centre all together.
Here's calling all coach operators and Torquay hotels - Dont visit Dawlish until proper safe parking is made available in a sensible place like the train station car park