Every day, when I cycle to the British Library, I cycle along Goodsway, behind Kings Cross station and approaching the bridge under the new Eurostar line. The road and junction got renovated with the completion of the Eurostar line recently. Taxi ranks run alongside the station.
As you can see, there’s a cycle lane, leading to an ASL bay before the lights. But taxi drivers seem to have decided that they will sit in the cycle lane and ASL bay rather than stay in the car lane. Why? Because they’re all turning left. And it kind of makes sense as few cyclists are turning left here – it means the taxis don’t have to turn left across the cyclists going straight on.
But….. it leaves no cycle lane !!!
I don’t know exactly why it pisses me off (okay – only mildly, but, nonetheless!). Is it because the taxi drivers are in the cycle lane making my approach to that junction more dangerous when there’s a fair amount of traffic? Is it because whoever put the cycle lane there didn’t think through the fact that cyclists would be going straight on and taxis turning left, and so this behaviour would be inevitable? Is it because so many cycle lanes are just generally ill thought through and don’t achieve what they should?
Probably all of the above !!!
Does this irritate you?
