Granby Street, in Leicester UK, is a one way street that features a Mandatory Contraflow Cycle Lane. It has fallen into a serious state of disrepair over the last few years due to a lack of regular maintenance. The road surface has disintegrated and the road markings have all but worn away. It is like cycling off-road.
I have been informed by Leicestershire Police that the Mandatory Contraflow Cycle Lane is in such a state of disrepair that they can no longer legally enforce it as, you guessed it, a Mandatory Contraflow Cycle Lane.
Finally, at the beginning of January 2024, Leicester City Council began re-modelling the southern section of Granby Street.
So far, the Leicester City Council have removed the separation wands from about half of the Mandatory Contraflow Cycle Lane; they have converted a number of nested parking bays into pavement; and they have begun work on turning part of the Mandatory Contraflow Cycle Lane into a chicane so that large vehicles can swing out of a side road without swinging into oncoming cyclists.
However, in April 2024, the work stopped. I queried this and was told that work would resume in August 2024. A four month gap.
As things stand:
1) The separation wands on the Mandatory Contraflow Cycle Lane have not been replaced, meaning that large vehicles are now driving head on at people on bicycles, as demonstrated in the video.
2) The new chicane section is unfinished; half of the new section has no surface and the other half is an old severely degraded surface with hastily painted white lines that connect the new section to the old cycle lane. As I state in the video, it is an unrideable spoke breaker.
3) The chicane is located at a small side road that gives access a car park, and there are no Give Way road markings. This means vehicles enter and exit the side road without looking out for people on bicycles.
Many cyclists, including myself, now avoid the chicane altogether and cycle along the main oncoming carriageway instead. It’s safer and does less damage to my eBicycle.