THE recently opened cycle/footway along the causeway to Barry Island is indeed “a mess”, but it’s untrue that cyclists don’t want any of it and don’t use it.

Family groups and child cyclists do need it to get to and from Barry Island and do use it. Far better for other residents and trippers than using cars, whose sheer numbers bedevil the resort.

Experienced cyclists have every right to use the roadway and may prefer that to jumping off the road for short stretches, then meeting delays and risks when rejoining the carriageway.

Coming from Barry Island, cyclists want a contraflow cycleway up to Broad Street. The over-wide roadway could easily and cheaply take it, but the council ignored our repeated request for it and omitted even the crossing light on the third arm of the improved Ship junction.

The bigger “mess-up” is where the shared path in your picture comes to an abrupt end (apart from the hazardous option of down the slope into the car park) for cycling on to the Island. Abrupt ending with no signing of a safe and legal continuation is a no-no under the Active Travel legislation.

The short on-road lead-in lane should become instead a continuous two-way lane right round to the frontage to the Paget Road shops, with a pedestrian/cycle crossing near the fairground (again an over-wide roadway).

The third mess-up is permitting 40mph speeds on the Causeway.

The Active Travel legislation says speeds on roads with roadside and on-road cycle lanes preferentially have a 20mph limit, certainly not more than 30mph. Then two-abreast club cyclists would not significantly delay Barry Evans and fellow Island residents, who had become naturally accustomed to the lower limit.

Fourthly, the walkway just plunges into the car park, instead of being extended along the harbour-edge through to Friars Point. Little construction is needed – use the grass verge as long as it’s kept tidy and cars are kept from parking there.

If the council’s consultative cycling forum had been re-formed, as we were promised last year by Cllr Lis Burnett, much of the mess caused by leaving detailed decisions to officers with limited knowledge of cycling practice and legislation might have been avoided.

Max Wallis

Westbourne Road

Penarth