The cycling pleasure in Brabant is sometimes ruined by useless posts on the cycle path. In many places, the posts are too close together for panniers to pass through. Or a cycle path is interrupted by gates through which cyclists have to slalom. Very inconvenient, according to several people from Brabant.
“I just can’t get through with my panniers,” says Annie Mallens. She cycles a lot in the Eersel area and regularly takes a detour to avoid posts and gates. For her husband, cycling in the neighborhood is even more difficult.
“He used to cycle fanatically, but this was no longer possible. Now he rides a tricycle to be able to go outside,” she explains. “Recently someone had to lift his bicycle over those fences. That is crazy for words and also a waste of the bicycle.”
“For students it makes no difference.”
She understands that the fences and posts are for safety. Mallens: “Many students cycle here and they shouldn’t just shoot onto the main road. But those young people can go through these gates very quickly, so it makes no difference to them.”
In the meantime, the older residents are bothered by the bicycle gates. “I hear from more people that they cycle around. It really makes going out by bike less fun. A single post in such a place should be enough.”
Not all posts are redundant. Sometimes they have an obvious function to split road directions or obstruct car access. But according to the Fietsersbond in Den Bosch, about half of the posts in that municipality are superfluous. Jeanne van den Boom has experience with this. She often cycles near Den Bosch and encounters many posts.
Van den Boom: “It is a great misery with those things. Then one is a bit on the verge, the other on the cycle path. It may be logical for cars, but for cyclists it is really inconvenient. the head.”
“I broke my collarbone and bruised my shoulder.”
While she is very alert. In 2011 things went wrong when she was sitting on the back of her daughter’s bicycle. In the center of Tilburg they cycled around a bend, where suddenly two posts were close together. The bicycle hooked behind one of the posts and Van den Boom fell off.
“I broke my collarbone and bruised my shoulder badly. I suffered from that for a long time and sometimes I still feel it.” According to her, many posts can simply be removed. “It is often clear enough without posts.”
Kristel Stassen from Mierlo also thinks so. She often cycles from her hometown to Geldrop, a twenty-minute journey. She finds the most difficult places where two posts are just too close together.
Stassen: “I often see cyclists getting off. While the bollards are meant to stop cars.” But they are not allowed to ride on the bike path anyway. “Who the hell makes up those posts? It’s really clear enough. I just want to be able to cycle without getting off.”
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