More stupid places to ride a bike

My ride home takes me through Pyrmont and over the ANZAC Bridge. For some reason last week, I decided to look for a different route through Pyrmont. Not that there are many - the Star City casino is in Pyrmont and it takes up a big slab of land, and the Pyrmont peninsular is not that big.

I wanted to try a different route as there is one corner that I just hate crossing on the way home. It's an odd corner - on the way to work, it is fine. But on the way home, it is a nightmare. It's hard to explain without sitting you on a bike and getting you to do it yourself, but it is a spot that shows up the oddities of cycling. The problem is that you come off the Darling Harbour footbridge, which is designed for pedestrian traffic, and have to cross at a set of lights that have been setup for pedestrians and cars, but not cyclists.

I guess when they set this thing up, not many people were riding that way. However, I think the last census showed that cycling has grown by something like 600% or something silly on my route, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

I really don't want to get knocked down on this particular corner, so I have been deviating down around Star City and checking out the alternative streets. They aren't much better, partly because of the idiot taxi drivers that hang around the casino. Them aside, I found a doozie last week - there is a bike path that takes you to the ANZAC Bridge, but it traverses a fairly steep hill. In their wisdom, the engineers who designed it have put in steps for pedestrians, and a path for cyclists. The two are intertwined, and the path is not wide enough for a pedestrian and cyclsts to get past each other. I doubt two pedestrians could pass without them turning sideways.

That's just part of the run. The path twists and turns and actually has two U-turns in it, and the turns are so tight, you have to unclip from the pedals to get around them.

Once again, some dopey council can say that they have invested in a bike path, but it is a big waste of money. I just wish these idiots would build things properly instead of coming up with a half baked design that satisfies no one.