I have to ride over this bridge, better known as the Victoria Road death trap, twice a day. Yes, it is better than having to cross Victoria Road, which is 4 lanes in each direction of dickheads who are either in a hurry to get to work or to get home. But it is not much better.
This photo shows the ramp on one side. Note how the designer has thoughtfully included some stairs for pedestrians so that they can get to the bus stop a bit faster than going down the ramp.
Just one problem - if you lose your brakes coming down the ramp (and it is quite steep, sharply curved and narrow), then the only place to go is straight down a steep flight of stairs and straight onto Victoria Road. It is the stupidest bit of design work I have ever seen. RTA engineers put loads of effort into building run-off zones for trucks when they lose their brakes, and they do their best to build roads with low gradients and gently sweeping bends, but when it comes to bikes, only the crap will do.
Trouble is, the only way to beat this into the thick skull of an RTA engineer is to superglue him to a bike with no brakes, wheel him to the top of this footbridge and let him go.
Well, it wouldn't teach him a lesson, but there would be one less idiot putting out CO2.
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