JNugent writes:

I don't. There is an easy distinction between crossing a footway and
travelling along it. The footways at and immediately around Oxford
Circus are *no* place for cycling, as I'm certain you, being such a
safety-conscious chap, will agree.

To be honest, I waver. Sometimes I scoot my bike while sitting astride
it, other times I dismount. Wheeling a bicycle in a crowd of
pedestrians often seems to confuse them as many expect they can pass
between me and the bicycle (obviously, not possible while I am holding
onto it) whereas they find it easier on the whole to cope when I and the
bike are a "single object", so to speak. Funny how that works.

But the point is largely immaterial, anyway: a bicycle in that mass of
pedestrians is an ungainly object whether wheeled or scooted and I would
much prefer to be able to reenter the roadway as soon as possible. The
railings are preventing me from doing so.

Pedestrianised, eh?

I think you mean only the north end adjoining Oxford Street.

Indeed. The end where the cycle stands are, which is the end point of
my journey. On the assumption that the same authority was responsible
for placing those stands there and for putting up the railings that
prevent convenient access to them from the north, it does demonstrate a
lack of joined up thinking.


-dan