The ‘duck lanes’ which appeared on some city canal towpaths recently may have seemed like a joke – but there’s a serious message in the Canal & River Trust’s lighthearted publicity campaign: to get cyclists, joggers and other towpath users to slow down and share the available space.
Called ‘Share the space, Drop your pace’, the campaign follows a consultation that identified the key concerns as friction over towpath usage; improvements needed to paths; and poor signage – and is aimed at the first of these issues. CRT is calling on towpath users to ‘share the spice’ and be mindful of other users; to ‘drop your pace’ with pedestrians having priority over cyclists; and to remember that ‘it’s a special place’ with heritage features such as working locks and bridges with limited visibility calling for special care.
The campaign is backed up by CRT’s Better Towpaths for Everyone policy, whose principles include giving priority to the slowest users; towpath designs that recognise historic character and shared use; and acknowledging that the towpath should support the waterspace. See canalrivertrust.org.uk too download the policy.
