Getting around Ely

Yesterday, I took Alex and Reuben in the trailer with Leon cycling himself across town to Nana's, we came down Lynn road and turned off the main roads to avoid the Lamb junction and St Mary's Road area as it was midday on a Saturday and rammed with traffic. The turning with Downham Road and West Fen Road is the most hair raising, you are turning right on the outside of a corner, as you signal and head for the middle of the road you realise that actually you are on the other side of the road facing oncoming traffic and you have to go right round the bend to see if there is any oncoming traffic before turning onto West Fen. Either that or you bottle it and turn early onto the wrong side of the road and hope that there's nothing there in the way. Not sure what could be done to make it safer apart from moving it! Possibly a mini roundabout, actually would make it easier; it would stop cars coming round that bend so fast as they would have to stop because you've changed the right of way to the vehicles turning into West Fen. Then West Fen Road, barely wide enough for cars in both directions is littered with parked cars on one side so I needed the entire road. The on coming cars politely waited as we came through and I thanked them. Ely backstreets are a series of narrow lanes with parked cars on one side or the other and relies on politeness and consideration so the drivers are usually very good. I've come up against drivers on the wrong side coming up with me on the left who've motioned I should get up on the pavement to let them through. I don't mind back streets as the narrowness and amount of obstacles means that cars have to go slowly and I have the best visibility being up on a bike anyway.
We got to Nana's fine, Leon talking about why there are so many parked cars everywhere and what would happen to the houses if cars went really fast and bashed into the houses. He made up this amazing scenario with one house on a bend where they'd all sat down for lunch and a car came crashing into their living room! I did try and point out that on the back streets, cars travel nice and slowly so they generally don't crash into people's houses.
Later that afternoon I took Reuben and Alex in the trailer down to Pocket Park and Leon stayed with Tobe at Nana's. Alex's parents took Alex's and Reuben's little bikes down in the back of their car and parked in the Fisherman's carpark, I had the two boys in the trailer and we cycled into town, got an ice cream on the market place and cycled down Forehill, into Willow Walk and through the Fisherman's carpark which is the only access into the park with a trailer. I parked the bike up against a bench next to the baby swings (which meant we couldn't sit on the bench) and we sat on the picnic mat I brought in the trailer. I can't lean the bike against anything else there, there will be bike stands soon.
Reuben and Alex got on their little bikes and cycled round the circular path a few times as well as playing in the park which was pleasantly busy with lots of kids and families. Pocket park is a great place to get little kids on their bikes and let them cycle without fear from cars. We left just before tea and I took Reuben on the back of my bike and put his bike in the trailer while Alex went home with his parents in their car. I cycled back through the fisherman's carpark, up to Willow Walk and right onto Lisle Lane. I cycled all the way up to Prickwillow Road without getting off and walking which is easy without the trailer but with Reuben on the back and a trailer with a bike in I was quite proud of myself! Quite often I've walked it with the trailer, so I must be getting fitter (I did have the wind behind me too). I've found a nice short cut through the back of High Barnes using an alleyway that leads out onto Bentham Way so I can miss most of Kings Avenue on the way home. Ely is a town where I've never found so many streets with the same name; they are more like areas with multiple side roads of the same name than streets, Beresford Road, Columbine Road, High Barns, Kings Avenue, Odds this bit, evens somewhere completely different. I would hate to be an Ambulance looking for the right number.
Cycling round Ely is pretty good, it's small and accessible, only a couple of hills. There's really only the lack of bike parking in certain places and having the guts to behave like a vehicle rather than seeing yourself as in the way of the cars. The roads are there for cycling and driving, they are used to being held up by tractors, other cars and so on so one more Mum with a trailer and a five year old shouldn't be a problem.
If anything I get more smiles and Ahhh's as I ride through Ely than expressions that I take to mean 'you are nuts - how can you subject your children to such risks' I know that statistically their car in an accident can no more protect their kids than my trailer. I ride in a way that there is little possibility of not being seen and I wouldn't dream of taking the trailer on 60 mph roads. In a car, if our lovely safe Mazda 5 was hit at 70mph on the A14 it would be more luck than the quality of our car or car seats whether any of us survived. People think their cars and car seats are safe but kids seats are only tested at 30mph and results at 60-80mph show a very different picture.
I know where I stand on my bike, I control things and I know what I can and can't do, I'm rarely doing more than 10mph anyway. As a passenger in a car barrelling down the A14 at 60mph I have no control and I know that if something were to happen, that might well be the end of this part of the Jones Family. Driving or at least being in a car for me relies on alot of faith and, if I'm honest I have to accept that it's the most dangerous thing in my life. People still see my cycling as the riskiest part. It really isn't!!! They are making driving as safe as they possibly can, now it's time to make using the roads perceivably as safe as possible for all users.
What I would love to see is a more nurturing nature to the roads so nervous cyclists have space and know where to go plus all A roads and main heavy traffic roads need a cycle path/route next to it or close by so that you can travel between towns and villages without being overtaken at 60mph or worse knocked off/killed by 'sorry I didn't see you (because I was texting/changing the CD/lighting a cigarette)'.