Beauty and the Bike

[dellzeqq]

the MK Redway system is really sad. It was a visionary sort of effort, and I remember cycling up there from Waddesdon just to try it. It was really difficult to find....anyway the last time I rode through MK a really nasty fat-faced item leant out of the car window and told me to get off the road and on to the cycle path. Typical.

One of the many striking things about the growth of cycling in London is that it's been on the very roads (over 10,000 vehicle movements a day) that the DfT believes should have seperate cycle paths. The A24, the A3, the A12, the A2, the Embankment, and so on. Those cyclists, eh?

 

[Baggy]

That's a staggeringly arrogant post actually, particularly as it is directed at people who have spent a considerable amount of time looking at what works and what doesn't, including looking at the evidence of what other countries do differently. And there is vastly more to the difference between Britain and the Netherlands than simply the provision of segregated cycle routes. Have you heard of Home Zones? Have you heard of Shared Space? Have you considered other factors, like planning policy, urban density, use of public transport? Speed limits on roads? Priorities? Liabilities? I could go on.

In post 20, Nipper agreed I had a point in saying the Netherlands etc had maintained their cycling culture, whereas in the UK we have not, that there is excellent public transport, blah, and that it's not, therefore, all down to infrastructure. The focus of subsequent posts then immediately returned to infrastructure.

The Netherlands, Germany, France etc all have utility cyclists and also have a strong road racing and riding culture, and they will have used the roads long before there was infrastructure.

Ninety three percent rode a bike last week, but they haven't had a cycling Renaissance, they just haven't embraced the car like we have in the UK and haven't sidelined bicycles. That percentage fugure has probably been the same for decades. Cycling and cyclists are respected, and that's the key difference.

If it was as simple as providing segregated infrastructure, Milton Keynes would be teeming with cyclists. But it's not.

 

[Baggy]

the MK Redway system is really sad. It was a visionary sort of effort, and I remember cycling up there from Waddesdon just to try it. It was really difficult to find....

Each time I visit MK I admire the effort that the planners went to in providing so many trees, so much green space, Redways, footpaths...and wonder where the hell all the people are. Sadly the answer seems to be that they are in their cars and in the shopping centre.

 

[style over speed]

If it was as simple as providing segregated infrastructure, Milton Keynes would be teeming with cyclists. But it's not.

the infrastructure needs constant attention to what works and what doesn't. Improvements, maintenance and investment. Read the copenhagnize blog for some fresh ideas.

They haven't stood still for the last 20 years, its been an ongoing process of building more infrastructure and taking road space away from cars and from car parking. Things have evolved and cycling levels increased.

If, as a previous poster says, MK bike lanes have been abandoned to decay with minimal maintenance and no improvements or growth to the network then it is quite obvious that bike use will fall.

It amazes me how narrow minded the vehicular cyclists are, Holland is so close and easy to get to but it might as well be the other side of the world for all their ignorance of the place.

I long for the day that the engineers from Denmark will be seconded to work here, and all our current road planners fired.

 

[Baggy]

If, as a previous poster says, MK bike lanes have been abandoned to decay with minimal maintenance and no improvements or growth to the network then it is quite obvious that bike use will fall.

It amazes me how narrow minded the vehicular cyclists are, Holland is so close and easy to get to but it might as well be the other side of the world for all their ignorance of the place.

I long for the day that the engineers from Denmark will be seconded to work here, and all our current road planners fired.

Bike use in MK fell before the network fell into decay, and was nothing like as high as envisaged in the first place.

Holland is marvellous, and shocking as it may seem I've even ridden a bike there, but what I've repeatedly said and am not going to say again is that it's like that because of its culture and mindset, both of which are very different to the UK - it's not just about infrastructure.

The pro-car lobby here is stronger than it has ever been in Holland, Denmark etc so unless we have a very brave and progressive govt voted in we need to focus on increasing all types of cycling by tackling some of the multiple factors that stop people getting on their bike in the first place, which are also about culture and mindset and not just about infrastructure.

Numbers might then grow to the point where the govt wants to invest in road planning that's more bike centric, and where infrastructure in the shape of paths is actually bike-friendly. Hopefully it will also mean that cyclists on the road are respected.

I might be a vehicular cyclist, but I'm also a utility cyclist and leisure pootler.

 

[Nipper]

the infrastructure needs constant attention to what works and what doesn't. Improvements, maintenance and investment. Read the copenhagnize blog for some fresh ideas.

They haven't stood still for the last 20 years, its been an ongoing process of building more infrastructure and taking road space away from cars and from car parking. Things have evolved and cycling levels increased.

If, as a previous poster says, MK bike lanes have been abandoned to decay with minimal maintenance and no improvements or growth to the network then it is quite obvious that bike use will fall.

It amazes me how narrow minded the vehicular cyclists are, Holland is so close and easy to get to but it might as well be the other side of the world for all their ignorance of the place.

I long for the day that the engineers from Denmark will be seconded to work here, and all our current road planners fired.

Indeed Style Over Speed. I am not sure what the misunderstanding is with these chaps; it's so simple but they don't seem to get it. I think they fear losing the right to battle with the traffic as they speed along at 20+mph. The need is to get cars off the roads and replace the journeys with bikes, these chaps don't seem to realise that most people do not want to share a small bit of road with fast moving lumps of metal.

Today I took my daughter to a birthday party, I used a trailer and rode on a traffic calmed road, some cycle path and a bit of pavement. The paths needed resurfacing, the on road parking needed to be removed, and I needed a bit of extra path to replace the pavement part, BUT, I did not have to ride along the main road with cars and HGVs travelling at 30-40mph. I would never take my child on a fast moving road with tons of metal, being operated by morons.

Just because the bike lanes are not the best doesn't mean I want to share my journey with cars. If the cycle paths/traffic calming were of the standard found in Holland I am sure I would not have been the only parent to arrive by bike. Indeed the journey was of less than 2 miles and everyone else travelled by car (about 20 cars). A well maintained safe cycle path would surely have encouraged a few others out of their cars.

There are some journeys I can't make with my children because the only route is along main roads, with no pavement or cycle path. I would love to take my children to their grandparents but I can't because there is only a main road with lorries and cars doing 60mph. I simply could not do this with my 4 year old daughter in a trailer.

The planners over here think that by doing nothing, or throwing in the odd ASL they are helping cyclists. They say, we asked the cyclists and it's what they want, they don't want separate cycle paths. The thing is we are not going to see a modal share that will actually make a difference unless we follow the countries that have got it right.

BTW Cool bicycle in your avatar!

 

[Nipper]

I might be a vehicular cyclist, but I'm also a utility cyclist and leisure pootler.

Do You have children? See my above post.

 

[Norm]

the infrastructure needs constant attention to what works and what doesn't. Improvements, maintenance and investment. Read the copenhagnize blog for some fresh ideas.

Whilst I think that the infrastructure leaves plenty of room for improvement, I think the bigger hurdle is social / cultural.

My wife happily rides horses, throws chainsaws around, heck, she even walks a dog but she will not ride a bike and doesn't like the idea of my kids riding the 4 miles into town with me. She had a go at me yesterday because my daughter and I cycled home from school along the roads rather than using the bridleways. Gee, how could I be so irresponsible.

Dedicated cycle paths would help but, unless every route we could ever envisage taking was covered by a bike track, the "it's unsafe" attitude will prevail.

 

[dellzeqq]

I see there's a concerted effort to brand people as 'vehicular cyclists'. It's not going to fly. Most of the people who post on this forum have a fair idea of each others way of doing things, and describing somebody who does the grocery shopping on a Brompton as a 'vehicular cyclists' doing '20+' just invites ridicule.

Nipper - time has passed you by. Twenty years ago the LCC started campaigning for bike lanes. Londoners spent over £140million on LCN+. As a board member of the LCC said to me a year or two back, Londoners would be entitled to ask for their money back. All those wiggly green lines on the map, and the wretched cyclists, of all descriptions, insist on pootling up the main roads.......

Keith Hill, my MP and a former minister said to me 'Simon, I've signed orders for tens of millions of pounds of cycle lanes and I don't know whether they've done a bit of good'. And he's got a point. Sustrans have covered the country with green wiggly lines, but cycling hasn't taken off as a result.

Norm's hit a large nail on the head. We have a culture problem. In London, or rather in some parts of London, and in Oxford and Cambridge cycling has achieved a critical mass, and there does now seem to be no way we'll go back to the seventies, when those of us who cycled around the Elephant and Castle could dine out on it for months afterwards. I think (and I'm willing to listen to argument on this) that culture is generated by neccessity and convenience and sustained by politics. We're very fortunate in London in that neccessity, convenience and politics combine to make cycling the most pleasant way (mornings like this one excepted) to do the ordinary things like commuting and shopping. That's where the hope lies, although it's clearly going to take something radical to convince people in rural areas that it's neccessary and convenient to ride a bike.

The big problem in this country is that for the last fifty years we've built for the car. Bypasses, out of town d-i-y stores, large supermarkets and retail parks all conspire to make car ownership and use convenient. The planning profession still don't get it - they're still demanding car spaces be put in to new development and still looking to out of town shopping to generate prosperity. That, I'm afraid, is where the big challenge lies. Our town centres and high streets have been dehumanised and impoverished by town planners and (sorry, Jonesy) transport planners alike, and we've lost the congeniality that walking and cycling affords.

Good luck with the bike lanes in Taunton. Let us know when they're built and we'll all come down and ride around them for a day. In the mean time, weather or not, I've a date with the A24.

 

[MartinC]

Insisting that there's one reason why people don't cycle in the UK is far too simplistic. In my view the biggest factor is cultural - but that's an aggregation of many things anyway.

If infrastructure is the key only?) thing then why are there so many cyclists in China?

In the Netherlands there's lots of separate cycling infrastructure, lots of infrastucture cyclists share with pedestrians and lots of infrastructure where cyclists share with cars. Separate infrastructure does have a place but the civilised operation of shared space is crucial - and that's what's missing in the UK.

Cycling apartheid hasn't been tried anywhere in the world but gets promoted in the UK and US. This comes from the cutural bias against cycling in these places even when the promoter cycles themselves.

 

[summerdays]

I've got kids and they make some of the journeys on road with traffic - the eldest and youngest are generally OK (the middle one has always had problems with coping with traffic - I'm always surprised she passed her Level 2 Bikeability). The youngest I'm sure will do fine in a couple of year time when he does his Bikeability if he hasn't learnt too many bad habits by then - he is confident on non-main road traffic, he regularly has to pass JCB's, dumper trucks, lorries etc every day on his route to school and he is 8. He cycled on the path mostly up to last year and now has progressed to the road. Its much easier now we don't have to stop at every side road to get anywhere.

Now I wouldn't expect every 8 year old to be confident to cycle on the road - like I said his 12 year old sibling isn't brilliant even now. There is even one child in year 6 that cycles to school on the road without an adult (after several years of doing it with a parent). This is in the city but on quieter side roads, but clogged with parents dropping off their kids by car - because it isn't safe to let them walk to school!!!! (All those cars you know!!).

I think that we do need to build some off road cycle routes - its how quite a few come to cycling, for leisure, with their family. However I think eventually when those cyclists become more confident then they prefer the quicker pace on the road. We haven't got the space in cities to allow for loads of new cycle paths.

Where I think cycle paths are needed is to create useful short cuts for cyclists where cars can't go and to iron out some of the contours. They have recently widened a old footpath which runs on a shallow gradient and allows me to avoid a steep hill and a motorway roundabout and provides a nice break from the traffic. I don't have a problem doing the other way - its just more effort and less pleasant - I enjoy my couple of mins along a green corridor.

We want as many cycling as possible so I think the different types of cyclists should accept each other and that they have different desires. That leisure cyclist who only ever rides on the path, might be in the car behind you in the road and give you that extra bit of room in passing.

 

[dellzeqq]

Where I think cycle paths are needed is to create useful short cuts for cyclists where cars can't go and to iron out some of the contours. They have recently widened a old footpath which runs on a shallow gradient and allows me to avoid a steep hill and a motorway roundabout and provides a nice break from the traffic. I don't have a problem doing the other way - its just more effort and less pleasant - I enjoy my couple of mins along a green corridor.

I think this is the way to go, and Homezones, which are bits of suburb that cannot easily be traversed by car, are one way of achieving this. Closing off one end of a residential street to cars, and allowing pedestrians and cylists to go through makes city streets safer for all of us. Why, we might even see children playing in the street again!

 

[wafflycat]

There is plenty of evidence that it is all about infrastructure, the Dutch and the Danish haven't built their separated cycle networks on a whim. They actually researched what works and built infrastructure accordingly. The level of cycling in Oxford, Cambridge and London while improved is still nothing like the levels of cycling in Holland.

To quote David Hembrow, "In attempting to grow cycling, Britain seems willing to try almost anything other than the only thing that actually works - which is... building proper infrastructure for cycling."

I am not talking about piss poor gravel paths or pavement paths but real separated infrastructure, look at Hembrow's blog and you will soon get the idea. http://hembrow.blogspot.com/

It is hard for you to admit you're wrong and have been all your life, especially when the answer to increased cycling is so bloody obvious; copy the Dutch! It is a bit like not noticing the stars in the night sky because you never looked up. You have been saying to yourself I know better because I ride a bike on British roads and understand the evidence better; do you? Really? Are you that blind to the success of Holland and Denmark? They are just like us you know, it's just 93% of them rode a bike last week, where as over here 84% of us never cycle.

I know you chaps feel a bit foolish, but come on swallow your pride, if you truly want more cyclists and fewer cars then you have got to admit vehicular cycling is not going to work, never has, never will. You know the truth is out there, "It's the infrastructure stupid"

Considering the nature of British towns & cities, just what roads are you going to narrow, buildings, including homes, demolish, to make way for all of this dazzling infrastructure? Such infrastructure was put into Milton Keynes during the build stage yet it's not exactly the hub of UK cycling.

 

[wafflycat]

When I was a girl, I couldn't wait to cycle on road. Cycling on paths was for sissies and little kids. All the local kids were the same. Did the Cycling Proficiency Test at school (got 100% *smugness creeps in*) and I was off. When WCMnr was a young boy, his dad & I trained him in the skills required to cycle safely and confidently on road. As a mother I worried and worried about him cycling on road, but I familiarised myself with understanding risk and danger and also understood that I was not doing him any good long-term if I wrapped him in cotton wool. Cycling on road from a relatively young age gave him a confidence, maturity and road awareness his non-cycling friends just didn't have. At 15 he was cycling dual carriageways as well as roads from narrow quiet lanes, rural roads, urban roads, home & abroad. He did not require special facilities to get him cycling; he simply required a couple of adults to teach him how to cycle on road properly. Indeed when he was a baby, the normal form of transport was him in a childseat on the rack of my bicycle and that's how we got around - on busy urban roads for the most part.

I cannot, for the life of me, fathom this obsession some have with the supposed need for cycling to have some sort of special provision in order to become popular. It was never needed in the past and it's only since the rise in private car use and all the hype that goes with that as being the only desirable form of transport (apparently it does wonders for a bloke in the penis-enlargement department) and the growth of long-distance commuting due to many years of that being effectively promoted by the policies of assorted governments, that all of a sudden we cyclists require farcilities. This cyclist doesn't. And I'm no racer. I'm a middle-aged matron of the parish who pootles about on her bike for leisure, shopping, a way of attempting to keep fit and the odd holiday.

 

[Nipper]

Considering the nature of British towns & cities, just what roads are you going to narrow, buildings, including homes, demolish, to make way for all of this dazzling infrastructure? Such infrastructure was put into Milton Keynes during the build stage yet it's not exactly the hub of UK cycling.

Wafflycat... Did you read any of David's blog? They manage to retro fit in Holland and we could over here.

You say you have been riding for many years, it is a shame that there has not been any significant increase in cycling during that time. Perhaps because most people don't like riding on roads with HGVs and cars. You, like so many other cyclists here, sound like a flat earther; the simple fact is that the countries with the most separate infrastructure have the highest rate of cycling. All your confident claims that other forces are at work are rubbish, the truth is we have failed and they have succeeded.

Many here seem to cite the shoot infrastructure found in the UK as evidence that cycle paths don't work and never have. That is... well...just plain stupid, good infrastructure such as that found in Holland does work, it has just never been tried here.

Simon you seem wedded to the idea that everyone will be fine fighting with traffic in bus lanes, truth is you are a bit strange and most people prefere the subjective safty offered by separated paths. I suspect you are in fact a car supremacist, any cyclist who advocates vehicular cycling and then thinks there is nothing wrong with an 83 foot lorry is either very foolish or is actually a petrol head. I wonder do you think you could get many non cycling mums to take their 3 and 4 year old kids by bike along a main road with those lorries hurtling past?