Beauty and the Bike

[MartinC]

Nipper, you still haven't answered the question. China has few segregated cycling facilities but many cyclists - how can this be if your theory is right?

 

[marinyork]

Some towns and cities have introduced 20 mph areas. Bristol has just had a consultation about 2 reasonable sized areas which are going to be trial location. As a result of the consultation some of the main roads (not all) that were to be excluded from the 20 mph limit are now to be included. During the consultation there were other areas of the city that also wanted to be included, so hopefully it will be rolled out across the city.

How large is reasonably large? This city has been divided up into 100 zones and there's enough funding to do 2 per year. It's much more costly doing it this size so there have been talk of getting this down to about 15 zones. The only one likely to fly here is the city centre .

 

[theclaud]

You lot are very patient with this Nipper fellow. I take it The Rule applies only to P&L?

 

[marinyork]

You lot are very patient with this Nipper fellow. I take it The Rule applies only to P&L?

Par for the course. Opinions like Nipper's are very common lower down the cycle campaigning hierarchy and for some bizarre reason higher up in some people. They can also be common in people that have cycled a long time and had little contact with other cyclists. I hear opinions like this every time I go to meetings.

 

[theclaud]

Par for the course. Opinions like Nipper's are very common lower down the cycle campaigning hierarchy and for some bizarre reason higher up in some people. I hear opinions like this every time I go to meetings.

The opinions, whilst pretty ill-conceived, don't annoy me nearly as much as the appalling manners...

 

[summerdays]

How large is reasonably large? This city has been divided up into 100 zones and there's enough funding to do 2 per year. It's much more costly doing it this size so there have been talk of getting this down to about 15 zones. The only one likely to fly here is the city centre .

This links to a map that isn't quite upto date.. (I think):

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?sour...1.455184,-2.590199&spn=0.037438,0.077248&z=13

Don't know if you know Bristol but one zone is St Pauls, St Werburghs, Easton, Lawrence Hill and over to St George. The other zone is the area immediately south of the river: Southville, Bedminster, Totterdown.

It doesn't cover every single road in those area but some of the main roads are included (not the M32 either )

 

[marinyork]

This links to a map that isn't quite upto date.. (I think):

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?sour...1.455184,-2.590199&spn=0.037438,0.077248&z=13

Don't know if you know Bristol but one zone is St Pauls, St Werburghs, Easton, Lawrence Hill and over to St George. The other zone is the area immediately south of the river: Southville, Bedminster, Totterdown.

It doesn't cover every single road in those area but some of the main roads are included (not the M32 either )

No I don't know Bristol well at all, but that is a fairly large area. Sadly I can see that some of the exemptions do include some minor main roads that probably should be in there. Still, they can always change their minds in the future .

I think I remember you mentioning that take up south of the river was fairly poor compared to other bits of bristol. It's quite good to see a couple of green lines, well routes even leading to bridges.

 

[summerdays]

No I don't know Bristol well at all, but that is a fairly large area. Sadly I can see that some of the exemptions do include some minor main roads that probably should be in there. Still, they can always change their minds in the future .

I think I remember you mentioning that take up south of the river was fairly poor compared to other bits of bristol. It's quite good to see a couple of green lines, well routes even leading to bridges.

I think there is a reasonable number of cyclists in that sort of area, but its in the far south of the city that you tend to only see pavement cyclists - usually youths rather than reasonable numbers of cyclists.

The left green route is well used by cyclists - lovely shared pedestrian/cyclist bridge with traffic lights at either end. Where as the green route on the right is a major snarl up roundabout that isn't one of my favourite places. I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it but I suspect some would. Ideally we could do with a couple more crossing points over the major barriers such as the River, Floating Harbour and M32 motorway.

Here is a quote about the final roads expected to be included in the area:

Bristol City Council have just issued a Press Release on their 20 mph proposals for south and east Bristol. The number of roads excluded from the 20 mph coverage has been pared right down. The south Bristol is now 'Total Twenty' with no exclusions except the fragments on Clarence Road and York Road along the Cut which are effectively outside the scheme area. The whole of the A38 (West St - Malago Road - Bedminster Parade) is now included as 20 mph.

In east Bristol the exclusions (shown red below) are the M32 - Newfoundland Way - Newfoundland St, Easton Way -Lawrence Hill Roundabout - Barrow Road, Lawrence Hill - Church Road,
Old Market - West Street - Lawford Street/Lamb Street/Lawfords Gate/Trinity Road - Clarence Road (the A420). No one ever expected the M32 and Easton Way to be included so effectively it's just the A420 that has been excluded. That will still disappoint some but the gains compared to the officers' original proposals are enormous.

So the map isn't entirely upto date

 

[marinyork]

LOL the A38 to the south is seriously going to wind some people up?

 

[marinyork]

The opinions, whilst pretty ill-conceived, don't annoy me nearly as much as the appalling manners...

You've obviously not spent long enough talking to sustrans people

 

[MacB]

The opinions, whilst pretty ill-conceived, don't annoy me nearly as much as the appalling manners...

I'd assumed it was a 'returnee', under new guise, with an axe to grind. If not then he's not presenting a convincing case for himself or his stance.

 

[summerdays]

I don't think they are expecting 20 mph, more a reduction in speed. And I can almost keep up with the traffic so it can't be going that fast in the first place.

 

[marinyork]

I don't think they are expecting 20 mph, more a reduction in speed. And I can almost keep up with the traffic so it can't be going that fast in the first place.

Indeed, but it doesn't stop people ranting and raving about it .

One of the most major roads here badly needs a 20mph zone and the amount of anger it generates .

 

[jonesy]

Par for the course. Opinions like Nipper's are very common lower down the cycle campaigning hierarchy and for some bizarre reason higher up in some people. They can also be common in people that have cycled a long time and had little contact with other cyclists. I hear opinions like this every time I go to meetings.

Yes, I'm afraid so. The 'segregation is the only way' ideology exists right to the top of transport policy making, and sadly one of the negative consequences of the National Cycle Network (there are positive ones as well) has been to institutionalise the belief that cyclists are much better off on shared use paths, no matter how compromised the standards are, no matter how much more indirect and discontinuous the resulting routes are. It is really depressing, because no matter how often you refer people to the cycle friendly infrastructure guidance, or tell people about the hierarchy of measures (which comes from Dutch practice by the way Nipper...), they've seen lots of blue signs on pavements on a 'flagship' project so think that must be OK.

 

[dellzeqq]

Part of the problem, surely, is the need to be seen to be 'doing something'?

In fairness the Demonstration Towns thing is mostly about 'soft measures'. Somebody, somewhere in the DfT must be getting the message. It's just a pity that cycling officers at borough and city level want to leave their mark on towns, and, oftentimes, manage to do so via S.106 monies. I've slammed the phone down on some idiot in Portsmouth who wanted to cover all the open space around a building with stainless steel bike containers, when we'd gone to the trouble to design the lifts and flat hallways around bicycles (and prams and shopping trolleys........)