Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling

[srw]

It's not enforcement that's required, it's driver behaviour change. 30mph speed limits are very rarely formally enforced (and the fines that are dished out are derisory), but by and large people have been educated to stick to them. "It could be your child behind that car" is a strong, emotive message that works. "At 20mph, they'll still be alive. At 30mph they might not be" would be another one.

 

[marinyork]

20s plenty, which seems to be gaining ground by the day in London, has got to be a winner for cyclists, but a far bigger winner for pedestrians. And, along with homezones it's cheap. As in do-ably cheap. The mile long path in Cable Street cost £1.3M the second time around. There's not going to be too many of those around any time soon. The entirety of CS7 cost £11M, which I think is pretty good value. 20mph zones cost about £3000 per mile.

They are certainly cheap in the grander scheme of things. The problem with 20 zones is that their cost goes up to quite unmanageable levels for (smaller) councils to do quickly if they are chopped up into smaller areas. A particular city that is more keen than you might expect on them chopped the entire city up into 100 zones and can afford if no extra money is budgeted in to do two per year and take fifty years to do the lot. If you make them into larger zones the cost goes down, but they are harder to implement politically (not impossible) and through funding.

 

[style over speed]

And, to repeat...if Lambeth Council started proposing cycle lanes for my high street then I'd be opposing it tooth and nail. Because cycle lanes aren't just expensive - they're uncivilised. Think on this, Tommi. You may be a gentle soul, a lover of literature, a person who can appreciate art and nature, but in this respect you are the barbarian. You are the person that wants to slice up public space, to privatise it, to make it yours to the exclusion of others. You are the person who would draw lines across a sheet of paper to tell people, delivery drivers, pedestrians, people in wheelchairs, that, no, part of their street is now your street. That you haven't considered this, after umpteen pages of prompting suggests a certain lack of culture, a kind of moral ataxia. Like I said, in this respect you are the barbarian.

some pictures of those "uncivilised barbarians" in denmark < thanks to ibike london My link >

I think these pictures speak for themselves, but you lot can obviously carry on and ignore them and keep stopping the 97% of people who dont cycle from cycling.... you might think its "uncivilised"??? but I definitely want what they've got

helmet wearing:

cyclist dismount signs on a bridge:

 

[mickle]

Great thread - thanks everyone.

 

[Dan B]

It's not enforcement that's required, it's driver behaviour change. 30mph speed limits are very rarely formally enforced (and the fines that are dished out are derisory), but by and large people have been educated to stick to them.

But I think enforcement and behaviour change go hand in hand. Box junctions, for example: car drivers will routinely and without thought block side roads or junctions when there's no yellow hatching, but when they're aware it's almost certainly going to cost them £60 to stop in a box junction (these are now camera-enforced by civilian operatives in London - that's the discounted early-payment price, rising to £120 after 14 days) suddenly they're pretty scrupulous about keeping their wheels off the paint. How much of the change in drink-drive behaviour was coincident with enforcement campaigns?

 

[John the Monkey]

some pictures of those "uncivilised barbarians" in denmark < thanks to ibike london My link >

I think these pictures speak for themselves, but you lot can obviously carry on and ignore them and keep stopping the 97% of people who dont cycle from cycling.... you might think its "uncivilised"??? but I definitely want what they've got

How jolly. This is a crass oversimplification of 13 pages of argument - if you're seriously suggesting that the reason we don't have this is that we've "ignored" CPH, you may want to read some of the preceding pages.

 

[marinyork]

But I think enforcement and behaviour change go hand in hand. Box junctions, for example: car drivers will routinely and without thought block side roads or junctions when there's no yellow hatching, but when they're aware it's almost certainly going to cost them £60 to stop in a box junction (these are now camera-enforced by civilian operatives in London - that's the discounted early-payment price, rising to £120 after 14 days) suddenly they're pretty scrupulous about keeping their wheels off the paint. How much of the change in drink-drive behaviour was coincident with enforcement campaigns?

It really depends on your philosophy. A lot of 20s plenty supporters would say that just putting signs up and no action whatsoever gets you something like a 1mph average speed reduction. Summed over a long enough period of time this is still good. That's gains for a smaller amount of money. There have actually been discussions about enforcing some 20mph zones.

Box junctions are a good example as it is something enforced in London, but which outside of London people don't pay a blind bit of notice to.

A lot of the 20mph roads around here where people actually cycle are in nasty (what would be regarded by London standards as) narrow double parked roads.

 

[Red Light]

<br />
I think these pictures speak for themselves, but you lot can obviously carry on and ignore them and keep stopping the 97% of people who dont cycle from cycling.... you might think its "uncivilised"??? but I definitely want what they've got

Except there is no evidence whatsoever from places that have built them that they will get any of the 97% to take up cycling. When Leeds University looked into it they concluded that even if you could build a ubiquitous segregated cycling facility across the UK it would increase cycling by only 50%. i.e. 97% would become 95.5%. Paying people £2 a day to cycle would be twice as effective.

Until the perception is tackled that cycling is an extreme risk activity necessitating segregation and protective equipment most people won't touch it with a barge pole. It's notable that when the Danes started to promote cycle helmets in 2007/8 cycling numbers fell for the first time in decades.

 

[GrasB]

It really depends on your philosophy. A lot of 20s plenty supporters would say that just putting signs up and no action whatsoever gets you something like a 1mph average speed reduction.

When they put a 20mph limit in our village the opposite happened, the average speed when up from about 23mph to 24mph. The 8:00-19:00 average was still around the the 17mph marker, during these hours the pedestrian crossings & side road traffic effectively managed the speed of vehicles, but outside those hours speeds dramatically increased. It used to be that cars doing over 40mph were only really seen beyond 22:00, & you could hear them long before you saw them, but with the 20mph limit once the road became free of traffic restrictions a few people simply ignored the limit making crossing the high street a much more stressful affair.

 

[marinyork]

When they put a 20mph limit in our village the opposite happened, the average speed when up from about 23mph to 24mph. The 8:00-19:00 average was still around the the 17mph marker, during these hours the pedestrian crossings & side road traffic effectively managed the speed of vehicles, but outside those hours speeds dramatically increased. It used to be that cars doing over 40mph were only really seen beyond 22:00, & you could hear them long before you saw them, but with the 20mph limit once the road became free of traffic restrictions a few people simply ignored the limit making crossing the high street a much more stressful affair.

I'm aware of examples where this didn't happen. I lived very close to a section of 20mph road where a council hadn't installed speed bumps properly and speeds of anything up to 60mph were seen at various times of the day (with much more common speeds of 35-40mph range).

 

[Norm]

but having taken to the cycle paths, which I agree can be splendid places for folk to learn to cycle in traffic free environments, how does our tyro migrate to the road?

the road conditions will not have been improved whilst they are learning, the traffic levels will not have been significantly reduced, so where does this leave a significant number of them? Cowering on the cycle path looking enviously at the roads? Resigned to the 'fact' that cycles clearly have no place mixing it with motor traffic - bikes as toys not transport? Demanding more segregated cycleways to extend their personal cycing reach without using roads?

Hence my obsession with regulating speed in urban settings. Slow the traffic down, ensure the law protects the most vulneralbe road users, place the onus on motor uses to drive responsible and with the utmost care...

Completely agree with this, but I'd say that the thing which will have changed when they move to the road is their confidence and their understanding of the speed that they can manage.

I think that the point is there isn't a single answer as there isn't a single problem. Each area has different problems which will come with different solutions.

Thus, for example, cycle paths / tracks / lanes will get people onto their bikes, 20 limits in towns will get them feeling more confident mixing with the motors and driver education will reduce the perceived and actual threat when they get onto more major routes and higher limits.

 

[User482]

Apparently, average speeds in my part of Bristol fell by 1mph, following the introduction of the 20mph zone. Was it really worth it? I'm not convinced.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Hmm...
I've just skimmed this thread and there was a bit much to digest in one sitting, but I've got some Manchester cycling experience, Oxford cycling experience and just went to the Netherlands for a weekend... and all three of those have just come up for comment!

So... Manchester - daily commute. Cycle in to work is all on road, mostly with a cycle lane (on road). It's ok. It was daunting when I wasn't as confident on the roads. Surface sucks. Drains etc and large potholes/ruts etc are the norm (but I know where they are and avoid them).

Cycle home is mostly the other way, same thing, except by then Rusholme is up and buzzing and the cycle lane (which segregates the road from parking) is usually blocked at various points by busses/cars/taxis/who knows. No one is looking where they are going either. I can handle it now but it is certainly not for beginners! Alternate route - back streets and largely reduced traffic including some shared-use paths with no cars. Slightly longer, much pleasanter, except the surface sucks (in places) and it's not gritted in winter.

Oxford - Botley road here. Heading into town; there's either the bus lane (most of the way); when that stops there's a cycle path. There's also a cycle lane on the pavement; but the bus lane is more convenient and less bumpy, and less likely to contain stray pedestrians or cars reversing out of drives. Going the other way, there's not a bus lane all the way, but there is a pavement-bound cycle lane. At every junction, however, you have a yield painted on the path which presumably wants you to yield to things from both the road you're crossing and the one you're riding parallel to. Hellishly bumpy in places, and left hooking is a problem at at least two junctions. Normally not much traffic coming out from the side roads, unless you ride on the weekend, in which case some numpty is normally sitting in the line of the cycle path. Normally said numpty (this is Oxford) looks embarrassed and reverses backwards to let you past. Not gritted in winter.

Netherlands - we didn't do cycling in any major towns/cities but the inter-town links were perfectly segregated. Surfaces were great. When we ended up on-road, the rural backroads we were on were effectively one car lane wide even though they were not one-way; and both sides of the road had wide cycle paths. With no drains/ruts/etc in them either. Also, cycle routes were clearly marked and joined up. Again, not sure how this holds up in towns, but the UK paths often (say) jump you up onto the pavement, and then at the next junction suddenly vanish altogether with no information on where to go.


I think my preference is bus lanes. They're wide enough to avoid whatever might be lurking in them (even the horrible mess that is Oxford Road in Manchester near the station); and there is no other traffic in them aside from busses (or taxis). Cycle lanes are often in the gutter and sunken drains/grates/potholes/whatever abound, making half the thing unuseable. Unless you can do the Netherlands option and provide a cycle lane that's half the width of a car lane, with no drains/etc in the lane at all...

(edited for road misname!)

 

[GrasB]

I'm aware of examples where this didn't happen. I lived very close to a section of 20mph road where a council hadn't installed speed bumps properly and speeds of anything up to 60mph were seen at various times of the day (with much more common speeds of 35-40mph range).

The problem to some extent was that most people gave at least some credence to the 20mph limit, however there was a small minority of drivers who simply ignored the limit & drove at what ever speed they felt like. Unfortunately they have an effect that's disproportionately large to their actual number. With that it would be interesting to see what happened if current speed limits were enforced more stringently & with mobile stations for an "any time anywhere" effect.

 

[mickle]

(I didn't see the article myself but apparently) Police in Yok recently announced that they would not be enforcing the new 20mph zone which abutts Fishergate Loop. It's a zone which includes two primary schools, many shops and a Bingo hall on a busy route into the centre. It feeds into Fishergate loop which is an inner city race track so drivers have a tendency to put their foot down as soon as they can see any free space in front of their bumper.

What astounded me was not so much that the Police wont be enforcing it but that they actually announced it. Why would they bother to announce such a thing in the press? 'Feel free to ignore the twenty zone folks, coz we won't be watching!'

Who's side are the Police on?

Oh. Yeah.....