Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling

[marinyork]

(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.

Why would they? They never enforced the 20mph zone on Heslington Road which saw speeds very substantially above the speed limit because the council installed the speed bumps a bit on the lightweight side. Also given that police in North Yorkshire have one of the tamest forces in the country for policing speeding I wouldn't hold out much hope.

 

[Dan B]

Oxford - Banbury road here

On my most recent visit to Oxford I noticed parts of that (e.g. through Summertown) are now 20mph limit. Is that still the case and does it make a difference?

 

[SavageHoutkop]

On my most recent visit to Oxford I noticed parts of that (e.g. through Summertown) are now 20mph limit. Is that still the case and does it make a difference?

Oops, I meant Botley Road.
I've not done Banbury Road nearly as often.... Last time I did, there were lots of roadworks which are also quite good at traffic calming!

Will ask Mr SHK as he cycles there more often, but he's lucky in that he has a nice semi-rural commute avoiding most of the madness!

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

Except there is no evidence whatsoever from places that have built them that they will get any of the 97% to take up cycling.

Really? How do you explain the large increase in cycling in Copenhagen? I know that a lot of it is to do with making it difficult to drive into the city (plenty of removal of parking spaces, and so on) but surely a large part of the equation is the provision of those wide, on-road, cycle-only lanes, and segregated tracks, like those in the pictures.

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%.

Do you have a source for that? I'm intrigued.

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.

I quite agree that helmet promotion, and the use of reflective clothing, is a massive disincentive to getting people to take up cycling. But I think the idea that the provision of cycle tracks alongside busier, higher speed roads (note - only alongside busier, higher speed roads, not on quieter urban 'home zoned' roads) creates the impression that cycling is dangerous is something of a canard. I don't think you would take me seriously if I suggested that pavements alongside busy roads create a perception that walking is a dangerous way to get about.

 

[mickle]

We need a new law - that (whatever the prevailing speed limit) motor vehicles must slow to at least 30 miles per hour when in close proximity to or overtaking peds, bikes and horses.

 

[dellzeqq]

to be clear - dividing up public space to exclude all but cyclists is barbaric. I don't have a problem with bike paths by the coast, or bikes going along bridleways or anything you like to keep the motor car within bounds - bus lanes being the best example, and homezones coming a close second. But, setting aside the sheer ugliness of them, the kind of cycle paths/tracks call them what you will advocated by David Hembrow and the CEGB are uncivilised. That I don't think it works (see references to Milton Keynes and Stevenage above) and setting aside the misuse of figures by their advocates, the irreducible fact is that effectively privatising public space is wrong.

as I'm ever prepared to learn, I repeat the offer made to wheelygoodfun a couple of months ago - show me the drawing. Take a 1:1250 OS map and show me how segregation would work. Do it without slicing up the public realm, and not inconveniencing pedestrians, wheelchair users, delivery drivers, bus passengers and the like and I'll take a good look at it. You can have my Islington map gratis......

oh - WGF - you get than number of people waiting at a light any weekday on CS7 https://www.cyclechat.net/

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

to be clear - dividing up public space to exclude all but cyclists is barbaric.

I am quite intrigued by the use of this word 'barbaric'.

Try walking around Dutch cities and towns for a couple of weeks.

Then come back to London.

I know which experience I found more barbaric, both as a pedestrian, and as a cyclist. It certainly wasn't the Dutch environment, which despite their cycle tracks are entirely convivial and civilized.

I think you are coming at this from slightly the wrong angle (if I may be so bold).

This shouldn't be about carving up an extra bit of the urban environment for bicycles - it is about taking some of the space currently accorded to motor vehicles and reallocating it to modes of transport that make the urban scene vastly more pleasant.

 

[marinyork]

I am quite intrigued by the use of this word 'barbaric'.

Try walking around Dutch cities and towns for a couple of weeks.

Then come back to London.

I know which experience I found more barbaric, both as a pedestrian, and as a cyclist. It certainly wasn't the Dutch environment, which despite their cycle tracks are entirely convivial and civilized.

What's wrong with being a pedestian in London? It's great in some ways - generously wide pavements, long and wide straight roads, easy to navigate compared to other cities. The only problem is the number of junctions and motorised traffic apart from buses, taxis and deliveries.

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

What's wrong with being a pedestian in London? It's great in some ways - generously wide pavements, long and wide straight roads, easy to navigate compared to other cities. The only problem is the number of junctions and motorised traffic apart from buses, taxis and deliveries.

Yes, it's not too bad - I was really making the point that the Dutch street environment is hardly 'barbaric' (indeed, better than London).

 

[dellzeqq]

it's far from better. Groningen is a horror (David Hembrow's videos don't lie). It's a kind of urban lobotomy - it's got more in common with Miton Keynes or the US than with other European cities. And, whatever Amsterdam's virtues, notably it's art galleries, canals, public transport system and , ahem, cafes, the pervading air of Calvinist organisation marks it out for what it is - a small town.

Very few cities compare with London. Mexico City (where cycling is for the strong of heart only) and Beirut (I took my bike there and increased the cycling population by 100%) both have the riotous immediacy, the disorder and the collision between different ways of life that marks London out as a genuine city of the world. I don't think that London's charm depends on cycling, although cycling in London is the most charming way of making one's way.....

I do think that those of us that cycle in London should have the grace to recognise that, while we may not have won, we're certainly on the way to winning. We are, simply, the kings and queens of the road. Compare cycling in London with any other way of getting around and the satisfaction level, the joy even of cycling, not to mention the way that it saves time affords us an appreciation of the city's virtues and beauties that is denied the rest of the population. Somebody on this forum used to have a sig line that went something like 'you can tell the happy cyclist by the flies on his teeth'. I reckon that those 45 folk waiting for the green light at Kennington had their fair share of flies.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I am quite intrigued by the use of this word 'barbaric'.

Those who live in towns/cities are civilised, those who don't are barbarians. Thereby in history lie the roots of our language. We can't change what the words mean just because society imposes unsubtle stresses upon them.

In order to succesfully live in cities i.e. in a civilised manner, the populous have to behave in certain, shall we say, mutually cooperative ways. That is what civilisation is. Living together in an urban setting, in the urbis, in the civitas, in the city.

The privitisation or appropriation of certain parts of public space (which is what roads in cities are) by certain castes or classes of people through the erection of physical, or other barriers, preventing all members of the populous from accessing then via segregation flies in the face of the mutually cooperative lifestyle that is civilisation. Therefore acting in this manner is uncivilised, i.e. not of the city, not of the civilisation, and therefore it is barbaric.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

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

Lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing them.

Now, please, where are the motor vehicles?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

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.

Amen

 

[Richard Mann]

20 limits on (parts of) main roads in Oxford - several have been done in high ped areas (Summertown, Cowley Road, Headington, Brookes Uni). The County have gone for "naked streets" in those areas (with the exception of Brookes), to the dismay of quite a lot of cyclists. They've proved safe enough, but they're not at all "easy" to cycle along. Virtually all cyclists ride in secondary, regardless of the 20mph. General (but not unanimous) conclusion is that the County should try putting narrow cycle lanes in, and see if it's better or worse.

All of the city centre is 20mph, including the approach under the railway bridge, all the approaches to The Plain, and all the main junctions in the centre. Including St Giles (!). Compliance is variable, but you can mostly get away with pulling out without looking: you certainly won't get much abuse.

Every single side road is 20mph & compliance is pretty good. Still the occasional idiot. You can mostly wander about in primary without getting abuse.

But actually I think it's more notable that the 30mph limits on the rest of the main roads have almost total compliance: that's what comes (in my opinion) of consistently cutting down the width and/or forward visibility. You can't wander into primary or turn right without looking (or sometimes at all), but you can cycle around in secondary without too much stress.

Re Botley Road - the awful bit on the pavement outbound was done before we knew about set-backs etc. There's a cunning plan to sort it out, funding permitting (which would make a bus/cycle lane on the road, and a separate slow route on the pavement). Similarly we're not happy with the north end of Woodstock Road - it's ok for slow cyclists, but not good enough for the fast commuters. A lot depends on quite how little width you can get away with giving cars (and buses). The County are far more open to sub-3m widths than they were 10 years ago.

I don't accept that divvying up the road is barbaric, otherwise we wouldn't have pavements. What's barbaric is people using a road purely as a link, with no consideration for it's role as a place. Given the press of traffic, I think you can only make them respect "place" if you give them a defined, and deliberately tight space.

 

[GrasB]

We need a new law - that (whatever the prevailing speed limit) motor vehicles must slow to at least 30 miles per hour when in close proximity to or overtaking peds, bikes and horses.

I was overtaken by a car doing at least 70mph today, I'd guess closer to 90mph & please let's not get into the the fact (s)he was breaking the speed limit, however I felt totally comfortable as (s)he was so far over the other side of the road the offside tyres where on the gutter line & you could have comfortably fitted a transit van between us. I'd much prefer THAT overtake at high speed to the average overtaking distance I get with cars doing 20-30mph.