Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling

[MrHappyCyclist]

Please no. This is where blockend is right. People will hear one word in that sentence - killed - and forget the rest. Just imagine how airline passengers would react if the pre-flight demonstration started with the reassurance that you were less likely to be killed on this flight than on the journey to the airport. Half the passengers would have the screaming habdabs

Yes, I agree, bad example. The point is that the message can be underpinned by strong statistical evidence without being presented as dry statistics. "Cycling is shown to be even safer than walking and is more enjoyable", for example.

 

[mickle]

whoa! Statistics. WGAF? Not me. The point is that we are running out of planet and, simultaneously, organising our towns, cities, our entire economy and the world economy around more and more transport. Forget why driving from Bromley to Purley Way is safer than cycling from Bromley to the Purley Way (if it is) - let's build a country in which going from Bromley to Purley Way is an occasional leisure trip for (soddit, I can't think of a single good reason), rather than an everyweekend trip to DFS or PCWorld or whatever. So, while I've no objection to making every mile safer (although I clearly disagree with Stowie about how this might be done) what I really want is a whole lot less miles.

Fewer

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

Fewer

+1

 

[theclaud]

+1

+1 is more, not fewer...

 

[rich p]

+1 is more, not fewer...

Phew, er?

 

[WilliamNB]

we're never all going to agree on anything, but, happily most of the enlightened folk campaigning or working professionally in this country agree with me..........(this last for the benefit of some geezer in Plymouth)

Sigh...perhaps I will draw you that picture.

Still, I'm glad we both agree about the chip on your shoulder.

 

[WilliamNB]

blackend simply wants to rule out any objective discussion of evidence and replace it with argument by assertion, which is what we'e had for years and has given us such inconstent and, usually, ineffective, results.

Odd, I thought that was exactly the strategy Dellzeqq relies on.

 

[Dan B]

Odd, I thought that was exactly the strategy Dellzeqq relies on.

You're getting boring now

 

[blockend]

It depends whether current strategies are working. The link writer made pretty good arguments those strategies only make sense from inside campaign consensus. That consensus is currently locked in a who'll-blink-first battle with The Authorities who it insists are being kept at bay by statistics, held up rather as Van Helsing might hold a crucifix to Count Dracula, who's intent on sucking your road space instead of your neck. The reality is highway planners barely know cycle campaigners exist, yet Franklin is wheeled out as an expert witness as though the title carries some universal currency. Witness in what I say? Maintaining the status quo of course.

Cyclecraft is no more than gazetteer to negotiating Bedlam, a survivors guide to madness. When it's limited to that function it succeeds rather well, unfortunately it's become talismanic within sections of cycle advocacy as a map to the future. I think cyclists are being sold capitulation in a fancy hat and those making the hardest sell are the campaigners themselves. The only cycling success stories in meaningful numbers are historical or through regional politics, not cycle campaigns.

 

[Red Light]

Yes, I agree, bad example. The point is that the message can be underpinned by strong statistical evidence without being presented as dry statistics. "Cycling is shown to be even safer than walking and is more enjoyable", for example.

I would suggest moving it completely off "cycling is not dangerous" territory because again psychology tells us they will remember two things - cycling and danger and forget the not. Instead we should be talking e.g. about cycling reducing the risk of heart disease, strokes, cancer and diabetes and cyclist both living on average 2 years longer and having the health of someone 10 years younger. These are all positive statements for cycling and the scary things are - heart disease etc - are nothing to do with cycling.

Its worth reading the Washington Post review on the Persistence of Myths

 

[Tommi]

Instead we should be talking e.g. about cycling reducing the risk of heart disease, strokes, cancer and diabetes and cyclist both living on average 2 years longer and having the health of someone 10 years younger. These are all positive statements for cycling and the scary things are - heart disease etc - are nothing to do with cycling.

Another thing to emphasise would be cost per kilometre. Having a measurable and immediate impact I'd imagine most people would find it more compelling than something vague possibly happening far in the future.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

I think one reason for the resistance of many cyclists to "segregation" is the fear that they may eventually be forced to use a load of inadequate and possibly damgerous cycling "facilities" and forbidden from using the road because these inadequate segregated infrastuctures exist. The fear of stupid legal compulsion is not irrational as it was already attempted at the last revision of the highway code and the CTC had to fight hard to get the proposals changed.

The assumption that cycle facilities here will always be inadequate is also a rational one based on experience. The majority of my 12.5 mile commute has cycle lanes along it but, apart from the short sections of bus lane, not a single metre conforms to the DfT's own cycle lane design guidelines. There are whole sections that are positively dangerous, some of which I have documented in my blog. Proposed schemes do stupid things like expecting cyclists to give way to the traffic that approaches along every single side road, which makes cycling as a mode of transport completely impactical.

It is quite likely (though I do not have scientific evidence) that a big part of the problem is that most people who think about it at all believe cycling, and particularly expansion of cycling, is about families with 2.4 children going out on a Sunday afternoon for a leisurely ride, and can hardly even conceive of the idea of using a bicycle to get from one olace to another. It would seem that planners particularly share this view, which is based on their assumptions and prejudices rather than evidence..

 

[dellzeqq]

Sigh...perhaps I will draw you that picture.

that would be nice...

 

[Red Light]

I think one reason for the resistance of many cyclists to "segregation" is the fear that they may eventually be forced to use a load of inadequate and possibly damgerous cycling "facilities" and forbidden from using the road because these inadequate segregated infrastuctures exist. The fear of stupid legal compulsion is not irrational as it was already attempted at the last revision of the highway code and the CTC had to fight hard to get the proposals changed.

Its more than the threat of compulsion. Some motorists take exception to you using the road when there is a cycle track. Some just shout but others try to encourage you with their vehicles. Try cycling on the road along Bloomsbury segregated route along Torrington Place in London. I now have to exclude that whole road from my cycling in London.

 

[blockend]

The dilemma, nay schizophrenia of current thinking is shown in a few posts. Segregationist bogeyman posts leapfrog those insisting how poor certain road sections are. The campaign is for a right to use incredibly poorly designed sections of highway in which cyclists weren't even an afterthought. Such places are negotiable, at some risk, if the rider behaves as much like a motor vehicle as inhumanly possible. I fail to see how that is of strategic relevance to cycling as transport.

Campaigning is in a holding operation, preserving an inheritance of unconditional road use for the minority able to access its pleasures.