Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling

[Dan B]

We could probably go a long way in making trunk roads safer without lowering speed limits on them if we had some (cultural, technical, or legal) means of enforcing the dictum "drive at a speed from which you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear".


My take on this is that the potential-but-not-actual cyclists who want to commute on trunk roads are far outnumbered by the potential converts in city centres: in terms of bang-for-buck we would do better concentrating on the urban environment. The numbers say that there are more people in cities, and that journey lengths are shorter, so I would be quite surprised if this were not the case. I hope, further, that once everyone who ever strays into a city centre is used to the idea that they share the roads with cyclists, it will be less of a mental stretch for them to support cycle provision on or adjacent to inter-urban trunk roads.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

What is not an infrequent sight in Oxford are old professors cycling about in their suits (to halls for dinner, no doubt); as well a number of people cycling to/from the station to work in other cities, oddly.
The parts of Oxford I know well are not studenty and cycling is still quite high. And the number of children ferried about on child seats or other cycling contraptions is much higher than I see in Manchester.

For my cycle into Oxford, cycle is by far the fastest way to go if there's any sign of traffic (which there often is). Heading the other way, I can still usually give the bus a run for its money.

Oxford is generally a well-off and small city and even the non-university parts are stuffed with ex-university people*. It's also had a very active cycling, environmental and green movement for longer than most places. It's pretty unusual.

* Except of course for the estates on the edge like Blackbird Leys, where unless things have changed drastically since I was living there, you would hardly see a bike other than a BMX.

 

[WilliamNB]

You are wrong. Indeed you could hardly be more wrong. My take on it is that those who advocate a 'Dutch' style segregation will be content with nothing other than an ideal that they are absolutely not prepared to make manifest by way of a real world example in UK city.

So I am wrong, you say? Let's have a look:

Firstly, I answered Red Light, who said: "You forgot the ones who are prepared to accept anything rather than have nothing".

My reply to him (and I quoted his statement in that reply) was: "Really? I didn't get the impression that there was anybody advocating this approach throughout the thread, and yes, I have read it all, from the very start."

And now you claim that not only am I wrong, but that I could hardly be more wrong?

OK then, please enlighten me and tell me which persons anywhere in this thread stated that they prefer the "anything is better than nothing" approach?

I think you'll find you cannot prove that at all, but I don't expect you to have either the courage or the decency to admit that you were in the wrong. Instead, I fully expect yet another emotional barrage from a person who has repeatedly shown they cannot have a mature debate without resorting to bully tactics and name-calling, and simply cannot accept the fact that some may differ in opinion to them.

And for what it is worth, The Oxford English Dictionaries define "civilised" as "bring (a place or people) to a stage of social development considered to be more advanced". That roundabout in the picture certainly was more advanced, so I guess you were wrong there, too.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Oxford is generally a well-off and small city and even the non-university parts are stuffed with ex-university people*. It's also had a very active cycling, environmental and green movement for longer than most places. It's pretty unusual.

* Except of course for the estates on the edge like Blackbird Leys, where unless things have changed drastically since I was living there, you would hardly see a bike other than a BMX.

Yes, that sounds about right. The busses heading towards Blackbird Leys are always quite full...

I have cycled out that way once, past the BMW factory; it was quite entertaining trying to figure out where exactly the cyclists were supposed to go when you arrived at the ring road (we were going underneath it). Took Mr SHK and I a good few minutes to work it out, and we're used to cycling. The answer - across a shared pedestrian crossing into the middle island, then again onto the big island in the middle, repeat on the other side...

 

[SavageHoutkop]

12 miles? For someone who's new to cycling? That's a 1 hour+ journey each way. I'd have suggested dividing that number by three.

I agree, I'm almost on my 2 year cycling anniversary and my flat (for all intents and purposes) just over 5 mile each way commute was a bit too long for me at the start (and I'm young and reasonably fit).
Fine now of course, but I'm a stubborn one and had decided that I was going to give this cycling thing a go.
(Also helped by other commuters in my office from the same general area, so a bit of 'clearly they can do it, so so can I').

12 miles? I'd never have started. I wouldn't want to commute 12 miles each way on a bike even now.

And there was also genuine fear that I'd fall off when I started - I'd not been on a bike in years. And even then I'd never ridden far.
Before I started I scoped out all the 'less traffic' routes and the 'cycle paths' and so on. I might well have started sooner if I'd thought I could do it (read: if there had been more general everyday cyclists clearly managing fine) and also if there were guaranteed traffic free routes. Or proper cycle lanes, but there aren't really any about here (I cycle on the ones that there are daily now, but mostly they're terrible; except for the bus lanes).

 

[Dan B]

Oxford is generally a well-off and small city and even the non-university parts are stuffed with ex-university people*. It's also had a very active cycling, environmental and green movement for longer than most places. It's pretty unusual.

That agrees with my perceptions too. If you spent 3 years sans car as an undergrad in Oxford you are probably smart enough that it didn't take you anywhere near 3 years to realise that you didn't need one and grown-ups in Oxford mostly don't need them either. So there's a bit of a virtuous circle thing going on there.

 

[blockend]

12 miles? I'd never have started. I wouldn't want to commute 12 miles each way on a bike even now.

I wasn't suggesting 12 miles was compulsory, it was an example of the kind of mileage someone might live from a city centre in modern times or a typical Cycle Chat board poster might contemplate riding to work. From cities that come to mind 5 - 8 mile commutes are typical distances someone in a suburb might reasonably expect to ride.

That distance still represents a considerable traffic calming orbit of 20mph, including your average inner and outer city ring road and a much greater area in a conurbation.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I've been thinking about this thread and thinking on my own experience of teaching in this area.

I used to lead yearly field trips of British planning and urban design students to the Netherlands. There were several things that amazed them about our near neighbours, first of all the trust placed in architects to produce the goods in massive urban housing projects, without massive interference; and secondly the bicycling. Actually, the cyclists scared them, they didn't know what to make of cyclists of all kinds everywhere, and cyclists who knew their rights and asserted them, who had provision separate from drivers and pedestrians and were of all types. But, within a week, they learned to like it, they could see how it worked - we even got them out on bikes to see how it worked. They always loved it, and told me later that they would cycle in Britain if it was like this.

Then they got back to Britain and started to wonder why this couldn't take off here. Sure, the traffic engineers and know-nothing planners were some of the problem, and sure, the mediaeval cities of Britain were a bit of an issue (of course, there are no mediaeval cities in the Netherlands, are there?), but they were also amazed by the attitude of British cycling campaigners. And yes, wes studied it and groups did project work on planning for cycling.

I've said this before, but I don't think that all of those who've absorbed the mainstream cycling campaigner attitude in the UK (and that was me too, for many years), have any idea what the world looks like to a non-cyclist any more. My non-cycling students were not persuaded by the vehicular cycling argument, they wanted what they had in the Netherlands.

The question for everyone to ask, whether you are an advocate of vehicular cycling, a segregationalist, or something else, is how and what would persuade my non-cycling students to start cycling rather than going down the route towards car-dependency.

 

[snibgo]

Non-cyclists (aka motorists) say they don't cycle because of the danger from motorists. But they would if traffic is reduced and calmed? Taking back the streets from our new masters, the cars? No, that wouldn't get them cycling, they say. What they need, they say, is the removal of cyclists from the roads.

Hmm. I'm not convinced.

FWIW, I would love to see a cycle path (properly built and maintained) alongside my local single carriageway fast busy A-road. It would make my errands more pleasant. But I doubt that it would be used by ten cyclists a week.

If we want to increase cycling numbers, we need to tame the car in urban centres. Decrease the convenience of cars, so cycling is the fastest, safest and most convenient mode. Return the streets to the people, not abandon them to the motor car.

 

[Red Light]

If we want to increase cycling numbers, we need to tame the car in urban centres. Decrease the convenience of cars, so cycling is the fastest, safest and most convenient mode. Return the streets to the people, not abandon them to the motor car.

+1

And what people don't realise is that is a few decades ago the Dutch realised that there was not the budget to keep up with the increasing growth of motor traffic and set about to deliberately curtail it.

 

[Red Light]

The question for everyone to ask, whether you are an advocate of vehicular cycling, a segregationalist, or something else, is how and what would persuade my non-cycling students to start cycling rather than going down the route towards car-dependency.

The percentage of 17-29 year olds holding a license has been dropping since 1995 so maybe they are already switching because of the cost of getting a license and the cost of owning and running a car. So maybe the trend has started.

 

[dellzeqq]

So I am wrong, you say? Let's have a look:

Firstly, I answered Red Light, who said: "You forgot the ones who are prepared to accept anything rather than have nothing".

My reply to him (and I quoted his statement in that reply) was: "Really? I didn't get the impression that there was anybody advocating this approach throughout the thread, and yes, I have read it all, from the very start."

And now you claim that not only am I wrong, but that I could hardly be more wrong?

OK then, please enlighten me and tell me which persons anywhere in this thread stated that they prefer the "anything is better than nothing" approach?

I think you'll find you cannot prove that at all, but I don't expect you to have either the courage or the decency to admit that you were in the wrong. Instead, I fully expect yet another emotional barrage from a person who has repeatedly shown they cannot have a mature debate without resorting to bully tactics and name-calling, and simply cannot accept the fact that some may differ in opinion to them.

And for what it is worth, The Oxford English Dictionaries define "civilised" as "bring (a place or people) to a stage of social development considered to be more advanced". That roundabout in the picture certainly was more advanced, so I guess you were wrong there, too.

you're going round in small circles (ha-ha). And you've entirely misunderstood the point. I suggest (and you may disagree) that those advocating segregation speak of an ideal that is unrealisable in UK cities, and that their unwillingness to show us the drawing is testament to that.

As for the roundabout - either you see it or you don't. The only clue I can offer is this - civilisation depends on people recognising each other and the place that they are in as human, accepting mutual ownership of public space. The roundabout evidenced by David Hembrow is a traffic scheme, and shows no sign of being a place where human beings recognise each other as human, and the absence of any kind of use other than transport, and the absence of pedestrians marks it out as uncivilised. Like I said, you either see that or you don't.

 

[Richard Mann]

Oxford is generally a well-off and small city and even the non-university parts are stuffed with ex-university people. It's also had a very active cycling, environmental and green movement for longer than most places. It's pretty unusual.

So it's just as well there's lots of unreconstructed types in the rest of the County to hold us back (the County is the Highway Authority). Actually the politics is a bit difficult, it's just that once you've eliminated the impossible (roadbuilding), you start looking for alternatives. If you set enough people to the task, eventually you benefit from the wisdom of crowds.

Developing a solution takes a special set of circumstances: applying it elsewhere shouldn't be as location-specific.

What gets people cycling: a road network where it mostly doesn't look crazy to try, and "inadequate" alternatives. It doesn't have to be perfect - just good enough that more people give it a go than stop.

 

[snibgo]

And what people don't realise is that is a few decades ago the Dutch realised that there was not the budget to keep up with the increasing growth of motor traffic and set about to deliberately curtail it.

Yes. That's the lesson I take from the Dutch model, and from Stevenage versus Cambridge, etc: inconvenience the car.

Politically, that's a tough sell. More palatable messages: civilise our streets, save lives, mow down fewer pedestrians (including those on pavements, for heaven's sake), active travel, reduce obesity, revitalise high streets, let kids play safely in their own residential streets, ...

 

[dellzeqq]

Yes. That's the lesson I take from the Dutch model, and from Stevenage versus Cambridge, etc: inconvenience the car.

Politically, that's a tough sell. More palatable messages: civilise our streets, save lives, mow down fewer pedestrians (including those on pavements, for heaven's sake), active travel, reduce obesity, revitalise high streets, let kids play safely in their own residential streets, ...

there are small levers. Reduce through traffic (or rat-running) and you increase house values. We're none of us much in favour of our 'freedoms' being curtailed, but curtailing the freedoms of others is good news if we make a profit on it.