Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling

[Tommi]

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.

Regarding your "testament" I wonder how many people in the world would have the training and experience to provide the level of detail you're demanding. From what I gather the whole "question" appears very much to be set up only to be followed by new constraints regardless of the answer.

Let's say my drawing for Oxford Street (IIRC you've brought it up earlier) would be to make it pedestrianised with cycle tracks I'm almost sure there'd suddenly appear new constraints I'm supposed to solve rather than you attempting to find a way to work within the constraints of Oxford Street being pedestrianised. I might be inclined to have a go with some back and forth but the way your question appears to be loaded demanding nothing short of world peace as an answer I'm not entirely convinced it would be worth the effort.

 

[blockend]

What's clear from this thread is how our micro-visions shape our perception of the wider picture. It's quite some years since I lived on the edge of a city into which I cycled for sweated labour, or even paid chair polishing. Much longer has been spent cycle commuting from rural areas into towns or cross country between towns. Not an uncommon picture I'd suggest. Yet most of the debate takes a traditional view of the city dweller on hisher bike making their way through a civilised townscape. That's not only utopian with regard to bike use, it's dreamland regarding the way many Brits live.

It colours the campaigner's perception IMO, creating easily manageable slices of functionality that bear only a passing resemblance to lifestyle or bike use. I'd still like to know what the vision for cycling is beyond suburbia. In case nobody's noticed it's not all winding lanes and verdant hedgerows, much of it is cars and commercials trying for warp speed on tar and concrete. Where does the traffic calmed zone end and reality kick in?

 

[WilliamNB]

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.

Like I said, I thought you'd have neither the courage, nor the decency to admit that you were entirely in the wrong. You made a statement, and I asked you to back it up. Clearly you cannot do so, hence your attempt at raising a mini dust-cloud to hide behind. Sad, really.

As for the roundabout - either you see it or you don't. As per your definition, pretty much every major arterial route anywhere shows less signs of human beings recognising each other as such than what that roundabout does. Yes, those same arterial roads where you claim dividing the public space to create decent cycle lanes would be supposedly wrong and barbaric. Face facts, with that attitude you may as well be working for the AA.

 

[dellzeqq]

Regarding your "testament" I wonder how many people in the world would have the training and experience to provide the level of detail you're demanding. From what I gather the whole "question" appears very much to be set up only to be followed by new constraints regardless of the answer.

Let's say my drawing for Oxford Street (IIRC you've brought it up earlier) would be to make it pedestrianised with cycle tracks I'm almost sure there'd suddenly appear new constraints I'm supposed to solve rather than you attempting to find a way to work within the constraints of Oxford Street being pedestrianised. I might be inclined to have a go with some back and forth but the way your question appears to be loaded demanding nothing short of world peace as an answer I'm not entirely convinced it would be worth the effort.

you'd have to do what anybody else would do - justify the design. I suppose it's no different from me having to justify a design for a building (which can be a heartbreaking business), but, given that the 1:1250 map and streetview would be able to tell you all you need to know, then you might give it an honest go - as I did for the stretch of road in Islington. You would then, I suggest, come to the conclusion that it's more difficult than it is in some beknighted suburban grid like Groningen or Milton Keynes.

Having said that, Oxford Street isn't where I'd start. Traffic is pretty much reduced to pedestrian speeds and they're widening the footpaths as we speak to make it, in essence, one long bus queue. Pedestrians cross the road from shop to shop, and from shop to bus stop. My suggestion would be one of those arterial roads that have not taken off in the manner of the A3/A24, the A10 or the A200. The A404 would be a worthy test - it's an important arterial road, and links one suburban centre to the next

Or the Stratford Road in to Birmingham - which is genuinely about the best chance you've got that I know of. I couldn't possibly deny that there is the room - but I'd contend that it was entirely undesirable. If Birmingham city council had any gumption they'd stick in bus lanes......

Or the A68/A7 Dalkieth Road in to Edinburgh.

to return to the roundabout. Each of these arterial roads have a mix of uses. They are places in which people recognise themselves, although the Stratford Road example is clearly very different from the Harrow Road or the Dalkieth Road. They have scale. Their problem is that they are beseiged from within by the motor car, although if there was any place in which the motorcar would be acceptable I suppose the Stratford road would be it. David Hembrow's representation of Groningen is of a suburb utterly given over to transport. It may be efficient in terms of getting people from A to B, but it reminds me of the civic desert that is the Midwest town (with roundabouts).

 

[dellzeqq]

Like I said, I thought you'd have neither the courage, nor the decency to admit that you were entirely in the wrong. You made a statement, and I asked you to back it up. Clearly you cannot do so, hence your attempt at raising a mini dust-cloud to hide behind. Sad, really.

As for the roundabout - either you see it or you don't. As per your definition, pretty much every major arterial route anywhere shows less signs of human beings recognising each other as such than what that roundabout does. Yes, those same arterial roads where you claim dividing the public space to create decent cycle lanes would be supposedly wrong and barbaric. Face facts, with that attitude you may as well be working for the AA.

Now you're getting snippy. And if it's a 'he-said, she-said' thing you want, I'm afraid my patience is exhausted.

See my post above. Show us the drawing.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

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.

+2

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

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.

+1. I would be worried about using a facility like that for fear of being mugged.

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

+1. I would be worried about using a facility like that for fear of being mugged.

What?

 

[Richard Mann]

What's clear from this thread is how our micro-visions shape our perception of the wider picture. It's quite some years since I lived on the edge of a city into which I cycled for sweated labour, or even paid chair polishing. Much longer has been spent cycle commuting from rural areas into towns or cross country between towns. Not an uncommon picture I'd suggest. Yet most of the debate takes a traditional view of the city dweller on hisher bike making their way through a civilised townscape. That's not only utopian with regard to bike use, it's dreamland regarding the way many Brits live.

It colours the campaigner's perception IMO, creating easily manageable slices of functionality that bear only a passing resemblance to lifestyle or bike use. I'd still like to know what the vision for cycling is beyond suburbia. In case nobody's noticed it's not all winding lanes and verdant hedgerows, much of it is cars and commercials trying for warp speed on tar and concrete. Where does the traffic calmed zone end and reality kick in?

Actually the whole point is to make cities liveable places, and overturn 160 years of UK antipathy to city living. Most people live in urban areas, and a lot of journeys are within urban areas. There are also quite a lot of journeys outside/between urban areas, but I'm afraid there's no immediate practical solution for those - you have to start elsewhere.

 

[snorri]

. There are also quite a lot of journeys outside/between urban areas, but I'm afraid there's no immediate practical solution for those - you have to start elsewhere.

A review of speed limits would be a start, the existing 60mph limit on narrow twisting roads doesn't make any sense to me.

With most of the serious crashes occurring on rural roads, maybe that's where the priority lies.

 

[Dan B]

Regarding your "testament" I wonder how many people in the world would have the training and experience to provide the level of detail you're demanding [show the drawing].

If it's so difficult to produce the required drawing that you're engaging a worldwide search to find someone capable of it, and given that the drawing is a necessary precursor to the engineering works which actually create the segregated facility, does that not tell you something about the likelihood that the segregated facility in question is itself feasible?

 

[Dan B]

A review of speed limits would be a start, the existing 60mph limit on narrow twisting roads doesn't make any sense to me.

I wonder whether there is some good (legal, technical or social) way of enforcing the advice that one should be able to "stop within the distance one can see to be clear".

 

[Tommi]

If it's so difficult to produce the required drawing that you're engaging a worldwide search to find someone capable of it, and given that the drawing is a necessary precursor to the engineering works which actually create the segregated facility, does that not tell you something about the likelihood that the segregated facility in question is itself feasible?

Not really, no. But if you insist, would you like me to design an airplane for you to fly as well while I'm at it? I built a few model planes as a child so I'm fully qualified.

 

[Dan B]

Thank you for the offer, but I'm still looking for someone who can produce the drawing for the runway/hangar/taxi space it will need outside my flat. Takers for this job do seem to be tremendously thin on the ground, but I feel sure this has nothing to do with the physical impossibility of the task I'm presenting them

 

[blockend]

Actually the whole point is to make cities liveable places, and overturn 160 years of UK antipathy to city living. Most people live in urban areas, and a lot of journeys are within urban areas. There are also quite a lot of journeys outside/between urban areas, but I'm afraid there's no immediate practical solution for those - you have to start elsewhere.

That's a very different starting point to mine, which is to get as many people on bicycles as possible. A lot of the argument seems to arise from what campaigning and activism mean. When I began riding any distance in the 70s and joined organisations like the CTC, I assumed it was to protect cyclists' rights and increase the number cycling. The civilising effects of bicycles on a city are just one part of that agenda.

Most people may well live in cities, if we take cities to mean suburbs and liminal outer zones that have very little in common with true city living but even then a large minority do not and the more vocal aspects of campaigning tend to look exclusively at urban resolutions which IMHO, do not and cannot apply to cyclists travelling outside the city.
When the agenda moves away from bums on saddles all manner of vying interests and utopian ideals begin to sway the debate and how people should live, not how they do takes on an evangelical tone with all the absolute rights and wrongs that go with it.

My local pub has just begun a series of rides around other local boozers, 15 hilly rural miles on summer evenings. A couple of roadies, various mountain bikers and a bunch men and women who haven't ridden since childhood. Their efforts may be all but meaningless on a campaign scale but they're a constituency of riders who require safety like every other cyclist and the security of activists working on their behalf.