well, London is some 'ward', but they have the numbers. The sweet lady at the other end of the line was happy to look them up.They just didn't think anybody was interested. Which, by and large, they're not.
And I am now in Sort. Hooray!
dumbass LCC bike lane on Stratford High Street
- Thread starter dellzeqq
- Start date
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And I am now in Sort. Hooray!
StuAff
Silencing his legs regularly
- Location
- Portsmouth
That issue has absolutely nothing to do with infrastructure, however well-meaning that work might be. There are loads of 20 mph zones in Pompey. Change in drivers' attitude and improvements in cycling safety thereof? Naff all. Time and time again, pretty much once if not more every day, I have to duck next to parked cars on rat runs as drivers blantantly ignore the speed limit and my entirely legal presence on the road. I've been clipped and close-passed repeatedly. The very expensive cycle lane on Southsea seafront works, sort of, for bimblers and families. Apart from the repeated use of the eastern end as an illegal parking space, the risks of dooring and dopey peds stepping into it, the simple fact it's too narrow for faster riders in opposing directions, and for those faster riders doing the sensible thing and riding on the road instead, merely adds fuel to the moronic fire of those telling you that you should be in the cycle lane, even when you're doing 25+ mph... All the segregated lanes and all the 20 mph zones aren't worth anything without proper enforcement and, more importantly, a change in attitude, particularly the misguided and dangerous sense of superiority and entitlement that so many drivers have. If those were to change there would be no need to waste money on bits of blue/red paint and all the other **** certain campaigners want.
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knocksofbeggarmen
Active Member
Dictionary corner continues, but Susie Dent has the flu, and I'm not sure what Dictionary the Temp is consulting.
Troll. Noun, 1. someone who finds your arguments laughable, and omits to keep his laughter to himself. 2. Anyone who suggests a Motorway might be a road.
Troll. Noun, 1. someone who finds your arguments laughable, and omits to keep his laughter to himself. 2. Anyone who suggests a Motorway might be a road.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
I just bothered to look up cycling levels in Bracknell and Stevenage in the Cycling and Walking release from DfT, which are often claimed on this site to have the least cycling, alongside MK. I already posted that MK (18% cycling) is above the 15% average. Apparently Stevenage is below average at 11% and Bracknell Forest is higher at 21%. How does the claim they're all low keep getting repeated unchallenged? The actual places with least cycling are Luton, Barking and Dagenham, Hillingdon, and Blackburn, none of which are famous for their infrastructure.
knocksofbeggarmen
Active Member
What's that 15% an average of?
knocksofbeggarmen
Active Member
I'd not be surprised if a few fellows on Cyclechat were underestimating Stevenage mode share, but one can see from defects why it wouldn't have anything approaching NL rates.
Oh, that sounds uncannily like the segregated E-W gutter along Torrington Place/Tavistock Place and roads adjacent. "It's great apart from being far too narrow but that wasn't our fault" - yes, but irrespective of who's fault it was, it's still so narrow that it's full, so cyclists would rather use/are force to use the road, and as a result drivers get aggressive with them for not being in the cycle lane.
So who will own the execution? Because if nobody does then the principle alone is no more likely to deliver good results than the principle of "we can share the roads with cars we just need better enforcement against bad drivers" when nobody is prepared to execute on the enforcement (or to execute the bad drivers, even better ;-)
http://www.camdencyclists.org.uk/camden/campaigns/ssl-upgrade/index_html
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Percentage of population cycling regularly as in https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/local-area-walking-and-cycling-in-england-2010-11 - it's a generous measure but better than trying to use very small numbers to compare areas and includes all cycling and not only commuting.
knocksofbeggarmen
Active Member
Right. Thanks. Percentage regularly cycling is a more impressive sounding number than the mode share, which is usually used for comparing UK &NL. And up to a point, percentage regularly cycling is a useful measure for distinguishing between UK locales , given they are at the low end of the mode share scale. . But I guess NL percentage regularly cycling must be in the 90's?? Genuine question- Does anyone even bother collecting the number?
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
The highway authority that built it. So in London that's TFL for major roads and borough councils otherwise. At worst, campaigners did enough to get them to build it, but not enough to build it right.
knocksofbeggarmen
Active Member
There isn't any doubt at all who owns the execution. The council do, in this case.
The reason they put it in as narrow as that is that vehicular cyclists argued- as they have on this tread -that the lane would be unattractive to anyone wanting to get quickly from A-B, and only used by a small proportion of cyclists. But LOOK at it. It's a clear candidate for an upgrade displacing a lane of motor traffic- and campaigners are pressing this case now.
PS the same arguments from Vehicular Cycling fans that hampered Torrington are damaging Elephant & Castle now. What happens is you argue that lanes are only for 'slow cyclists', and presto, they build them too narrow for fast ones. It's a self defeating and circular argument: http://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/dual-network-strikes-again/
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
More importantly for this use, we don't have mode share figures for UK local areas, as far as I remember.
I don't know the NL stats on this - I've enough trouble keeping track of UK stats - but http://hedgehogcycling.co.uk/eurostat-cycling-attitudes-survey.html suggests it's 87%... but it puts UK at 31% so it's even more generous than the DfT one.
Well, on the face of things at least that would seem to ensure the whole enterprise is screwed, because even supposing there wasn't a shadowy conspiracy of vehicular cyclists secretly running the country and thwarting plans at every turn, the council clearly aren't going to go up against the LTDA. Concepts are grand but it's always the execution that counts.
Could you possibly explain what you mean by the first two words in that sentence?
I can see one argument that substandard infrastructure (and anything you can't get two cargo bikes down in opposite directions without slowing to walking pace is, I venture to suggest, not that great if you want to encourage utility cycling) is better than none because people will be persuaded into using it anyway and then we can demonstrate the need for better? It's certainly a point of view. It's not really so far removed from the "safety in numbers" argument that we should persuade people to take up cycling even though they don't feel safe so that more people wil cycle and then they'll feel safe - except that one of them relies on councils and the other only on the cyclists.
knocksofbeggarmen
Active Member
Yes that's precisely what I meant by 'self defeating'.
'Circular' comes in when the argument takes a further turn, and the suggestion is made that since we aren't going to win, it would be better not to try.
