London Assembly Transport Committee's review of cycle schemes

[ozzage]

Shared pavements are just ghastly.

It doesn't hurt to see ourselves as others see us from time to time. I remember discussing the Regents Canal towpath on the Greenways committee. Cyclists whizz along, scaring the living daylights out of walkers. The Ramblers made a case for getting cyclists off the towpath. They were right.

There's a real shortfall in Ozzages reasoning. He or she sees motorised traffic as a given, and that we (cyclists and pedestrians) should retreat from the streets, leaving the car to roam unfettered. The entire thrust of urban planning should be to limit and moderate motorised traffic.

You misrepresent me. I want to see space taken from vehicles and allocated to others more worthy

I don't WANT to share with cars, unless they are moving very slowly and carefully through what is primarily MY space. I don't see the road as my domain in the same that I don't as a pedestrian. I want the road to be made much smaller and to have my own domain, like in NL etc.

I find that cyclists often have some strange sense of inferiority in this discussion, where they fear that they won't be seen as equals to the cars. I'm not equal, I'm better, and I deserve my own space. Let the cars have nasty traffic-calmed indirect routes and have to squeeze in gaps to slow them down. Don't let THEM share MY space. If you don't understand that line of thinking, then you don't understand how it truly IS in NL and I'm not surprised that you're opposed.

I'm obviously not a fan of shared pavements where a decent alternative exists, but I'd much rather see this:

http://maps.google.c...,112.42,,0,2.82

than be forced to ride on the road.

edit: and I bet the two guys in that shot wouldn't be scaring peds on tow paths either...

 

[ozzage]

How do you intend to manage the intersections between your domain and their domain? Side roads cross roads etc.

Have you been to NL? Have you read Hembrow's blog? Do you find his arguments at all compelling?

It's irrelevant anyway for this discussion. Despite the higher risk of collisions at intersections with segregation, particularly when badly designed, cycling can still be an extremely safe activity. We don't primarily need to make cycling safer, we need to make it SEEM safer.

That will get more people cycling, which will end up increasing safety FAR more than any intersection design decisions will. So in the end, you'll have both.

It's all about perceived safety (and enjoyment, which is directly related).

 

[GrumpyGregry]

with the avg. traffic speeds in Zone 1 in London so slow, due to all the buses, taxis and commercial vehicles and never ending sets of traffic lights, I find the roads there some of the safest places in England in which I cycle. Which is a compelling arguement for less segregation not more.

 

[Dan B]

On my way to work this morning I incurred the wrath of a Royal Mail lorry driver by overtaking another cyclist and thus being out of the cycle lane. When I caught up with her at the lights and asked what the problem was she told me that I should stay in the cycle lane and not be in the road.

Until you can address that attitude I would much rather remove all existing cycle lanes than go any further down the path of segregation.

Perhaps it's partly a problem of semantics. I propose that we paint bicycles (and, if you like, pedestrians) on all the road carriageways and rename them "cycle priority lanes" to which motorised vehicles are admitted only on sufferance. Technically that's still segregation, but the balance of power is clearly shifted

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

Perhaps it's partly a problem of semantics. I propose that we paint bicycles (and, if you like, pedestrians) on all the road carriageways and rename them "cycle priority lanes" to which motorised vehicles are admitted only on sufferance. Technically that's still segregation, but the balance of power is clearly shifted.

Yes, that's a good idea. I suppose this kind of thinking lay behind the cycle lane in Poole - the one that met with such derision from the gutter press, despite being a well-designed layout. It shows the space cyclists should have, and to which motorists should enter into only when it is safe to do so.

 

[dellzeqq]

You misrepresent me. I want to see space taken from vehicles and allocated to others more worthy

I don't WANT to share with cars, unless they are moving very slowly and carefully through what is primarily MY space. I don't see the road as my domain in the same that I don't as a pedestrian. I want the road to be made much smaller and to have my own domain, like in NL etc.

I find that cyclists often have some strange sense of inferiority in this discussion, where they fear that they won't be seen as equals to the cars. I'm not equal, I'm better, and I deserve my own space. Let the cars have nasty traffic-calmed indirect routes and have to squeeze in gaps to slow them down. Don't let THEM share MY space. If you don't understand that line of thinking, then you don't understand how it truly IS in NL and I'm not surprised that you're opposed.

I'm obviously not a fan of shared pavements where a decent alternative exists, but I'd much rather see this:

http://maps.google.c...,112.42,,0,2.82

than be forced to ride on the road.

edit: and I bet the two guys in that shot wouldn't be scaring peds on tow paths either...

that's an extraordinarily contradictory contribution. You seem to be purveying a sense of inferiority to beat the band. While the rest of us are swanning down the roads you want to hide away.

It's time you came up with a drawing. You keep on showing is pictures of Dutch suburbia, or rural roads, but, in case you haven't worked this out, we're not convinced. Show us a drawing of......Farringdon Road (which has a brilliant bus lane northwards), or Clapham High Street.

 

[ozzage]

Are you really suggesting that it would be a good idea to make cycling less safe so long as people think that it is safer?

None of this is rocket science. The biggest barrier to cycling is perceived safety. It's not real safety. Cycling is already safe. However cycling has to be PERCEIVED to be safer to encourage uptake.

The biggest overall factor towards ACTUAL safety is number of cyclists. You probably don't disagree with that either, as it's well documented and often used as an argument by those claiming segregation is unnecessary.

So what's the logical conclusion of that? Measures to increase numbers of cyclists are the most important to increase safety. A measure that increases cycling numbers a lot, with a small increase in risk, will still lead to an overall REDUCTION in risk.

The idea is not complicated, and it's not new either.

Now if you don't think that segregation will increase cyclist numbers, then the argument falls apart, and I can accept that viewpoint. But the logic (and it's not MY logic) is sound.

 

[jonesy]

The logical thing to aim for is to move people from using private vehicles on shorter trips to bike. This is also the best possible outcome obviously. NR and tube are going to have less transfer to cycling than buses, as buses are used more often for shorter trips than both NR and the underground. All I said was that more cycling = less buses and I stand by that. More cycling also = far fewer cars as well! The overall point is, as I stated, that we could have far fewer motorised vehicles on the road with levels of cycling as seen somewhere like Amsterdam. Surely nobody would argue with that?

I quite agree and, as was discussed earlier in this thread, TfL's strategy is to target those shorter length trips, including those made by public transport, as shifting them onto bicycles will help free up capacity for the longer distance trips. However, having agreed that cycling has to be targeted at shorter trips, you can only get an Amsterdam or Copenhagen modal share for cycling if a sufficient proportion of trips is of cycleable distance. But London has greater commuting distances so, apart from the train + bike, the proportion of trips that could in principle be shifted to cycling is therefore smaller.

I was incorrect that the tube takes the majority of the load, however by distance it is equal to bus use so I wasn't far off and it doesn't change my argument. The fact is, that the tube takes up a massive load so the population differential has less effect (still huge!) than it would have otherwise.

Well, being 'equal to' is very different from the 'vast majority', isn't it! The point I hope you've realised is that buses are an essential part of London's public transport system, far more so than is the case in Copenhagen, and those buses, their stops and their disembarking passengers, have to be taken into account if you want to start building Copenhagen style segregated cycle paths.

On one hand it's fair to say that I should be familiar with Cambridge and Oxford, but by the same token by the arguments put forward by many people (I don't necessarily mean in this thread) it's clear that most of those opposed to segregation have never cycled in a city where it's done properly.


That aside, I've spent a few hours looking at the map here http://www.camcycle..../resources/map/ and Google Earth to try to get a feel for the facilities in Cambridge. Now OK I can't go back in time and see what was there in the 70s, and I can only base things on what i can see in Streetview and on the satellite view, but what I saw is a quite highly developed network of routes.

These are very often on quiet roads and have a surprising number of off-road routes (either shared path alongside the roads or truly off-road through green space) as well. Clearly there are routes on A and B roads as well but I found a surprising number of cycle lanes, both mandatory and advisory on these routes (far better than you would see on equivalent streets in London, in my opinion), and as I mentioned before a clear indication that the CCC is working towards MORE segregation (eg latest newsletter re getting rid of parking in the cycle lane along Gilbert Road which is surely a precursor to making it mandatory). I would definitely NOT say that Cambridge is proof of vehicular cycling being successful, at least not from what I saw from the air and on street view. It's full of paths!!

I definitely saw gaps in the paths etc but I get the distinct impression that while the CCC promotes on-road cycling, they firmly believe that segregation is necessary in high traffic environments for the city to go to the next level.

Am I completely wrong? Can somebody here can give an informed and objective response to that?

Again, the 'paths' followed the growth in cycling, not the other way around. Also, cycle lanes aren't 'paths', and they certainly aren't segregation, even if mandatory. There isn't anything like Copenhagen segregation. I'd add that completely off-road paths across parks etc are in a different category, like the Hyde Park route, they can be very attractive, and can be advantageous over the road because they can offer short cuts. But routes across parks, like routes on old railway lines and towpaths, can only be built where there are parks, towpaths and disused railway lines, so they aren't that helpful as a model for what we should do everywhere else, where the road corridor is the most direct and convenient route.

I'm interested in the way you phrased the question. Do you believe that we have nothing to learn from European cities which have over 40% modal share? If they were other British cities would you be happy to apply the lessons in London?

Edit: By paths above I also mean lanes.

Of course not, but in learning from other cities we have to understand the differences so we can know what is transferable and what isn't. Hence my comments on differences in bus use and journey distances for example.


Noting your edit- but they are fundamentally different, and sit a very different level in the Hierarchy! It really is important to be precise about these things, not least because I fear it is lack of clarity on the part of cyclists in expressing what they want that has helped contribute to the failings of the schemes that councils so often put in.

 

[jonesy]

....

It's irrelevant anyway for this discussion. Despite the higher risk of collisions at intersections with segregation, particularly when badly designed, cycling can still be an extremely safe activity. We don't primarily need to make cycling safer, we need to make it SEEM safer.

That will get more people cycling, which will end up increasing safety FAR more than any intersection design decisions will. So in the end, you'll have both.

It's all about perceived safety (and enjoyment, which is directly related).

No, no no!

While I'd agree that there is an important difference between real and perceived safety; that doesn't make crappy segregation OK. For a start you've missed a fundamental factor that affects people's willingness to cycle or not: whether it is advantageous to cycle in comparison with other modes. Look at the places where people cycle in large numbers, it is places where there are constraints on driving and cycling is competitive in journey time. But as soon as you tell cyclists they should come off the road where they can go at a decent speed, and instead jostle for space with pedestrians on the pavement, and give way at every side road, then the added delay undermines that time advantage over driving.

How does sending a very strong message to drivers that cycling is a slow mode that takes place on the pavement, and gives way to cars, encourage anyone in those cars to join the cyclists? Plus it undermines our right to use the road and creates conflict where none existed before. I have the misfortune of cycling to work on a route that has a pavement path along some of it. As a consequence, every few weeks I get hooted at, passed dangerously, shouted at etc by people who are outraged that I continue to ride on the road. Given that the shouting and hooting drivers must only be the tip of the iceberg, there must be many many more who say nothing but still feel cross, or at least puzzled, as to why a cyclist would ride on the road. This is a problem that only exists because of crappy segregation, and the idea that existing cyclists should be happy about it because somehow this unwanted facility is going to attract new cyclists to join me in critical mass just doesn't stack up. If you want to learn lessons from Europe then the most important one is that if you are going to segregate, do it properly, with priority, or not at all.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

None of this is rocket science. The biggest barrier to cycling is perceived safety. It's not real safety.

Sorry but that's tosh. The perceived lack of safety is what people most often give as the reason, aka excuse, when asked why they don't cycle. Rather like I cite my bad knee whenever my wife wants to go for a walk in the country. It's a convenient, vaguely credible at first glance, excuse. Nothing more nothing less.

No one is ever going to say I don't cycle because I perceive cyclists as social underlings of the plebeian classes and I'm a fat lazy tosser who has been utterly indoctrinated by a consumer society that equates car ownership and use with freedom. In most people's experience cycling is what you do until you can operate a motor vehicle and operating and owning said motor is a life goal for most. Must be or why so many new cars on the roads every year?

The biggest barrier to cycling is society's view of the motor car. ime/imo anyway.

 

[slowmotion]

You have probably seen this many times before, but here is a gentle clip about how cycling grew in Holland. Make of it as you wish.



View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HgLqts3qJs

 

[dellzeqq]

competitive advantage is key. One of the joys of the Cycling Superhighways is that they give times to various points along the route - times that are eminently achievable. While CS7 journey times are not quite as quick as Northern Line times they're not far off - and the cyclist has the advantage of a flying start from his or her front door, and a flying finish to their place of work. They're a good deal better than rush hour car times, particularly through Tooting and Clapham. If people work out that they can get from home to work ten or fifteen minutes faster on a bike they're going to go for it.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

competitive advantage is key. One of the joys of the Cycling Superhighways is that they give times to various points along the route - times that are eminently achievable. While CS7 journey times are not quite as quick as Northern Line times they're not far off - and the cyclist has the advantage of a flying start from his or her front door, and a flying finish to their place of work. They're a good deal better than rush hour car times, particularly through Tooting and Clapham. If people work out that they can get from home to work ten or fifteen minutes faster on a bike they're going to go for it.

that is the key, absolutely. If you can demonstrate that it offers an advantage to time- or cash- poor people when the safety excuse will be disguarded.

 

[dellzeqq]

If they believe it that is. You run in to that "Ah but you must be very fit though because you do all that cycling" thing, where people just don't believe that they could do it just as easily. At which point it takes superhuman modesty to explain that one is in fact a completely unexceptional middle-aged man who is only a bit fitter than the average bear by virtue of the cycling.

fair do's - but have you compared the posted times on CS7 with your own? They are pretty modest. I'm not talking Brompton modest, I'm talking sit up and beg bike with a small dog in the basket modest. And the hordes of cyclists trundling down CS7 are so various that the myth of the ubercyclist is, one hopes, receding.

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

While I'd agree that there is an important difference between real and perceived safety; that doesn't make crappy segregation OK. For a start you've missed a fundamental factor that affects people's willingness to cycle or not: whether it is advantageous to cycle in comparison with other modes. Look at the places where people cycle in large numbers, it is places where there are constraints on driving and cycling is competitive in journey time. But as soon as you tell cyclists they should come off the road where they can go at a decent speed, and instead jostle for space with pedestrians on the pavement, and give way at every side road, then the added delay undermines that time advantage over driving.

I can agree with this 100%.

Poorly thought-out, inferior infrastructure is worse than no infrastructure at all.

Likewise shite on-road cycle lanes should be taken out immediately. This one in my town

is an absolute disgrace and - AFAIK - the council were advised to remove it in 2009. It's still there though. I'm going to write to them.


Edit - I also agree entirely about competitive advantage.