prestavalve wrote:If more people, and I don't mean Dutch numbers, rode on the roads we have today then we wouldn't need cycle lanes. Is it more cost, time and effort effective to change enough minds to reach that point of critical mass, or is it better to ask for handouts from local councillors? I am firmly of the former opinion.
I am not. Government spent years doing little more for cycling than trying to help/persuade/exhort people to cycle on roads (travelsmart, travelplus, ...) that were being made more and more hostile both by design and usage. It does not work. I don't know that it has ever worked anywhere. Do you know anywhere?
I am unsure it can ever work. Even paying people to cycle only seems to have worked after some infrastructure was built, in cities like Milan and Rouen. Basically, if the roads are hostile, you can't even pay most people to ride because they don't like feeling like human speed bumps.
Is it handouts? The money gets spent building, maintaining and rebuilding roads anyway and all we are asking for is new builds, rebuilds and maintenance to either accommodate or at least not exclude cycling. It need not be more expensive to put a kerb a metre one way or the other and not paint a shared buffer zone in the middle and avoid creating danger-width lanes, or to hang different signs. Why isn't it best to direct our efforts at persuading the councillors and officers who can actually do this, which will probably help persuade others to ride?
I am a big believer in supporting others to ride, getting more ordinary people out there riding on the roads we already have, but helping with rides means I know that there are edge-of-town barrier roads (which I will ride but don't enjoy) that even experienced veteran riders will ask to detour 4 miles to avoid and new riders simply will not consider.
It is pretty much a waste of effort taking new riders onto those roads. It may even be counterproductive: a ride on such a road has sometimes been the last ride we see someone on (but of course we do not force exit interviews so maybe it was for other reasons). So I feel we do need some roads fixing and that means persuading councillors. It is not needed before all cycling, but shortening the nice ride routes from several "commuter belt" villages from 10 to 6 miles by fixing 2 miles of road could unlock a lot more cycling.