Levelling up?

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mjr
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by mjr »

prestavalve wrote:
mjr wrote:... did it follow a growth in cycling and the resulting CTC-linked campaign?


Well, scratch another one for cycling-before-infrastructure then.

Not necessarily. The point I was making is that it is difficult to decide with certainty which causes what — and to some degree, it does not matter very much.

My point is that external forces (fuel crises, growth/decline in affluence, campaigns against road death in the Netherlands, etc.) have been the catalyst for the past cycling booms. I see no reason why this pattern is going to change: it may very well be the case that concerns over the environment will cause the next cycle boom, independent of whether there are lines painted on the ground or not.

1. A catalyst still needs reagents: would the campaign against road death in NL have resulted in higher cycling without CROW-manual infrastructure?

2. I don't think any sincere cycling advocate pretends that painted lines are decisive infrastructure any more.
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prestavalve
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by prestavalve »

mjr wrote:...which causes what ...A catalyst still needs reagents...


I am overstating my case a bit - I really just don't like statements like the one below:

CyclingUK wrote:Help combat the 'bikelash' by writing to your council to support more measures to enable walking and cycling.


Which seem to accept the premise that infrastructure is needed before cycling can happen, and that our efforts are best directed at local councillors, rather than simply trying to get more ordinary people out there riding on the roads we already have.

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.
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mjr
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by mjr »

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.
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prestavalve
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by prestavalve »

mjr wrote: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?


Nope, because government encouragement doesn't generally work with anything. You seem to have swallowed the stick a bit in immediately jumping to the assumption that the best way to change minds is by official permission.

Critical mass had a good idea once, blah blah.
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mjr
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Re: Levelling up?

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Feel free to show any example of private exhortations to ride nasty roads working, if you prefer.

Critical mass has some uses but it doesn't permanently humanise streets.
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Stevek76
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by Stevek76 »

There's plenty of evidence of infrastructure working at the local level just looking at the presence of half decent cycle infrastructure and its use.

e.g. the segregated track along baldwin street in bristol took cycle counts from 1000/day before to 3000/day after (and still rising). The presence of the half decent, though utterly inadequate for the current volume of traffic, bristol-bath railway path in this area since the 80s is likely in part responsible for the above average cycling rates in the area.

Also the heavy usage of London's CS6 & CS3 and the variance in cycling rates across the city. Hackney, largely due to an extensive quantity of modal filters from well before LTNs were causing social media arguments has the highest cycle mode share. Similarly some of the early data from the new LTNs indicate substantial increases in cyclists, particularly children and women.

As for the dutch, external forces helped switch the infrastructure priority, it was the infrastructure, not those forces that steadily increased cycling in urban and suburban areas.
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rmurphy195
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by rmurphy195 »

This thread starts with the standard comments re relative skills of cyclists v drivers.

IME there are good drivers and cyclists, mediocre both, and crap of both - in equal measure.

Leads metothink lots of people get off theier bikes and into their cars - and vice versa - and behave the same way. Which is a bit daft of them really but there you are.
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Wanlock Dod
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Re: Levelling up?

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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.

Can you offer any explanation of why decades of encouraging people to ride bikes on the roads amongst the motorised traffic have been so unsuccessful in terms of actually increasing levels of cycling?

prestavalve wrote:Nope, because government encouragement doesn't generally work with anything. You seem to have swallowed the stick a bit in immediately jumping to the assumption that the best way to change minds is by official permission.

You seem to be conveniently overlooking the fact that decades of providing high quality infrastructure at considerable public expense and making the overall experience easy and convenient has encouraged more and more people to choose to use cars for virtually all of their journeys, even quite a few that could easily be walked.
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by drossall »

Wanlock Dod wrote:Can you offer any explanation of why decades of encouraging people to ride bikes on the roads amongst the motorised traffic have been so unsuccessful in terms of actually increasing levels of cycling?

From the point of view of a London commuter before lockdown, the premise is not true. Cycling increased massively, mostly on normal roads.
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Wanlock Dod
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by Wanlock Dod »

drossall wrote:From the point of view of a London commuter before lockdown, the premise is not true. Cycling increased massively, mostly on normal roads.

Would that by any chance be the same London that has seen a fairly significant investment in relatively good quality protected routes for cycling in the past decade?
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by drossall »

Yes. But they don't go everywhere, and cyclists do.
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by mattheus »

I think we should look at the whole range of measures.

Low Traffic Neighborhoods - these have been v successful, without segregation.

I heard Chris Boardman say in a recent interview that segregation is the last resort, when you've failed to make streets pleasant and safe.
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by mjr »

drossall wrote:Yes. But they don't go everywhere, and cyclists do.

People are more likely to tolerate crap connections/starts/ends if the bulk of their ride is good cycleway, rather like crap gravel driveways for the first or last leg don't deter motoring if the bulk of the journey is on flowing fast main roads.
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

mattheus wrote:I heard Chris Boardman say in a recent interview that segregation is the last resort, when you've failed to make streets pleasant and safe.

Yes. Because what we do on streets shouldn't only be traffic and movement.
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Re: Levelling up?

Post by drossall »

mjr wrote:
drossall wrote:Yes. But they don't go everywhere, and cyclists do.

People are more likely to tolerate crap connections/starts/ends if the bulk of their ride is good cycleway, rather like crap gravel driveways for the first or last leg don't deter motoring if the bulk of the journey is on flowing fast main roads.

I'm not really speculating on what people feel about it, nor arguing for or against provision, which can be good. I'm just observing that, in London, I've seen loads of on-road riding by cyclists of all types. My route into work, for example, uses the Liverpool Road from Finsbury Park to Angel. No real cycle provision apart from some lanes that get used for parking near the Arsenal stadium, and one well-thought-out bit of broad shared-use pavement that lets cyclists avoid a detour. More bikes than cars often, and the Liverpool Road is a significant thoroughfare. And lots of the bike routes just use back streets with no actual modification, for example heading into the City from St Pancras/Kings Cross.
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