Does this reflect well on cycle campaigners?

[thirdcrank]

Thank you thirdcrank but the praise should really go to Katja Leyendecker who chairs the campaign and does an awful lot of the very hard work.

I'll dig out a suitable decoration - something with crossed bike pumps and plenty of oak leaves, all with brass knobs on. It will have to be a postal presentation rather than a personal one, if only because I couldn't begin to pronounce the name. Anyway, hats off to all concerned.

[hexhome]

[PRL]

It's also clear that Welbeck Road has a 30mph speed limit which generally shouldn't need a cycle lane. It would also not be possible to install a cycle lane without removing parking provision or without putting cyclist in the door zone (as the council where I live have done by putting parking next kerbside with a cycle lane outside it) .

A busy 30 mph road may be fine for us hardened cyclists but if public health demands getting the more timorous on their bikes a cycle lane, of appropriate width, would be useful. But not in the door zone.

[Mark1978]

We need more of a national policy guidance on this. Local Authorities take the attitude that no changes can be made to favour cycling if they affect in any way at all the motorised traffic.

Fact is some roads need narrowing. Some need parking removed. This should be able to be done without onerus red tape.

[sirmy]

Hexhome - I have read the entire letter and find it frankly unbelievable that a cycling campaign would raise the question.

This afternoon I showed this to a friend of mine who is a traffic engineer, who incidentally has heard of NCC, they don't have a good reputation with engineers, and he hasn't stopped laughing yet! Frankly I'd be embarrassed to admit to being a member of a group that though this was a valid query!

[meic]

First they laugh at you.......

Mr Ghandi, I think, said it.

[Mark1978]

Do they believe it was a valid query or merely making a point?

[pwward]

[quote="]This afternoon I showed this to a friend of mine who is a traffic engineer, who incidentally has heard of NCC, they don't have a good reputation with engineers,[/quote]

Could you let your friend know his profession (in the UK) does not have a good reputation with us cyclists, though is cousins in the Netherlands are doing ok. Could he ask them all to pull their socks up?

[Richard Mann]

A lot of [cycle] campaigners are half-mad. They are only kept sane in their utterings by discussing matters in groups. That knocks the rough edges off their proposals.

So any local authority would be advised to encourage their cycle groups to expand, and to keep talking (among themselves and with the council), however batty the ideas initially seem. Just keep talking, folks.

For that particular road in Newcastle, I'd probably start with 20mph, remove any pinch points, and worry mostly about the roundabouts...

[hexhome]

Hexhome - I have read the entire letter and find it frankly unbelievable that a cycling campaign would raise the question.

This afternoon I showed this to a friend of mine who is a traffic engineer, who incidentally has heard of NCC, they don't have a good reputation with engineers, and he hasn't stopped laughing yet! Frankly I'd be embarrassed to admit to being a member of a group that though this was a valid query!

Should raise what question, there are 6 outlined in the letter? Who should raise such questions? Campaigners are generally lay persons who often challenge 'professionals'. As a result, such groups tend to be disliked by 'professionals'. Could you elaborate on the 'fact' that we do not have a good reputation with engineers?

I am very proud to be a member of a democratic and well organised group which challenges the status quo regarding road user priorities. It seems to me that having made your point and not liked my answer, you now wish to ridicule and belittle us on the grounds of a single issue which you dislike.

We may not be as powerful or as smart as the motoring lobby - yet - but we all have to start somewhere!

Why we need to challenge? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-23712134

[Ron]

This afternoon I showed this to a friend of mine who is a traffic engineer, who incidentally has heard of NCC, they don't have a good reputation with engineers, and he hasn't stopped laughing yet!

Traffic engineers
There might be some good ones out there, but IME when it comes to dealing with cycle traffic matters most of them have little knowledge or undestanding.

[thirdcrank]

Rather than relying on the experience of cyclists - naive simpletons one and all - I'll offer a bit of evidence.

The Notional Cycling Strategy (NCS) - agreed policy across public life when it was published a decade and a half ago - looked at various "areas of concern," one of which was Integrating cycling within traffic management practices.

Bearing in mind that the relevant professional body, the Institution of Highways and Transportation was represented on the relevant working group, I'll pluck the following from the document:

4.3.8 Many authorities have tended either to ignore cyclists or treat them as marginal users of the roads. Education and promotion are important in overcoming attitudinal and institutional barriers.....

4.4.7 Professional bodies and academic institutions need to raise awareness of the relevance of cycling and improve practical skills. Cycling issues should be integrated into mainstream engineering, planning and design training, including National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), not taught as separate topics. There should be a programme of training for existing professionals, particularly local authority consultants.

The NCS was pretty much killed off, of course, and that was in no small part the responsibility of highwaymen who wanted nothing to do with it. Moving into the modern era, the subject of the training of highwaymen came up earlier in the year in the All-Party Cycling Charade. I'm grateful to TonyR for this post from which I've quoted part:

During the recent Parliamentary All Party Cycling Group enquiry a Regional Director of the Highways Agency admitted " As a highways engineer myself I spend an awful lot of time designing roundabouts and bridges, actually I didn’t spend a great deal of time at university or subsequently looking at provision for non-motorised users.”...(My emphasis)

posting.php?mode=quote&f=6&p=669495

I'm keeping an open mind, but on that evidence, things haven't changed. IMO: It ill behoves anybody in that line of business to sneer at what they see as the shortcomings of cycle campaigners. A large part of the problem lies with them.

[hexhome]

Just to give some background to this. The proposals which are highlighted in the letter are those made by Newcastle City Council which New Cycling supported. The council have £5.6 million to spend on improvements to benefit cyclists and pedestrians. The road in question was to be included in these improvements as part of a range of strategic cycle routes. The council then went back on themselves. The councils policy is to have 20% of short journeys made by bicycle by 2020. If they continue with the attitude that motor traffic cannot be inconvenienced, we will never get there!

Putting the message across - http://tyneandwear.sky.com/news/article ... s-cyclists

[snibgo]

So, the City Council proposed doing some changes, then one of their own committees rejected the proposals. Ouch.

Good luck with the campaign.

[Mark1978]

Newcastle has £5 million for cycling but going off posts in this forum that kind of money can easily be soaked up doing traffic modelling and studies with very little actually getting built.