Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by mjr »

Grandad wrote:
No more than being allowed to drive on a road where there is a parallel motorway, which is most of them.


???

Well, name a motorway which doesn't have alternative parallel A/B roads. Severn Bridges. A few bits of the M27. It's things like that. Relatively few.
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Bez »

mjr wrote:
Grandad wrote:
No more than being allowed to drive on a road where there is a parallel motorway, which is most of them.


???

Well, name a motorway which doesn't have alternative parallel A/B roads. Severn Bridges. A few bits of the M27. It's things like that. Relatively few.


Most motorways have parallel roads, but few roads have a parallel motorway.
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by mjr »

Bez wrote:
mjr wrote:
Grandad wrote:
???

Well, name a motorway which doesn't have alternative parallel A/B roads. Severn Bridges. A few bits of the M27. It's things like that. Relatively few.


Most motorways have parallel roads, but few roads have a parallel motorway.

Ah yes, the "them" was ambiguous.
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by pwa »

hayers wrote:You are correct and I would do the same.

Generally no point trying to explain to those types - just try to forget them and enjoy the ride

+1
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Tjm1986 »

Cyril Haearn wrote:Try explaining to a moton that one is allowed to cycle on a road where there is a parallel cycle path, seems a bit illogical even if the law allows it


I understand what you are saying but I am not going to wreck my road bike to keep car users happy. Not happening lol.
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Tjm1986 »

TrevA wrote:It always used to be - there was a bike in a red circle sign on the approach, but I've not noticed it recently.

Edit - just checked Google maps street view and the signs banning cycling are no longer there, so the ban at Dunkirk may have been lifted. Not that I'd want to ride over it anyway.


Me neither and to be fair the cycle path on this stretch between Showcase cinema and Clifton is kept in good shape by the highways agency as I think they assume all cyclists use it rather than risk getting flattened on dunkirk flyover.
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Cugel »

Grandad wrote:
No more than being allowed to drive on a road where there is a parallel motorway, which is most of them.


???


Well, you must step back mentally and think .....

A cyclpath as an alternative way from A to a B is just that: an alternative to the road going from A to B.

An ordinary road as an alternative way from A to a B is just that: an alternative from the motorway route going from A to B.

"Ah but", you might suggest, "the motorway route from A to B is often inconvenient and must include some non-motorway road. The same is true for cyclepaths of course.

And, in my experience, the vast majority of cyclepaths are degraded beyond reasonable utility - dangerous, blocked by cars and otherwise not fit for purpose. Mind, some roads are now near or at this condition, even for the precious car, which must have tyres and suspension fixed quite regularly due to the punishment dished out by pothole and other road-crumble. There are also small wars and engagements between driving motorists and the parking motorists blocking or delaying their progress.

****
Of course, some cycling advocates don't do their road-rights case any good by insisting on an alternative set of structures for "safe cycling". The roads are perfectly safe for cycling now; it's the motorists who aren't. Here is the fundamental reason for severely limiting motoring habits and opportunities rather than those of cycling.

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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by mjr »

Cugel wrote:Of course, some cycling advocates don't do their road-rights case any good by insisting on an alternative set of structures for "safe cycling".

However, there are far fewer such advocates than vehicularists complaining about them!

Cycleways are more often requested (HTF would advocates insist on anything?) because they're more attractive, more fun and a bit away from motorists' noise and pollution. Of course, reducing traffic on a carriageway is usually an acceptable solution, but sometimes it's the A10 and few will support reducing traffic on that yet.
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Cugel »

mjr wrote:
Cugel wrote:Of course, some cycling advocates don't do their road-rights case any good by insisting on an alternative set of structures for "safe cycling".

However, there are far fewer such advocates than vehicularists complaining about them!

Cycleways are more often requested (HTF would advocates insist on anything?) because they're more attractive, more fun and a bit away from motorists' noise and pollution. Of course, reducing traffic on a carriageway is usually an acceptable solution, but sometimes it's the A10 and few will support reducing traffic on that yet.


If you accept that the status quo will or even should remain - hordes of dangerous cars driven by dangerous people with the horrible consequences - then it makes sense to suggest separate cycleways. However, the longer term trend is then likely to be a slow and piecemeal ban of bikes from ever-more roads. The cycleways are unlikely to amount to much as there isn't, in the status quo, enough users of the bike to justify a large spend to provide separate cycleways from every A to every B.

Personally I dislike the status quo of carmageddon a great deal, despite being a foolish user of one myself, on occasion. I would prefer cycling organisations (and any other organisation which represents those attacked by the evil of the car) to campaign for making existing roads safe from the car and the extremely poor drivers at their wheels. This would cost a great deal less than providing enormous amounts of cycling infrastructure; would have a far better outcome for the environment; and would increase the quality of life for everyone, even the fools who bleat about how their car is "convenient" or "a right" or somehow "essential" to their life.

Of course, this is a plea for the nanny state as well as a severe change of lifestyle for many. But silly little infants are generally better off with a nanny to make sure they don't injure others or themselves with their infantile behaviours, eh? And isn't it better to grow up, even if we must give up playing with some of our more dangerous toys?

Well, I can wish thunkfully but it seems unlikely that the status quo in respect of the car will change, except for the worse.

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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by mjr »

Cugel wrote:If you accept that the status quo will or even should remain - hordes of dangerous cars driven by dangerous people with the horrible consequences - then it makes sense to suggest separate cycleways. However, the longer term trend is then likely to be a slow and piecemeal ban of bikes from ever-more roads. The cycleways are unlikely to amount to much as there isn't, in the status quo, enough users of the bike to justify a large spend to provide separate cycleways from every A to every B.

I think there's so many missteps in that reasoning that it's difficult to catch them all. Firstly, there are other motivations that mean it makes sense to suggest cycleways. Secondly, it doesn't follow that we need enough users of the bike to justify them - we don't need people swimming across a river to justify a bridge. We could justify them on recent ones having a benefit-cost ratio of over £5 return on every £1 spent, even averaging out some duds among the recent projects - and that's much better value than road-building or HS2. Thirdly, cycleways don't need to go from every A to every B - some roads are quiet enough and sometimes humanising roads will be a better options, but sometimes the route we want to improve for cycling is the A10 or the M5 and it's probably going to be a very long time before they get fixed, so carving out a protected bit of the road is better than having to wait.

Then, you seem to be treating cycling organisations as fixed-capacity and finite. They're not - if done right, as cycling becomes more popular, the organisations should grow, that increased capacity should help to bring about more changes, which helps get more people cycling and it all rolls along in a virtuous circle.

The organisations might not be able to do everything simultaneously, but they can (and do) campaign for several things at once. Many of them already support campaigns for reducing the dangers from cars and poor driving, but often that's not under the cycling organisations' names in high-profile ways because think how unwelcome it would be to be seen as those bloody cyclists trying to boss motorists around again...

I think it's wrong that reducing road danger "would cost a great deal less" than infrastructure in at least two ways: 1. some infrastructure will be part of that reducing danger, so it's not comparing two alternatives anyway; and 2. if changing road culture was so cheap, then politicians would be all over it - but parts of it like roads policing are pretty expensive too and so have been cut in the last decade.

Other things may be right, such as it being better for the environment or quality of life, but it would depend how it's done - the devil's truly in the detail.

Cycleways aren't nirvana, but they have their place in the toolbox and it's unhelpful to take a hard line saying that everyone should ride on every road no matter how hazardous until it's improved or... do what exactly? Get back in a car and be part of the problem?
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Cugel »

mjr wrote:
Cugel wrote:If you accept that the status quo will or even should remain - hordes of dangerous cars driven by dangerous people with the horrible consequences - then it makes sense to suggest separate cycleways. However, the longer term trend is then likely to be a slow and piecemeal ban of bikes from ever-more roads. The cycleways are unlikely to amount to much as there isn't, in the status quo, enough users of the bike to justify a large spend to provide separate cycleways from every A to every B.

I think there's so many missteps in that reasoning that it's difficult to catch them all. Firstly, there are other motivations that mean it makes sense to suggest cycleways. Secondly, it doesn't follow that we need enough users of the bike to justify them - we don't need people swimming across a river to justify a bridge. ...9snip)...Thirdly, cycleways don't need to go from every A to every B - some roads are quiet enough and sometimes humanising roads will be a better options, but sometimes the route we want to improve for cycling is the A10 or the M5 and it's probably going to be a very long time before they get fixed, so carving out a protected bit of the road is better than having to wait.?


I think there's so many missteps in that reasoning that it's difficult to catch them all. :-)

Motivations for cycleways - are there any of any real significance other than avoiding danger from cars? I generally cycle quiet routes, even from A to B, and find the roads fine for doing that, unless an idiot or two appears in a car, driving dangerously. If you just want utter quietude, there are plenty of forest tracks and bridelways.

Bridges make rivers safe to cross then millions do so. When there's sharks and rip tides (the equivalent of cars) this puts off most swimmers. Your analogy is spurious, really.

There are already alternatives to cycle other than the M5 or the A10. Why do you need another expensive cycleway?

mjr wrote:[Then, you seem to be treating cycling organisations as fixed-capacity and finite. They're not - if done right, as cycling becomes more popular, the organisations should grow, that increased capacity should help to bring about more changes, which helps get more people cycling and it all rolls along in a virtuous circle.


Cycling will become more popular when more feel safe to do it. If no one will spend enough to make as many miles of cycleway as there are roads unless cycling is much more popular .... This is known as Catch 22. The only practical (i.e. inexpensive) way to increase the popularity of cycling is to make the existing cycleways (roads) a lot safer, especially in the imagination of would-be cyclists, as well as in reality.


........(snip)

mjr wrote:I think it's wrong that reducing road danger "would cost a great deal less" than infrastructure in at least two ways: 1. some infrastructure will be part of that reducing danger, so it's not comparing two alternatives anyway; and 2. if changing road culture was so cheap, then politicians would be all over it - but parts of it like roads policing are pretty expensive too and so have been cut in the last decade.


Are you kidding? The costs to society (including costs to government) are immense from the dominance of the car. I think you know this.

These costs are not just the cost of road or cycleway provision. Vast amounts would be saved if car use was reigned back in a serious way - savings in the NHS and the wider costs of dealing with "accidents"; savings due to the reduction in pollution and global warming; savings in the costs of fuel and the infrastucure providing it; and many others.


mjr wrote:Other things may be right, such as it being better for the environment or quality of life, but it would depend how it's done - the devil's truly in the detail.


The details are not insurmountable, except perhaps in terms of political will and imagination.

mjr wrote:Cycleways aren't nirvana, but they have their place in the toolbox and it's unhelpful to take a hard line saying that everyone should ride on every road no matter how hazardous until it's improved or... do what exactly? Get back in a car and be part of the problem?


Where did I say that? I don't advocate riding your bike down the M5, just to be clear. I advocate the prevention of dangerous driving and the technology & law that allows or even encourages it. I suspect that decent levels of traffic police and court infrastructure would cost a lot less than a million miles of new cycleway; and also have many other benefits, not least a far greater ability to obtain justice of other kinds besides that to do with carmaggedon.

Are we having completely separate pedestrian-ways too? After all, they suffer more from cars than do cyclists. It'll be difficult going anywhere if roadside pavements are too dangerous to be walked on and so require separate footpaths everywhere. Soon we'll have paved-over every bit of land in Blighty!

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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by mjr »

Cugel wrote:Motivations for cycleways - are there any of any real significance other than avoiding danger from cars? I generally cycle quiet routes, even from A to B, and find the roads fine for doing that, unless an idiot or two appears in a car, driving dangerously. If you just want utter quietude, there are plenty of forest tracks and bridelways.

Maybe you enjoy bumping along muddy tracks and bridleways. I don't. Maybe you have equivalent alternative quiet roads available. I don't (I'll return to that below). I gave some reasons why I use good cycleways (and a couple of so-so), but I guess you don't see those as of any real significance. I don't think avoiding danger from cars is a significant reason because Norfolk (like many, but unlike some, including MK where I grew up) doesn't routinely put a verge or posts between carriageway and cycleway and motorists don't hesitate to mount the kerb and drive on the cycleway to avoid queues of motorists. :-( Then you have the ongoing controversies about crossing layouts and whether they can be safe but definitely many currently-installed layouts aren't.

Cugel wrote:Bridges make rivers safe to cross then millions do so. When there's sharks and rip tides (the equivalent of cars) this puts off most swimmers. Your analogy is spurious, really.

Is it? It seems like you're making the same point but with an unnecessary safety twist: even where car-domination had deterred most cyclists, cycleways then made them attractive and then millions cycle there. For example, the London Blackfriars cycleways saw a million cyclists in just four months after opening and now over 70% of peak traffic over the bridge is cycling. That scheme was one of a new wave of realisations that we must provide for what we want to see, not merely react, if we want things to improve.

I note the point that the benefit-cost ratio has overwhelmingly justified the recent small cycleway-building programme despite some famous duds has gone unchallenged. :-)

Cugel wrote:There are already alternatives to cycle other than the M5 or the A10. Why do you need another expensive cycleway?

Because the alternative routes are far longer than the M5 or the A10 - shouldn't we be making cycling easier and more attractive, rather than basically abandoning people to being limited to cycling along routes rejected by motorists?

Cycleway-building is much cheaper than road-building, even when it's done properly (ironically, some of the most expensive cycleways have been some of the worst-built). There are usually reasons why some roads are quiet and it's rarely something like width restriction which discourages motorists without hindering cyclists. It's more often that a route is longer or surface is worse.

Cugel wrote:Cycling will become more popular when more feel safe to do it. If no one will spend enough to make as many miles of cycleway as there are roads unless cycling is much more popular .... This is known as Catch 22. The only practical (i.e. inexpensive) way to increase the popularity of cycling is to make the existing cycleways (roads) a lot safer, especially in the imagination of would-be cyclists, as well as in reality.

But that's stuck in another Catch 22 - no-one will spend enough to make many roads a lot safer, especially in the imagination of would-be cyclists, unless cycling is much more popular!

I feel it's about as practical to extend the decent cycleway networks as it is to make more roads safer. Improving the cycleway network comes mainly from capital budgets, while policing the roads comes mainly from revenue budgets and changing laws comes indirectly - I know the distinction between capital and revenue is pretty arbitrary, but it continues in government budgets to this day. We push for all and one rarely interferes with another. Cycling organisations also do other things to increase the popularity of cycling which don't come from government at all, such as sharing knowledge and inspirational things like travelogues and bringing cyclists together for group rides... there are lots of things and doing X doesn't necessarily mean you can't do Y too.

Cugel wrote:
mjr wrote:I think it's wrong that reducing road danger "would cost a great deal less" than infrastructure in at least two ways: 1. some infrastructure will be part of that reducing danger, so it's not comparing two alternatives anyway; and 2. if changing road culture was so cheap, then politicians would be all over it - but parts of it like roads policing are pretty expensive too and so have been cut in the last decade.


Are you kidding? The costs to society (including costs to government) are immense from the dominance of the car. I think you know this.

These costs are not just the cost of road or cycleway provision. Vast amounts would be saved if car use was reigned back in a serious way - savings in the NHS and the wider costs of dealing with "accidents"; savings due to the reduction in pollution and global warming; savings in the costs of fuel and the infrastucure providing it; and many others.

I do indeed know this. So why do you think it hasn't happened, then?

I feel that the transition would have costs too and politicians aren't willing to risk it. There's an activation cost to overcome, so it may be low-cost viewed over 20 or 50 years, but not over 5 or 10 and that's the sort of horizon politicians work on.

Cugel wrote:
mjr wrote:Cycleways aren't nirvana, but they have their place in the toolbox and it's unhelpful to take a hard line saying that everyone should ride on every road no matter how hazardous until it's improved or... do what exactly? Get back in a car and be part of the problem?


Where did I say that? I don't advocate riding your bike down the M5, just to be clear. I advocate the prevention of dangerous driving and the technology & law that allows or even encourages it.

That's great. I'm also in favour of apple pie. But until we have such prevention, I'll keep using appropriate cycleways and seeking their extension where they'd be useful. What would be your alternative? Stop trying to expand the 40km network and put all our eggs in the basket of the long shot of a massive driving culture change?

Cugel wrote:I suspect that decent levels of traffic police and court infrastructure would cost a lot less than a million miles of new cycleway; and also have many other benefits, not least a far greater ability to obtain justice of other kinds besides that to do with carmaggedon.

Don't be daft: there aren't a million miles of road in the UK, so why would we need that much cycleway? There's only 33,000 miles of major road and not even all of that would need cycleways adding (some already has it, some wouldn't need it), but even if it did, building new cycleways along the whole lot would be between £5bn and £16bn (depending whose per-mile costings you believe - the lower is from Sustrans, the higher from a respected highways engineer), while the UK budget is nearly £800bn/year and this work would doubtless take a few years.

Cugel wrote:Are we having completely separate pedestrian-ways too? After all, they suffer more from cars than do cyclists. It'll be difficult going anywhere if roadside pavements are too dangerous to be walked on and so require separate footpaths everywhere. Soon we'll have paved-over every bit of land in Blighty!

Again with the "completely separate" and the "too dangerous" - I don't agree with either. Roadside cycleways can be OK, although of course getting away from the noisy metal machines is nicer.

But if we don't start protecting more space for walking and cycling, then we'll soon have paved-over loads more of the country for motoring anyway!
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Cugel »

The case for cycle paths and other separate cycling infrastructure is almost entirely built on the premise that the roads (originally built for carts and bicycles) have become too dangerous for cyclists because of motorised traffic. There may be the odd request for a nice cyclepath dedicated to the pootler or even those who prefer a dead straight line or no hills between A and B but who will deny that the road network, were it safe from car-danger, is a very good resource for cycling of all kinds?

So, if you want a separate cycling infrastructure, you do so because you can't imagine or believe in a road network made safe from the dangers of motorised traffic. You regard that as impractical or unrealistic but believe that the provision of an extensive cycling infrastructure in addition to the roads is practical or realistic. Personally I think the former is more practical and realistic, not least because it would provide huge benefits besides those to cyclists whereas a new cycling infrastructure would not. Carmageddon might, in fact, become worse. It isn't just cyclists who get killed and maimed on the roads. And cars do much more damage than just squashing people.

If roads were made safer, there would be an obvious financial advantage because there would be no need to spend anything on a separate set of cyclepaths. There would also be other immense savings if making roads safe from car-danger involved a reduction in car use, as well as their safe use. But just their safe use would generate cost savings in terms of a smaller bill for the NHS and all other people or organisations loaded with extra costs following an "accident". All others, not just cyclists.

The alternative is to continue to ignore the immense damage that motorised transport does. Even were cyclists to suffer fewer deaths and injuries as a result of an extensive new cycling infrastructure, everyone else prey to the car would continue to suffer, including drivers and passengers themselves. And pedestrians .... unless you want that separate pedestrian infrastructure away from road dangers, which dangers are greater to pedestrians than they are to cyclists.

Creating separate cycling (or pedestrian) infrastructure is ignoring the root cause of the problem; and leaving that problem to cause mayhem in many other domains besides that of cycling. Why be a parochial cyclist on this matter when you could be a full citizen?

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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by mjr »

Cugel wrote:So, if you want a separate cycling infrastructure, you do so because you can't imagine or believe in a road network made safe from the dangers of motorised traffic.

When you start telling other people that they do things for reasons they've already said they don't agree with, that's very silly and pretty much the end of any reasonable discussion about it.

I leave you to knock down the Aunt Sallys you dream up and bid you safe journey!
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Re: Road Bike and Cycle Tracks

Post by Cugel »

mjr wrote:
Cugel wrote:So, if you want a separate cycling infrastructure, you do so because you can't imagine or believe in a road network made safe from the dangers of motorised traffic.

When you start telling other people that they do things for reasons they've already said they don't agree with, that's very silly and pretty much the end of any reasonable discussion about it.

I leave you to knock down the Aunt Sallys you dream up and bid you safe journey!


What was you other reason for wanting cyclepaths besides the avoidance of danger from other traffic to be found on the already very extensive road network? I have looked through your posts and found nothing of any significance. Yes, these new cyclepaths might be quieter or easier for cycling than some roads but would that alone justify the large cost?

It's disingenuous to deny that the major motive for cycling infrastructure is to avoid dangerous motorised road traffic. Are you claiming that we'd still want (or could justify) extensive new cyclepath networks even if the dangers (real or perceived) of motorised road traffic were removed?

Cugel
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