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!