Author Topic: Segregation as a solution  (Read 9178 times)

Biggsy

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Segregation as a solution
« on: 14 June, 2012, 10:22:22 am »
This part a longer discussion has been separated from the more specific thread on the Bow roundabout here

The Movers.


There is a class of cyclists that often don't feel confident enough to do this though and they are more important that those of us who consider ourselves experienced cyclists.

I'm very well aware of that and that's why I say they should be ENCOURAGED to use the primary position (at danger spots).  Cyclists can increase in confidence through training and riding sometimes with a more confident cyclist.  My 75-year-old mother is a case in point.  But also I accept that part of this encouragement needs to come from a drop in the speed and numbers of motor vehicles, and better behaviour from motorists.  This requires some changes in law and policing.

The roads are the best place for cycling in London.  London wasn't bombed heavily enough in the war for wide enough streets to be built that could accommodate high-enough quality segregated cycle paths all over.  The streets are wide enough in places, but a few isolated bits of besides-roads segregation here and there would be worse than useless, in my opinion.  I'm dead against the LCC's defeatist Go Dutch campaign.
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Pancho

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #1 on: 14 June, 2012, 10:38:56 am »
i taught my children to ride primary from their first faultering pedals along the road. It was horrifyingly scary to watch and I really just wanted them to be in the gutter and out of the way.

They (and I) survived but I remember being a bit queasy when they were 11 or so and returned from one ride saying "it's always BMWs that use their horn to try to get you out of the way".

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #2 on: 14 June, 2012, 10:56:06 am »
Asking for nice safe Dutch style cycling infrastructure is not at all a defeatist ideal, far from it. You want to reduce numbers of cars on the roads, make it so amazingly easy for someone to walk or cycle to their destinations it's almost crazy not to. You don't do that by offering training or riding with another rider. To get someone to the training / mentored stage they have to either be coerced or self convinced they want to do it.

Given our governments have a lacklustre approach related to building cycling infrastructure and make a complete hash of it when they do, but this is a sea change that has to be absolutely hammered through otherwise people will continue to die, the roads will get more congested and the quality of life in our cities will go down the toilet.

If the bow roundabout had the whole deal the feeder lanes the proper lights, the marked lane, everything so that a cyclist whizzes up to their light blasts round the roundabout before the cars and trucks have even moved, wouldn't that be nice instead of having to force out into primary, wondering if the driver behind you is on the phone, or you are going to get side swiped.  Seriously there isn't even any provision for pedestrians, our priorities are seriously f**ked into a cocked hat.

We could have had all the infrastructure we wanted and more if the CTC hadn't campaigned against it way back in the day before motor vehicle numbers got so big.
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Biggsy

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #3 on: 14 June, 2012, 11:17:28 am »
No I don't think it's nice or safe to keep having to get on and off the proper roads to use bits of unjoined-up cycle facilities here and there.  Roads are nice.  It's (too many of) the motorists who are not nice.

"Go Dutch" is disgustingly defeatist, in my view.  We've got superbly wide and smooth paths to cycle on already.  They're called roads.
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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #4 on: 14 June, 2012, 01:30:07 pm »
In don't think you understand my point, we don't need bits of infrastructure we need the whole kit and caboodle.

In an attempt to process my thoughts a bit more rationally, I wrote this offline. I guess that's the problem with these sorts of issues is that both sides have a habit getting intrenched in their views and blindly defending them (me included in that statement). I'd like to take a minute and explain why I hold the views I do and why I feel this sea change is so vitally important to the health and welfare of the country.

For a large number of years I classed myself as a vehicular cyclist, I was experienced and capable enough to ride on the roads with the traffic. I've never been fast so I often found myself with a tail behind me or having to pull over to let people past. I've had my share of collisions, been knocked off, woken up in ambulances, that sort of close call that I often said well I only have an acciendent every x thousand miles so the odds are still good. I've argued against cycle paths in debates, I mean look at the standard of some of them. They either go nowhere or are so full of signs and street funiture that you start to wonder if its worth the effort.

But recently I've started to change my mind, I've noticed a number of things.

The roads are getting busier, can't avoid the fact that there are more vehicles on our streets today than in the past. The common solution appears to be to make the road wider. A case in point is a dual carrigeway I use to get to work in Birmingham. Nice wide grass verges and a big strip in the middle. It gets very busy during the rush hours as it leads onto the inner ring road, the council are at the round abouts adding extra lanes. Where do you stop adding lanes? When there is no grass left and the whole country is covered in tarmac?

The obvious solution is to reduce trafic, but how do you reduce traffic? Ban it from the roads at certain times, congestion charge? Hows that working out, not as great as we would hope I guess as despite it being costly to use, the general population (or not yet cyclists) still equate driving with convienince. To them driving is safer, they are in their protective box. They have been sold a dream.

To convince these people to leave the car at home and walk or cycle requires a huge carrot, a carrot of such proportions that the present or the following government will not measure it's success it will be the future generations who will one day say, why did it take them so long to do this.

In my ideal world, we have a top notch rail and bus system with provision for bikes, buggies, and people of all shapes and sizes so that we can close the roads to private vehicles and reclaim the roads for people. However it's never going to happen.

But for a smaller cost (probably an aircraft carrier) we can implement propper infrastructure, propper paths alongside roads with the junctions redesigned to switch priority from motorised vehicles to human beings. Imagine a day when an ordinary person can get on a bike and not have to worry about taking primary or is that motorist on the phone or am I about to be killed by a lorry. When it's so easy to walk or cycle to the shops that no one considers you odd for doing it because they all are.

The dutch did it in the 70's by getting behind a campaign to reduce child deaths on the roads, this brought a wave of investment from government and a whopping £25 per head per person being spent on cycle facilities. Today the times wants us to get behind a campaign which hopes to get £1.50 (ish) per head spent on cycle facilities, which is our 2005 levels.

This last bit is going to sound exceptionally emotional.

Will encouaging people to share the road with cars reduce deaths?

Will offering training on how to ride in traffic increase modal share?

The answer is no, it's no now, and in five years time it will still be no. Change is radical and painful and aiming for some half assed compromise is no way to be going. Humans have rights not motorcars or lorries, or skip trucks. But yet we still give them all the cards to hold when it comes to transport.
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Biggsy

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #5 on: 14 June, 2012, 02:22:53 pm »
In don't think you understand my point, we don't need bits of infrastructure we need the whole kit and caboodle.

I do understand your point, but you can't want as high a physical standard as me for cycling.  There is not room in London for a whole segregated kit and caboodle to be what I'd regard as good.  There is not room in many streets to have a lane for motor vehicles and a separate lane for cyclists if the cycle lane is to be of a great width and with no stupidly sharp turns and with no awkward intersections with other parts of the facility.  That is unless you want to knock down vast numbers of buildings.  It's also simply unnecessary because we've already got superb physical facilities for cyclists: the roads.  It just requires the political will to make them friendlier for cyclists to use by greater curbs on motoring.

The crux of the issue is the amount of room in London.  I suspect this is at the heart of our disagreement.  You reckon there's room for great segregated cycling facilities.  I don't.  It would require amazing political will to do it well even if there was room anyway.  Also what I want would require amazing political will as well.
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Pancho

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #6 on: 14 June, 2012, 02:37:20 pm »
The other danger of segregation is that it can cut both ways.

I believe that while the Dutch may have some good cycle lanes they also have a lot of roads from which cyclists are barred. If that quid pro quo ever became accepted over here, you can easily imagine the outcome.

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #7 on: 14 June, 2012, 03:30:38 pm »
The other danger of segregation is that it can cut both ways.

I believe that while the Dutch may have some good cycle lanes they also have a lot of roads from which cyclists are barred. If that quid pro quo ever became accepted over here, you can easily imagine the outcome.

But then there are roads we are banned from in the UK already.

What you have to ask in the dedicated infrastructure argument, is will you need to cycle on those roads if there is a dedicated high quality lane next to them?

I've heard the cycling club argument, that a club on a run is forced to run a chain gang on a cycle lane amongst the commuters. In that case there is thousands of miles of country lanes that are more than reasonable for purpose. 

The thing in my mind is do we go with a solution where cycling is restricted to the trained, brave and elite and those who want to go fast or do we make it an enjoyable form of transport open to everybody.

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #8 on: 14 June, 2012, 03:41:28 pm »
The other danger of segregation is that it can cut both ways.

I believe that while the Dutch may have some good cycle lanes they also have a lot of roads from which cyclists are barred. If that quid pro quo ever became accepted over here, you can easily imagine the outcome.

Most motorists appear to think it already is law here that you should use the cycle lane, rather than the road, even if it's full of cr@p, blocked by parked cars, too narrow or twisty (or both) to allow sensible cycling speeds (such as 15mph) or doesn't go where you want to.

We do not want to encourage these motons. More segregated lanes would encourage them, making cycling on the roads, whether or not they have parallel or equivalent (some hope) cycle facilities, more dangerous.
The journey is always more important than the destination

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #9 on: 14 June, 2012, 03:43:46 pm »
But then there are roads we are banned from in the UK already.


Yes, like motorways and the Strand underpass. Places you wouldn't want to cycle anyway and that have adequate and equally swift (if you're on a bike) road alternatives that you can cycle on.
The journey is always more important than the destination

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #10 on: 14 June, 2012, 03:45:28 pm »



What you have to ask in the dedicated infrastructure argument, is will you need to cycle on those roads if there is a dedicated high quality lane next to them?

"High-quality lane" Yea, right. For me it'd have to be as wide as a two-lane country road to allow overtaking, safe two-way riding and unimpeded progress (especially downhill). It won't happen (and hasn't happened in Nirvana The Netherlands or Denmark).

Why not ban motors from the roads so that we can cycle on them in peace? After all, cycling on roads is a right, like walking and horse-riding. Driving on them isn't. See where your argument's leading...
The journey is always more important than the destination

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #11 on: 14 June, 2012, 03:58:16 pm »
My argument that I don't want to die going to work and I don't believe for a moment that a bit of blue paint at junctions and some "legislation" will save me.

How wide a lane do you need! two lane country road!!! One of the points of a bicycle is that it doesn't take up as much room as a car.

The impression I get from the no to segregated infrastructure crowd, is that we like our small minority hobby and we wear the harassment and threats of death like a badge of honour. Why should any normal person be allowed to cycle in safety kept away from the heavy dangerous metal things. It's my right to be there (stamps foot).

I don't consider the Netherlands to be Nirvana but they have to have something right, just look at the modal share.
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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #12 on: 14 June, 2012, 04:13:23 pm »
How wide a lane do you need! two lane country road!!! One of the points of a bicycle is that it doesn't take up as much room as a car.

When a car overtakes me I expect at least 1m of space between me and the car. The same applies to a cyclist I don't know and who can do all manner of erratic things without warning.

Width of two bicycles = 1m
+ 1m safety margin = 2m
+ opposite lane = 4m.

OK?
The journey is always more important than the destination

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #13 on: 14 June, 2012, 04:15:04 pm »
My argument that I don't want to die going to work and I don't believe for a moment that a bit of blue paint at junctions and some "legislation" will save me.

Quite right. I think you know the answer, and it doesn't involve cycle lanes of any description.

Hint: You are the traffic. You are a vehicle. Behave like one.
The journey is always more important than the destination

urban_biker

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #14 on: 14 June, 2012, 04:27:19 pm »
The simple answer is we need both. More segregated lanes in places where that makes sense and more tolerance from drivers for those using the road whether a segregated lane exists or not.

This is because:

1) We will NEVER have a fully segregated cycle network that matches the full reach of our road network.

2) Some riders will never be happy sharing the road with motorists.

We also can't say that we should never build segregated lanes because that just makes drivers think we shouldn't be on the road. Driver education is key. And the main thing that defeats that kind of "get 'orf my road" thinking is getting the drivers onto bikes in the first place.
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Pancho

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #15 on: 14 June, 2012, 06:12:54 pm »
My argument that I don't want to die going to work and I don't believe for a moment that a bit of blue paint at junctions and some "legislation" will save me.

The impression I get from the no to segregated infrastructure crowd, is that we like our small minority hobby and we wear the harassment and threats of death like a badge of honour. Why should any normal person be allowed to cycle in safety kept away from the heavy dangerous metal things. It's my right to be there (stamps foot).

I don't consider the Netherlands to be Nirvana but they have to have something right, just look at the modal share.

I agree with your sentiments if not your solution. I'm pretty much an ex-cyclist these days; I got the fear and never really beat it.

I know what you mean about the "badge of honour" - I think I wore it, if unconsciously. I was an all year, all weather road-grimed DC A-road commuter bikie. I was car-free and care-free and proud of it. I had the thousand yard stare born out of traffic jamming on too many winter rush hours. I'd done my share of wing mirror removal and fists on threatening vehicles. And, yes, I've had my fill of waking up, full of morphine and tubes in a hospital bed and wondering WhereTF am I?

But, you know what? I'm a nice guy really and I just want a quiet life. So these days, I drive.

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #16 on: 14 June, 2012, 06:54:01 pm »
The simple answer is we need both. More segregated lanes in places where that makes sense and more tolerance from drivers for those using the road whether a segregated lane exists or not.

This is because:

1) We will NEVER have a fully segregated cycle network that matches the full reach of our road network.

2) Some riders will never be happy sharing the road with motorists.

We also can't say that we should never build segregated lanes because that just makes drivers think we shouldn't be on the road. Driver education is key. And the main thing that defeats that kind of "get 'orf my road" thinking is getting the drivers onto bikes in the first place.
This. We'll never reach either kind of nirvana, and nowhere ever will. In practice we need to ride down the middle of the road, so to speak.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

David Martin

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #17 on: 15 June, 2012, 10:03:27 am »
The solution isn't necessarily segregation or assertive vehicular cycling - part of the issue is reducing the mismatch between vehicle speeds so that the different transport forms can more easily share the road.

So step one is to make all non-through roads at a sensible limit. 30kph is good. And a weight limit except for access (requiring a permit). So we get a network of streets that traffic is at a human speed on.
Step 2 is segregation for trunk routes where high traffic flow and higher speeds are desirable. Some of this may be better alternative routes through a permeable city.

These steps can be concurrent. Infrastructure should be assessed for it's impact on all modes, and target modes prioritised.
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clarion

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #18 on: 15 June, 2012, 10:20:27 am »
The problem with segregation is reintegration, which almost always (see above example) puts the cyclist in a poor situation in terms of speed, angle or position.  Unless you have fully separated junctions with full capability, which don't send cyclists off down steep ramps to badly lit, flooded or dangerous underpasses, or up ramps over a bridge, then the senselessness of having segregation on the safer sections is just money wasted on bad infrastructure which undermines our 'right' to be on the road in the minds of drivers.
Getting there...

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #19 on: 15 June, 2012, 11:10:09 am »
In NL now. Got to say even when you are on tbe road which is often there is almost a feaR shown by motorists towards cyclists. Tbh anyone saying the dutch system doesnt work is talking pants. Want more people on bikes then this is what we need to start copying in the uk. Oh and Sundays there are so many club runs going on you lose count.

clarion

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #20 on: 15 June, 2012, 11:14:29 am »
I suspect the fear is more to do with presumed liability than anything else.  Got to be something significant to turn round UK drivers' attitudes that much, and penning us up out of their way, I suspect, is not it.
Getting there...

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #21 on: 15 June, 2012, 11:19:51 am »
"even when you are on the road"
So the difference is not so much facilities, segregation or vehicularisation, but attitude. It seems to me that at some point the Dutch as a nation have simply decided "let's make cycling ordinary".
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #22 on: 15 June, 2012, 11:25:44 am »
No I don't think it's nice or safe to keep having to get on and off the proper roads to use bits of unjoined-up cycle facilities here and there.  Roads are nice.  It's (too many of) the motorists who are not nice.

"Go Dutch" is disgustingly defeatist, in my view.  We've got superbly wide and smooth paths to cycle on already.  They're called roads.
That isn't 'Going Dutch'. Going Dutch implies smooth, wide, cycle underpasses at major junctions, two way cycle lanes running for miles, uninterrupted, alongside major roads (& on both sides!). Fragments of unjoined-up cycle lane aren't what I used to encounter when I lived in the Netherlands. I cycled to work most days. The first stretch was on streets - with no segregation. Then I hit a main road, which took me five miles in a stream of other cyclists, on a cycle path as wide as a minor road (& there was another one on the other side of the road), with an underpass under the ring road & its own traffic lights at other junction, to a cycle & pedestrian entrance leading straight off that cycle path into my place of work, where the cycle parking was plentiful & conveniently placed.

Cycling into the city centre, the facilities were less lavish. But in the grid of unsegregated one-way old minor streets, there were contra-flow cycle lanes, marked by signs & a different pattern of cobbles (no worries about paint wearing off!), & wherever there was room, cycle paths. Quiet routes between major points of interest were marked.

If I wanted to get in or out of the city without cycling next to a main road, I could follow numerous other quiet routes, a mix of streets & paths, which ended up in country lanes. These routes linked up with each other & the main road parallel routes, & with the right maps (sold widely - very easy to find) I could cross the country from north to south, east to west, on them, meandering or the shortest route, as I preferred.

As far as I could discover, the only roads I was not supposed to use were the fast main roads - and there was always a convenient alternative. Often this was a cycle road (they were too wide to be called paths) alongside the motor road. Sometimes there was an alternative route signposted along lesser (but still good) roads, or even a cycle road separate from, not alongside,  the trunk road. On all other roads, there were cyclists.

This is in a country which is more densely populated than England (much more than the UK!), & I was living in the most densely populated region of it. I cycled around the region. I could follow cycle signs pointing to towns tens of kilometres away, knowing that I'd not be squeezing around bollards or posts in the middle of one metre wide glass-strewn overgrown lumpy paths, but smooth roads often wide enough for two cars to pass, but either car-free or with only local motor traffic and a speed limit that fast cyclists could & sometimes did break.

Either you don't understand what it would really mean to Go Dutch, or you're reacting to a policy which is called Going Dutch but in reality is a watered-down piss-poor pale shadow of what really Going Dutch would mean.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #23 on: 15 June, 2012, 11:29:47 am »
How wide a lane do you need! two lane country road!!! One of the points of a bicycle is that it doesn't take up as much room as a car.

When a car overtakes me I expect at least 1m of space between me and the car. The same applies to a cyclist I don't know and who can do all manner of erratic things without warning.

Width of two bicycles = 1m
+ 1m safety margin = 2m
+ opposite lane = 4m.

OK?

+1

Riding along the segregated CS3 cycle lane on Cable Street at peak times is IME more nerve wracking than riding on the road.

Re: Segregation as a solution
« Reply #24 on: 15 June, 2012, 11:32:47 am »
But then there are roads we are banned from in the UK already.


Yes, like motorways and the Strand underpass. Places you wouldn't want to cycle anyway and that have adequate and equally swift (if you're on a bike) road alternatives that you can cycle on.
When I lived in the Netherlands, I found this was a good description of the roads cyclists were banned from. The only thing limiting the speed of a chain-ganging club run on the smooth, wide, cycle road I used to get to work was the heavy traffic.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897