I want more people to cycle. I've nothing against cars, I have one, they're quite handy. But places where people bike are quite simply nicer places to be. Cycling condenses the world to a human scale, where people have to interact. People in cars are horrible, they're removed from the ebb and flow of the world around them, dissociated in their little metallic bubble of solitude. They beep and rev and get angry because there's nothing but them (you see a similar phenomenon on the internet where people fling words at other like spittle, because they're protected by their computer, always one remove from actuality). On a bicycle, or walking, people are human again. They've no steel and aluminium carapace. Seriously, what can be more off-putting in an urban environments than areas carved up by speeding cars belching fumes. No one sane wants that. Even the mushiest brained speed-o-phile doesn't want cars speeding past their front door, past their child's school, and it's always someone's front door or school.
Yes, there are more people cycling. It's pretty impressive in London. But even in London, it's still a small subset of the people who could cycle. It's mostly young people in lycra. It doesn't seem an inclusive phenomenon. As a man rambling into his middle years, I'm viewed as mildly eccentric for riding around London, and quite frankly just getting places (and enjoying doing it). Seriously, when I turn up a meeting and tell them I cycled, I usually get the same look I'd get if I told them I'd been bungie jumping above a prickly pear plantation. I know so many people who would cycle, but don't and it's a small set of reasons why they don't. None of them are insurmountable. And they're trivial, really, if we had the will.
I cycled past a local school early and there were two bikes locked up. Two. That's sad and illustrates how far we have to go to make this a cycling city. I cycle in from zone 4. It's not a stage on the Tour de France. It takes a fairly leisurely fifty minutes and pretty much competes with the train–bus combination for time, yet is more comfortable, gets me some exercise, and racks up good excuses for cakes and beer. Yet, sometimes I can pretty much cycle half the way to work before I encounter another cyclist (and more often than not they do look like they think they're competing in the TdF).
Yes, I can cast a dim view over some facilities. I don't think I exactly complemented CS7 the other week (but just in case, for the record, it's shit). But, as cyclists, we can sulk and complain, moan that some driver once told me to get on the cycle path, or we can do something. And the very best thing we can do is cycle and get other people to cycle. Campaign for the things that get them cycle. By all means criticise the bad, but constructively. You want to change the attitude of motorists, more people cycling is the way to do it. They're not going to yell abuse out of the window if it might be their wife, husband, child on that bike. If they're cycling themselves it themselves, they can empathise. They only way you know what a close pass feels like is when it happens to you. You don't and won't ever get that from sitting in a car.
The same applies to politicians. They listen when it's in their interest to listen. Say what you want about Boris, but at least he's making the noises.
I'm fine with some segregation. Some roads suck and you can't pretty that up. A huge articulated lorry growling a metre behind your right shoulder is never going to be cuddly moment. Pretty much all non-cyclists are destined to remain non-cyclists because of traffic. Give them routes they can be confident on, then that's their number one reason not to cycle struck-through with a fat black marker pen. Quiet routes are also excellent – as an explorer of the LCN routes (and I'm not exactly recommending them other than as urban safari, but when they work, they offer a path to reasonable compromise, and as they stand are an opportunity missed). Sure, they need work, but simple interventions on a well-thought out off-main-road route are simple and inexpensive. Again, people get the confidence to get out there and cycle.
Sure, it might not happen, but it would definitely never happen without the vision. And at least there's something to hold up and say, hey, what happened to this? But, hey, if you'd rather keep cycling your exclusive preserve, then ignore this and campaign for things that won't happen. I'd vote for £25 congestion charge, I'd vote for have motorists who kill, maim, or merely drive like dicks, to be boiled in foetid kebab grease. Really, though, they're not going to happen.
