David Arditti wrote:

The major deterrent to more cycling is laziness. Bulding new roads
spreads out the congestion; building cycle paths does not amke people
less lazy.

So the British just happen to be the laziest nation in Europe, hence
low cycling levels? I doubt it.

How else would you explain people who live less than 15 minutes' ride from
an office but choose to spend 25 minutes driving it instead?

I would have thought it was pretty
generally accepted that the reason more people do not cycle is the
environment.

That's one of the excuses. Remove that and it becomes the hills. Or the
weather. Or the lack of changing facilities at the office. Or they ran
outta gas. Had a flat tyre. Didn't have enough money for cab fare. Their tux
didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from outta town.
Someone stole their bike. There was an earthquake, a terrible flood,
locusts. It isn't their fault, they swear to God!

Virtually every household has a bike but few people
cycle regularly. Many British people on holiday cycle in continental
cities when they would not dream of cycling at home. If we created
the right environment in British cities we would get high levels of
cycling.

It's conceivable but not terribly likely; I have lived in places which are
quite bike-friendly and people still drive.

A part of that is to create the motor traffic-free cycle
routes that most people who don't currently cycle say are what it
would take to get them cycling.

But you can't have a traffic free route door to door. All you do by trying
is put off the inevitable: at some point cyclists have to take to the roads.
So my view of good cycle provision is roads which don't leave you feeling
squeezed out and marginalised, so that you can just ride from A to B and not
plan your journey around somebody else's vision of which way you would like
to go (which is generally around the houses in the little bits of land left
over after the cars have had first, second and third choice).

You might say they are lying - that
they are just lazy, and wouldn't cycle anyway. But evidence of the
few places in the UK where it has been well-done suggests to me this
is wrong.

Cycling levels in these places still doesn't get anywhere close to bike
ownership levels.

I don't think we'll be winning until riding half a mile to the shops becomes
the norm instead of a Big Deal, showing your fgreen credentials so you can
brag to your mates when you drive to the pub later in your 4x4.

Effective networks of cycle tracks encourage a much larger section
of the population to cycle than we generally see on two wheels in
the UK.

They certainly encourage leisure cycling. But I am not convinced that leads
to utility cycling in any great numbers.

becomes obvious studying this that the only way we can substantially
increase cycling in the UK is to increase the uptake in the
under-represented groups: women, children and older people

I have no problem with that aspiration.

therefore we have to address their concerns about the safety and
pleasantness of the cycling environment, rather than make policy for
the group who already cycle here (the young men between ages 20 and
30).

A good start would be to ban BeHIT's strident propaganda telling everyone
how dangerous cycling is in order to persuade them to wear a plastic hat, of
course. I think there is a significant mismatch between the perception and
the reality where cyclist safety is concerned, and addressing this is
probably cheaper and more expedient than building large-scale segregated
cycle provision.

What I am advocating primarily are urban on-road but segregated cycle
tracks on the Dutch pattern. There are none of these in Edinburgh
(so far as I am aware) and few in the UK, so discussions of UK cities
(including Stevenage & Milton Keynes) are of limited relevance to my
argument.

Where will you put them? Hooke wanted to widen and straighten London's
streets back in 1667 but was prevented by vested interests. What has
changed in the last few centuries to make it practical to start laying down
substantial networks of additional tarmac?

My friend Arnold is Dutch and rides 15 miles per day in the
UK; his view is that the cycle paths here are a disaster because we
lack the Dutch laws of presumed fault, and we lack Dutch levels of
cycling so the drivers for the most part aren't properly aware of
cyclists, and we lack Dutch planners who know how to deal with
junctions fractionally better than we do, and we lack the Dutch
commitment to putting bikes first.

He is right that there are various elements to it. There are
attitudinal changes needed that take a long time. But it is possible
to get the details of the engineering right with the right expertise
and sufficient money immediately. The knowledge exists, and we should
be using it.

I don't discount the possibility, but I can't help feeling that the same
result could be achieved a lot cheaper by simply refining key parts of the
existing road network to be less hostile to cyclists. For example,
replacing key roundabouts with light-controlled junctions.

John Hearns wrote:
Speed limits don't apply to bicycles
Well perhaps they should, but actually, I don't think speed as such
is a big issue.

It is to me, in as much as I don't want to reduce my speed by 1/3 to fit in
with the cycle provision. Which is why I don't use the psychlepaths on the
way to work.

I don't advocate preventing cyclists from using any route they want
(and in Holland they are allowed to use all roads other than those of
motorway standard, just like here, and they do). But also, I don't
accept the equation between cycle tracks or paths and "leisure use",
or indeed "beginning commuters". If they are well enough done they
are "universal use", for leisure and commuting, and suitable for all
cyclists of almost all levels of experience and fitness.

The problem is that they rarely go direct, and rarely permit of cycling at
reasonable speeds. They tend to be narrow enough that one old boy on a
3-speed Raleigh can bring the entire route down to walking pace. I haveno
problem with the old boy on the Raleigh getting about - good luck to him -
but I would rather take a more direct, less puncture-prone route where I can
pass slower traffic.

I regularly cycle a journey of about 13 miles, Edgware to the City. I
need to do it quite quickly. The quickest way in the middle section
is to use the largely segregated Somers Town cycle route in Camden. I
also use some sections of segregated track in Islington. These are
actually beneficial to the faster cyclist since they allow one to
avoid the congestion and larger number of controlled junctions on the
main roads, as well as being obviously more pleasant to use for
beginners.

Sure. There is very limited capacity to add such provision where I live and
work. Better to make the roads less hostile.

In the outer-London parts of my journey, where there are
no cycle facilities at all, I see few other cyclists, and they are
all fast.

Obviously. Otherwise they would be on the train, else it would take them
all day to get into the City.

In south Camden, where cycle facilities are present, the
jump in cycling levels is very striking, and also the sudden spread
of types of cyclist, fast, slow, young and old, male and female.

But is South Camden a destination in itself? The closer you get to
destinations (i.e. concentrations of offices / retail) the greater the
numbers of cyclists, in my experience.

My experiences suggest to me that cycling uptake is a tremendously
localised phenomenon (on a scale of 1-2 miles) and depends in a very
detailed way on the quality of the environment (and not much on
social factors such as race or class).

Quite possibly.

Most people only want to cycle a couple of miles.

And all in different directions. How many do you need to share a route
before segregated provision becomes viable?

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

Victory is ours! Down with Eric the Half A Brain!