If you support segregated cycling infrastructure in Hackney

The Regents canal is susceptible to all these types of issues - EVEN THE BLOODY SKATERS - but it seems - I have no figures to back this up, soz - more popular than Prince Albert Road, and there's less chance of being twatted by texting yummy mummy in her 1500kg Range Rover (which I actually saw happen, once - the blood, so much blood etc).

Yep, absolutely.

But they started out with a vision based, in part on things like a potential oil crisis. We also didn't demand as much instant gratification and it was understood that constant resources would need to be dedicated to cycle lanes.

Over here it will now take longer for them to become ingrained into our daily, social and transport thinking. There is a very high risk that segregation won't deliver the hoped for increase in cycling modal share at the sort of pace that justifies their continued support.

In the time that I've been in W2, the infra around holland park, Hammersmith and Portobello Road has gone from 'abandoned' to Howard approved. The situation can change.

I haven't said it's pointless. I've said fairly clearly that all of these sorts of things need to be planned for before delivery. If you wait for them to happen and then address them, you'll end up waiting quietly as they creep up on you until they meet a threashold for action. In the meantime, you've lost a load of your intended audience because their threshold for inaction is lower. Have Hackney PoB carried out a full quality risk assessment to consider these sorts of issues?

Straw man tho

The perception of safety is the single greatest obstacle to increased cycling in London

Holy making-up-your-own-conclusions-to-support-your-agenda batman!

I wrote "more people riding bikes is good" because I believe that an anti-cycling-infrastructure policy prevents more people from riding bikes, not to be patronising

Fine, but I'll just point out that in Hackney this apparent "policy" has, er, presided over an increase in cycling. And "Hackney POB" is kind of a one-issue group, no?

I have less issue with your general observations about cycling levels around the world, even if I disagree with the inferences drawn in some of them. What I cannot agree with is the original start point of the discussion in attacking the "policy" of one very successful, and reasonable, and innovative group. And I don't care that you claim to be attacking one element of their "policy"; it's such a central element for one thing, and secondly "Hackney POB's" hysterical stuff about quitting HCC or people being turned off from joining is crudely divisive to say the least.

Yup. I think this term is fitting — "vehicular cyclists"

That Copenhagenize article is the biggest pile of auld shite I have ever read. It's like a manifesto of total intellectual and rhetorical bankruptcy. Every single cheap, nasty trick in the book.

(1) The evidence (cited above, ignoring outdated reports from 20+ years ago) shows that building bike lanes will increase the number of people cycling.

Does it? Which bit in particular supports that claim?

How so?

I've pointed out things that have a likelihood of happening. Each of them can have a detrimental impact on the success of the proposal. Similar to British Cycling's aggregation of marginal returns, there is a significant potential for the aggregation of marginal declines. Using this sort of image and by making the arguments that they are, Hackney PoB are promoting this utopian ideal of segregated cycling. However, I don't see that they're looking at the problems that this sort of proposal will face post delivery and therefore not looking at ways to mitigate them. It's fundamentally lazy campaigning. If it doesn't fail pre-delivery, there's an escalated risk that it'll fail post-delivery and that will be worse.

I firmly believe separated infrastructure is a fundamental part of a functional cycling environment and there's plenty of research to support that theory. But if cycle lanes and cycle tracks really are as useless and dangerous as some try to claim then you should have no trouble proving with abundant research how omitting infrastructure leads to even more and safer cycling.

My beef with the 'infrastructure' model is well illustrated by the 'what's missing from the idyllic artists' impression' essay above. No cycle infrastructure is as straightforward, as easy to use, direct, or unfrustrating as riding as other traffic, taking the lane. All cycle paths are made rubbish, basically. Show me one that aint! I'm serious. I can't think of one.

amazed by the appearance of such a (potentially divisive) thread, as consider Hackney Cycle Campaign to be doing a superb job, leading the way with such schemes as Goldsmith's Row amongst many others,

navigating by bicycle on the quiet roads within Hackney seems a pleasurable experience in the main, for all demographics (aside from the speed bumps in the middle of the road, which encourage vehicles to drive in the middle road, sometimes/often head-on towards a bicycle!),

guess the crucial question is regarding the specifics,

"we are convinced that without separation from motor
vehicles on main roads and at junctions,we will never see mass cycling
in Hackney"

firstly, thought Hackney already had mass cycling, certainly relative to other boroughs;

but secondly, specifically, which main roads, and which specific junctions are a concern?

unless the discussion is regarding specifics, its as useful as debating economic theory (without regard to particular instances of reality!),

"All cycle paths are made rubbish, basically. Show me one that aint! I'm serious. I can't think of one."

Goldsmith's Row is a pretty good example of a segregated cycle route that works, but note, its a former through-road which is now closed to motor traffic!!

also, for some cyclists (probably all those who cycle within it), the segregated lanes through the thin roads of Bloomsbury are probably for the best, as you get all sorts of motor traffic using what are quite narrow lanes,

@cyclelove, for this thread to be anything but waffle, you gotta propose specifically which main roads and which junctions you'd like to see amended with segregated features (!!)

The real answer to all the above is that this appears to be driven by one or two bloggers, or twitterers or whatever, who have some very specific and longstanding disagreement with HCC.

This is the eternal curse of local activism, local politics, whatever.

Instead of segregating us and taking our freedom and right to use the road away from us, why don't you use your voice to make the people of Hackney/London aware that there are free cycle training courses available to empower cyclists by teaching them how to use the road safely?

@Antidotes

"But Holland tho"

I believe the A10 is their main beef. Especially since the TfL vs Hackney council superhighway disagreement. Quite the change from 3 or so years ago when TfL wouldn't have considered kerbs in a million years.

@Antidotes
Safely != comfortably.

Some say 'segregation can get more people cycling'

You attack segregation on the basis that implementing it well and operating it is thorny, rather than the central theme - Hackney tactics can only get you so far, let's do more.

Loved this post.
I didn't realise so many other people hated cycle lanes. I always feel dread when the local council announce some new obstacle courses, oops I mean cycling infrastructure.

The only problem I've ever had with the A10 is pedestrians at rush hour. Pedestrians in the middle of the road everywhere, I don't understand how a segregated cycle lane is going to prevent people jumping out in front of you.

And what happens when this lane ends? We all just get chucked out into the road anyway, we have to somehow join a lane of already fast moving traffic to get to where we need to go. I'm not sold.

Nope, but nobody is answering those questions. It seems like a fairly major ommission in any planning proposal. It's almost as if Hackney PoB have seen a shiny bauble and become so infatuated with it they haven't stopped to ask if it is in fact a turd rolled in glitter.

Aye, but it's not your problems they want to address. 27% of the serious injuries in Hackney 2009-2014 were on the A10.

As for linking it to a wider network, it's not their job to design it, though. If they want the bauble to be just so, it's their job to campaign for it to be just so.

@cyclelove, for this thread to be anything but waffle, you gotta propose specifically which main roads and which junctions you'd like to see amended with segregated features (!!)

Any main route that's not safe for someone who is (say) 15 or 65 to cycle.

Ok... here's a prime example of a dangerous road: Kingsland Road and the rest of the A10

27% of all cycling KSIs in Hackney since 2009 occurred on the A10, where Hackney Council are blocking a Superhighway

There is plenty of space for a proper bike lane too...

(Part of the A10 compared with a Dutch cycle track)