If you support segregated cycling infrastructure in Hackney

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The_Seldom_Killer in reply to @Howard

Nice attempt to spin that around but as you're the one that said it was comparatively less expensive than engineering behavioural change so I'll be waiting on your data. I've not made any counter claims against this point.

My argument was that building things and, if they don't work, knocking them down and rebuilding them differently is a poor methodology and is expensive. This was to counter your claim that it was in fact cheap as per the quote below.

The nice thing about building stuff is that a) it's cheap,
b) it's quick and c) it's really easy to tell if it's working - or not, and is easy to change.

So your data on comparative costs that supported this argument:

if you look at the cost of building something in isolation it looks pretty bloody pricey, but if you then compare it with, say, the cost and time required to change the driving habits and sense of entitlement of an entire nation or super city, an effort that would need to be maintained for a period of time and intensity, getting permission and smashing some concrete around starts to look like not such a bad idea.

that'll be forthcoming shortly?

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Howard in reply to @The_Seldom_Killer

as you're the one that said it was comparatively less expensive than engineering behavioural change

No I didn't. You can read that in to my post if you like, but I've no idea how much it costs to change the attitudes of a nation or super city - all I know is that it's bloody complicated - in both execution and measurement - but I do know that in the scheme of things building stuff and measuring its success is simple, and there's some proof out there that building stuff has benefits, albeit in the dutch context, not ours.

so I'll be waiting on your data

I'll have a poke about. Can you think of any examples? The drink driving one is good, but it's hard to compare, I think, for the reasons in my post in reply to DJ. I suppose you could look at election campaigns, environmental issues - CFCs, recycling maybe? Most of those have an obvious upside in which people can see their self interest, though, so I'm not sure how useful it will be.

I guess you could look at the general cost of advertising in general then add a fudge factor and take a guess at how long you'd have to hammer away at it for, and often you'd need to change the message to keep you point getting across.

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