If you support segregated cycling infrastructure in Hackney

^ Whatever the competition was.

Are there medals?

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?

Better cycling conditions in London.

As opposed to 'perceived safety' based infrastructure that may encourage take up of cycling, and provide political ballast, but not much else.

Nescafé instant is as good as any coffee. All other opinion on this is HOKUM. @spotter and @Fox would agree.

Truestart or GTFO >>>

Cycling is already statistically very safe. In the UK, it's just a bit shit, if you let the close passing, swearing, bullying, near misses, non-misses get to you.

I want to see better cycling in the UK and I think building stuff is part of it, in big cities and towns, anyway. The stuff has to be good though. As above, I'm not sure about the bus stop bypass, but one bit of shit concrete doesn't mean all concrete is shit.

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.

I properly thought you were joking...

Building stuff is expensive; maintaining stuff is painfully expensive; consultancy fees are eye-wateringly expensive.

Anyway, I think the 'social change' argument takes on additional power when you look at the Stevenage example. Lots of lovely infrastructure, not many cyclists.

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.

From a piece of WHO literature:
http://www.who.int/management/programme/health_promotion/MakeRoadsSafe.pdf

"In 2002 more than 7000 people were still being killed
each year on French roads. By 2005 fewer than 5000
people were killed, a drop of more than 20%. Interest-
ingly road user behaviour began to change soon af-
ter the highly publicised speech by the President and
the announcement of new road safety enforcement
measures, but well before the measures for penalis-
ing traffic offences were actually put in place. The
President’s high profile political act of making road
safety a priority issue was decisive in encouraging a
corresponding change in the public’s attitude and in
driver behaviour.
The Government also allocated €400 million to a 3
year investment plan to purchase automatic radar
devices and breath testing equipment and to set up
computer centres for the automatic monthly process-
ing of hundreds of thousands of speeding offences.
This was reinforced by a sustained communica-
tions campaign using hard hitting media messages.
Though the sums involved may appear consider-
able, the amount spent on new road safety actions
since 2003 demonstrate a significant rate of return.
The economic benefits in reduced crash costs for the
country represent 50 times the annual amount spent
on road safety promotion10.
The success of President Chirac’s initiative has en-
couraged other nations to follow his example. Italy, for
example, has achieved a similar improvement in RTI
numbers through the introduction of a driving licence
penalty point system."

For some reason this very rarely gets mentioned. The inclusion of a commitment to reducing the death toll on French roads in the President's decree was about as an impromptu political act as can be imagined. He pretty made it up on the spot and saved tens of thousands of lives.
The British don't kill each other on the roads in quite the same way as the French but there are lessons to be learned.

Unleashing myself asap. I also totally forgot the rest of the country existed. Classic.

I know its safe, we know its safe, but the people we're trying to convince are alarmingly easy to please with blue paint and out-of-sight-infrastructure. Unfortunately hiding some cyclists from the cars doesn't really address the problem with cars running people over :(. Even if people are tempted out of their boxes to ride the blue quarter mile down Whitechapel in segregation, what happens when they get spat out into a road full of cars that think they shouldn't be there?

I'm all for better infrastructure, with particular attention to junctions etc. But all the new stuff I have seen appears to be more of a political vanity project than anything else. Its easier to score points with visible stuff like blue paint and kerbs than it is with new legislation or cycling proficiency, and that's why i'm sceptical.

so political will, education and enforcement had a significant effect?

but but but but infrastructure and Holland

The French thing was great and it certainly wouldn't hurt for call me Dave to do the same thing, but it's worth noting that the latest data shows France has almost 50% more road deaths per km traveled than the UK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
So improvements ought to be easier.

Undeniable. The French have a road network that relies on tens of thousands more km of dangerous rural roads than ours and have always been good at killing themselves in cars. We tend to be better at killing vulnerable road users in urban environments. Enforcement has also slipped back in the last few years in France. The British also don't have any political role with the same power and insulation from public opinion as a president. But enforcement here is weak and our points system can be played incredibly easily. Our standing in imternational road safety has also slipped severely in the last few years. Lots of swings and roundabouts.

blue quarter mile down Whitechapel in segregation

Have you looked at the plans? It provides significant segregation for nearer 4 miles including the piece up to Stratford.

so political will, education and enforcement had a significant effect?

It's pretty cool, yes. And when people could see their self interest it's also hardly surprising. What the WHO can't say with any certainty is whether the political will created the need for change, or whether the people had the need, i.e. self interest, and the politicians enabled the change, or both. As Hefty says, things were pretty bad, and the upsides pretty obvious for everyone. They weren't asking people who drive to be nice to people who cycle or take more care around vulnerable road users, were they? Or were they?

4 miles of weaving out of traffic, onto the pavement, behind bus stops, across pedestrian crossings, between narrowing kerbs and back into traffic, only to be run down by a driver in the famously cycle-friendly Stratford town center by a driver who reckons you should be on the blue path that he kindly bought for you with his road tax.

Great.

But seriously, how many new interactions (crossings, turns, entries and exits) does the new segregated lane demand of cyclists vs riding in the road? I'd be interested to see.

It was a huge departure from the political status quo and went against any appeal to populism. It was, I think, a hugely unpopular commitment and took a huge amount of effort and commitment to steer through the administrative bureaucracy and public opinion. I think that the genesis was a personal appeal to the President who then included the commitment after all draughts of his address were finalised. Basically one man had the power to say 'make it so.'

Basically the answer was they came down hard on anyone who broke the law. They introduced new laws to protect pedestrians and cyclists by increasing motorists obligations to protect vulnerable road users safety.

Lots of lovely infrastructure, not many cyclists.

Yeah this is a funny one. My theory is that at the time it was built - and to most extents now - driving around stevenage is easier, cheaper and more fun than riding a bike. So no demand. This doesn't mean there isn't demand elsewhere - check out the regents canal tow path, for example. Plenty of people using that, rightly or wrongly.

:)

And this was probably a fuck ton cheaper than building infrastructure. Less accidents, fewer deaths, reduced burden on health services, revenue from enforcement it seems a no brainer.

But of course HOLLAND.

James I cant have you agreeing with me if you're going to be a dick about it. You're cramping my style.

It was a huge departure from the political status quo and went against any appeal to populism. It was, I think, a hugely unpopular commitment and took a huge amount of effort and commitment to steer through the administrative bureaucracy and public opinion.

Sounds like governmental suicide. Was it Chirac? Did he get away with it because the only alternative at that time was the National Front, and he was riding a landslide?

hey.
this appears to be a thread in which people are actually *discussing* shit they don't already agree on in a potentially constructive way.
less sneering would be helpful.

There's a good writeup on Stevenage on Carlton Reid's site: http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/stevenage/

The cycleways were mostly flat and there were cycle and pedestrian bridges, and underpasses which wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Netherlands at the time, mainly because they were modelled on Dutch infrastructure. Stevenage was compact and Claxton assumed the provision of 12ft wide cycle paths and 7ft wide footways – separated by grass strips as a minimum, and sometimes barriers, too – would encourage residents to cycle and walk everywhere. He had witnessed high usage of cycle tracks in the Netherlands and believed the same could be achieved in the UK.

Instead – to Claxton’s puzzlement, and eventual horror – residents of Stevenage chose to drive, not cycle, even for journeys of two miles or less.

^ All this proves is that people from Stevenage are idiots.
Something I suspected all along.

It's a pretty good guess. Strict liability, stickers, cycle training, passive encouragement have done nothing elsewhere. Segregation has.

Au contraire, Vive La France!