BikesAlive - Occupy Kings Cross - 23 January

BikesAlive are organising another ride/demonstration at Kings Cross.

https://bikesalive.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/we-ride-again/

18.00 sharp.

Arranging "forceable but non violent traffic calming" by hundreds of cyclists during rush hour? Too antagonistic for me, I'm out. Happy to lend my support to any of the myriad of groups who are using debate and politics to achieve the junction redesigns so badly needed in the area though.

They also lost me at moaning about Hendy's salary. The man has been working on London's transport system for 37 years ffs and oversaw some of the most sweeping (and sometimes successful) reforms of our transport system during this time.

Yeah, that kind of thing seems a bit too "soap dodgers waving their fists" for my liking.

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2012/jan/cyclists-bring-junction-standstill-rush-hour-protest

This is the article about the last one. They were shouting "Who's streets? Our streets!"

I thought the streets belonged to everybody.

Fairly reasonable journalist btw, have locked horns with him many a time on other issues.

It'll still cause chaos and there will be problems.

FFS this just alienates large swathes of the population who are needed in order to effect any kind of lasting and meaningful change. These dickheads are as bad as the Daily Fail readers who are born without any sense of empathy.

And there will be hipsters. Many, many hipsters.

Fixie skidders "reclaiming the streets". It'll be like a hipster Braveheart without an inebriated anti-Semitic Australian.

Hippy wasn't in Braveheart.

So he says.

Yeah, that kind of thing seems a bit too "soap dodgers waving their fists" for my liking.

I went along to the first one, it really wasnt like that ^ the shouty girl was a bit odd but that was only a minute or so the rest of the hour was taken up with a nice ride around the junction a few times…

I'm going to go again, hopefully more pedestrians involved be good to be a more even split in numbers…

I can guarantee the first one was probably great and had a fantastic atmosphere. Try replicating it again...

^^ So the article that mentions cyclists holding sit-ins in front of lorries and buses is not true? Photos seem fairly conclusive to me...

I'm not suggesting that the part of the protest you were part of was not peaceful...just that you were probably tarred with the same brush as the most antagonistic of the protesters.

I can guarantee the first one was probably great and had a fantastic atmosphere. Try replicating it again...

yeah week out of fashion now

Riding around the one way system slowing traffic may seem pleasent, but as Stonehedge says, the tarring brush sweeps ever wider - Will people travelling through the junction Tuesday next week get treated with greater disdain I wonder.......

I agree there is a statement to be made, there is a risk these types of protests ever widens the chasm between everyday road users and further separates cyclists as a group. I understand a statement needs to be made, I just don't feel this is the most effective way to do it in repetition.

As much as I'm for bringing cycling to the attention of others, like has been said earlier, this is just too antagonistic for what it's worth. Unlike the other Occupy movements, there is already progressive dialogue (to some extent) happening with the relevant parties, and all this serves to do is derail and alienate the already uphill progress.

got caught up in the last one accidentally as riding home from work - stopped and chatted to one of the protesters for a couple minutes by the big chill before deciding it was probably doing more damage than good as the drivers in the (massively) long tailback were getting increasingly enraged. As i left the protest group moved round the one way system to leave me heading up pentonville road - within 20 seconds I had a large number of pissed off drivers screaming past me leaving around a 3 - 7 inch gap (depending on level of irateness) between their cars and me. I agree something has to be done as that junction in particular is a nightmare - but I'm not sure this is the best way to go about doing it.

Arranging "forceable but non violent traffic calming" by hundreds of cyclists during rush hour? Too antagonistic for me, I'm out. Happy to lend my support to any of the myriad of groups who are using debate and politics to achieve the junction redesigns so badly needed in the area though.

They also lost me at moaning about Hendy's salary. The man has been working on London's transport system for 37 years ffs and oversaw some of the most sweeping (and sometimes successful) reforms of our transport system during this time.

So very much agreement with this. Don't do it people you're not helping.

I filmed this at the last one, if anybody wants to see what it was like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iI_HGdH0i0&feature=g-upl&context=G2fcf8c3AUAAAAAAAAAA

What might make things better? I'd like to see effective and ruthless policing of speed limits of 30 and 20 zones in London. I don't think corking King's Cross will achieve that, but how else do I get to demonstrate my displeasure at the way road planning and traffic policy is being effected? I'm not sure.

I was mulling this over today. How hard can it be to design a GPS system that grasses up drivers and make it mandatory on new cars? All cars have sat-nav anyway...

It just needs to say: "oh, you were at A at xx:xx, then B at xx:xx - you broke the limit." Automatic ticket. Speeding stops being an issue within a few years.

Before you say cost, there's budget for road safety. And legislation has forced manufacturers to adopt expensive design changes to cars in the past.

Before you say privacy, it can delete all the data when no speeding occurred.

Plan?

Good

Someone sort it out, I'm busy.

I spoke to a copper about this today. He said if the organisers contact them, they will help in getting this done correctly and may drum up more support. He didn't have a number to hand.

Just saying...

I was mulling this over today. How hard can it be to design a GPS system that grasses up drivers and make it mandatory on new cars? All cars have sat-nav anyway...

It just needs to say: "oh, you were at A at xx:xx, then B at xx:xx - you broke the limit." Automatic ticket. Speeding stops being an issue within a few years.

there were trial for that actually a while ago, but with speed cameras clocking each cars they capture, and working out how quickly they managed to get from A to B, that's on road like motorway thought rather than cities where such system would be diffcuilt.

I remember reading that 5 or so years ago, and hasn't a clue on how to begun searching for it.

How many cyclist/motorist collisions are caused by excess speed?

i.e. is reducing that the most effective way of reducing said collisions?