Cycle campaigning

^ repped

Update on Go Dutch:

The Go Dutch Campaign will start proper in the New Year. We will start collecting signatures at the Bike Show (www.thelondonbikeshow.co.uk) and the official launch will be at the beginning of Feb. Crucially we will need all hands on deck to collect signatures in support of the campaign. Therefore I would ask you to factor the Go Dutch campaign into all your events and collect signatures locally whenever you can. Materials to do this will be available in the second week of January.

@stripe.
good points.this difference between what the ACCPO are supporting and the line of other authorities is major in my view. Peter spot on too I logged back on to mention that article.he slightly overplays the end of cycling england i feel whom were only ever as Phillip D was always keen to point out 2 guys and an assistant directing daft funds which still go to bikeability.but its a small criticism on the whole bang on the button.

Campaigning for lower speed limits not only gets motorists backs up, including those who are also enthusiastic cyclists, it is ineffective, because London motorists don't obey the limits we have anyway and lowering them will change nothing.

Typically within Hull, 20 mph zones have achieved reductions[106] in injury accidents of:
— Total accidents -56 per cent
— Killed & seriously injured accidents -90 per cent
— Accidents involving child casualties -64 per cent
— All pedestrian accidents -54 per cent
— Child pedestrian accidents -74 per cent.
It is estimated that at the end of 1999, 390 injury accidents had been prevented within the 20 mph zones which had been previously installed. 122 of these would have involved injuries to children.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmtlgr/557/557ap80.htm

The new 20mph zones will be policed by ANPR average speed cameras so will also detect uninsured cars, tailgating, erratic driving etc.

The fundamental problem with all these shared space campaigns is that they are campaigns for riding on the road in traffic, and that reinforces the idea that cycling is an activity reserved for fit, energetic, highly skilled and trained experts.

Your argument was well put nial, but on this ^point i would argue that the idea of shared space is that anyone no matter how slow , unfit or low skilled is able to ride on the road without hassle

Typically within Hull, 20 mph zones have achieved reductions[106] in injury accidents of:
— Total accidents -56 per cent
— Killed & seriously injured accidents -90 per cent
— Accidents involving child casualties -64 per cent
— All pedestrian accidents -54 per cent
— Child pedestrian accidents -74 per cent.
It is estimated that at the end of 1999, 390 injury accidents had been prevented within the 20 mph zones which had been previously installed. 122 of these would have involved injuries to children.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmtlgr/557/557ap80.htm

The new 20mph zones will be policed by ANPR average speed cameras so will also detect uninsured cars, tailgating, erratic driving etc.

London isn't Hull. I've never been there's but my experience of provincial towns is that motorists obey the speed limits and wait till lits go green before setting off. That never happens in London.

There are already ANPR cameras all over London. There have been for years. They are only effective against people who diligently register cars in their own name, and the type of person who drives without insurance doesn't do that. And no camera can detect erratic driving or tailgating. Average speed cameras cannot work in London because the average speeds are about half of the speed limits anyway. To actually catch anyone going at an average of over 20mph between two points there would have to be more cameras than there are lamp posts, and not only would that be an eyesore, there will never be anything like enough money to pay for them. Which means that the 20mph zones will be unenforced or enforced only by anti cyclist measures such as speed humps or chicanes.

Islington manages to enforce 20mph with speed bumps. narrowings and chicanes that are much more car unfriendly than cycle unfrienfdly

Your argument was well put nial, but on this ^point i would argue that the idea of shared space is that anyone no matter how slow , unfit or low skilled is able to ride on the road without hassle

Decades of campaigning along those lines have failed to come close to achieving that.
The evidence from those cities that pursue a segregated network is that dedicated high quality cycling facilities are so much more effective in increasing cyclists modal share.

Islington manages to enforce 20mph with speed bumps. narrowings and chicanes that are much more car unfriendly than cycle unfrienfdly

But as a cyclist wouldn't you much rather they weren't there? There shouldn't be cycle unfriendliness at all.
And you don't seriously believe that cars are only doing 20 between the obstructions do you? I'm not even sure they are sticking to below 30.

My residential area has become a 20mph zone and with the build outs and dotted lines of the parking bays, the perception of the road is now one of a race track. 40mph minimum.

I just can't agree Skydancer, that London has vastly improved as a place to ride a bike over the past 10 years. Back then I wouldn't have weighed up the risks of being killed whilst riding to Kings Cross for a demonstration.

I won't say any more as I'm reading 'Death on the Streets' by Robert Davis and may be a bit addled.. Just that I voted no to 'Go Dutch'. Seems suicide to me without massive changes in the law.

London isn't Hull. I've never been there's but my experience of provincial towns is that motorists obey the speed limits and wait till lits go green before setting off. That never happens in London.

There are already ANPR cameras all over London. There have been for years. They are only effective against people who diligently register cars in their own name, and the type of person who drives without insurance doesn't do that. And no camera can detect erratic driving or tailgating. Average speed cameras cannot work in London because the average speeds are about half of the speed limits anyway. To actually catch anyone going at an average of over 20mph between two points there would have to be more cameras than there are lamp posts, and not only would that be an eyesore, there will never be anything like enough money to pay for them. Which means that the 20mph zones will be unenforced or enforced only by anti cyclist measures such as speed humps or chicanes.

Believe me, London drivers are not uniquely aggressive. The new ASSET cameras detect tailgating and other dodgy behaviour:

http://cars.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=155191051

And it has been tried in London:

A review of 20 mph zones in London found that there was an average reduction in casualties of 42%, compared with an 8% reduction in surrounding areas. Although injuries amongst cyclists reduced at a lower rate than other users (only 17%), this does not take account of the fact that cycling levels increased much more than for other modes.

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=5176

But in London it's all queues. It's every single driver tailgating every other single driver. Day in day out.

I would much rather that the authorities stopped saying "you can not drive on this road at more than 20 miles an hour" and making the road worse to enforce it, and started saying "you can not drive on this road at all and started making them much better.

I would prefer cycle campaigning to work towards that aim.
The thing is, it doesnt seem to be difficult to take a road away from motorists. It has been going on for years, pretty much without any complaint from motorists, under the guise of pedestrianisation, redevelopment, regeneration and so forth. The problem is that cyclists got completely ignored in this because the bodies that claim to represent them were busy campaigning for the unachievable.

Believe me, London drivers are not uniquely aggressive. The new ASSET cameras detect tailgating and other dodgy behaviour:

http://cars.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=155191051

And it has been tried in London:

A review of 20 mph zones in London found that there was an average reduction in casualties of 42%, compared with an 8% reduction in surrounding areas. Although injuries amongst cyclists reduced at a lower rate than other users (only 17%), this does not take account of the fact that cycling levels increased much more than for other modes.

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=5176

Speed bumps are claimed to cost far more lives than they save. These are hardly impartial sources, but neither is the CTC.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-3091358-999-patients-killed-by-speed-bumps.do
http://www.bromleytransport.org.uk/Ambulance_delays.htm

http://www.belchamber.org/speedhumps/SpeedHumpsAmbex03.ppt

In addition the proliferation of speed humps is responsible for the proliferation of large gas guzzling 4x4s, when London used to be full of Minis and superminis.

Speed bumps are claimed to cost far more lives than they save.
In addition the proliferation of speed humps is responsible for the proliferation of large gas guzzling 4x4s, when London used to be full of Minis and superminis.

Speed bumps are blamed for causing deaths by people who are very silly indeed. It's a myth.

http://london.greenparty.org.uk/news/417

4x4s are a status symbol for rich people to cope with the Ribena slick outside Waitrose, I doubt their proliferation is caused by speed bumps, although you're right in that they do fly over them. Bring on the cameras.

In addition the proliferation of speed humps is responsible for the proliferation of large gas guzzling 4x4s, when London used to be full of Minis and superminis.

I hardly doubt that the speed bump cause the rise in SUV, like other said, simply the illusion of having 'money', and of course the illusion of being safer in one.

thread at risk of becoming a good example of the factions within cycle campaigning no?

Go Dutch vs Shared Space

googlefight anyone?

I hardly doubt that the speed bump cause the rise in SUV, like other said, simply the illusion of having 'money', and of course the illusion of being safer in one.

Rich people in London used to buy Ferraris and Royces, not Range Rovers.

Speed bumps are blamed for causing deaths by people who are very silly indeed. It's a myth.

http://london.greenparty.org.uk/news/417

4x4s are a status symbol for rich people to cope with the Ribena slick outside Waitrose, I doubt their proliferation is caused by speed bumps, although you're right in that they do fly over them. Bring on the cameras.

I have already explained how the cameras cannot possibly work because they will be needed in such great numbers as to be unaffordable.

Whereas shutting a road to motor vehicles is not only very cheap indeed, it reduces motor traffic speeds to 0mph, allows the landscaping of a much more pleasant vista, and doesn't require the imposition of profligate surveillance. Why would you rather have a 20mph pollution-choked speedbump-ridden rat-run than that?

thread at risk of becoming a good example of the factions within cycle campaigning no?

Go Dutch vs Shared Space

googlefight anyone?

Sorry for any hijacking of the thread.

The best city I've cycled in is Berlin, better than Amsterdam. Never been to Copenhagen. Cyclists have their own lanes but I wouldn't call most of the lanes fully segregated. It's only partly the lanes, it's more driver behaviour, the courtesy afforded cyclists in Berlin is astonishing, cars would overtake on your left indicating right AND THEN WAIT! The driver would wait till I came up the inside and pass the junction.

My old commute was through East London to SE1, on the fastest roads, the main roads into The City. The chances of getting all those roads closed to all motor traffic and left just for cyclists are slim. I mean,it will never happen. We are traffic, mix with the traffic.

It's Strict Liability I tells yer!

I heard it's €1k minimum if you drive into a cyclist in Germany, can't vouch for that, bloke told me in a pub.

traffic flow also involves fluid dynamics

bottlenecks are created at places where speed goes down, there is also turbulence where the speed of the particles (cars in this case) goes up agin

so counter intuitively a reduction in average top speed can actually smooth out the flow and increase the overall speed of journeys

Strict Liability would have a huge impact on how people drive as well

BQ I have never heard of this idea before - closing roads. I'm struggling to see how it works, really, but I like the idea.

What sort of amounts of 'returning roads to non-motor traffic'* would you advocate? How are they chosen?

*check out my Schick-style positive terminology!

It's basically what happened in Holland, Belgium, Copenhagen etc. Some streets were simply closed to motor vehicles. Some were made "shared" - I think this latter is the norm, but I personally believe you need Strict Liability laws in place to make shared space work for cyclists and pedestrians.

I've discussed this idea with Oliver before. Hackney have actually done it with a few short stretches, such as the back road from London Fields to the Town Hall. The City have done it with that bit from Southwark Bridge to Poultry. Tower Hamlets have done it in Poplar. Counter-intuitively, models show that it can actually improve motor traffic flow too - there was a thought-provoking study that suggested it would be better for motorists if Blackfriars bridge was closed to them. I think the idea is that although the journey may be longer, it's quicker because it is not interrupted so many times by cars joining from newly closed roads, and in addition everyone's going the same way.
And of course councils have no problem doing this to make bus termini, pedestrian areas etc. No-one ever seems to protest it, which is the interesting thing.

Basically the way I'd do it is this - If a road is going to be earmarked for pedestrianisation/bus use/whatever rather than general traffic I would also allow bikes on it. Allowing bikes should be the default position and a traffic order explicitly prohibiting them should be obtained if a developer or council wish to exclude them. Obtaining one should require solid evidence that cycles would be a real problem.

If a road is going to be ruined by narrowing, making it one-way, closing off one end, closing an exit, etc, (such as outside the Roebuck) I would consider closing it to motor vehicles entirely. At first this needs nothing more than a road sign and maybe a plastic barrier such as those on the "ring of steel", then later it can be made pretty with planting, blockwork, etc. You could at that point install droppable bollards to allow emergency vehicles through, and equip the vehicles with the means to drop them automatically when running on blues and twos.

The next, and more adventurous stage would be to consider new roads for closure. For example, why not ban motor vehicles from the Strand? You can route everything down the Embankment via Northumberland Ave or Temple Place. Could we implement two-way running on Gower St and remove motor traffic from Tottenham Court Rd?
Can we close off Oxford St and route vehicles along Seymour/Wigmore/Mortimer/Goodge St?
We have seen this in things like pedestrianising the North of Trafalgar Square.

Just to make clear why I think the cameras idea is a non-starter:

The thing about average speed cameras is that they are splendidly and almost completely effective in reducing speed to the posted limit. But with such low levels of non-compliance they are not revenue raisers, and they are very expensive to install and operate, so it has to be economically worth it. They are designed to limit continuous average speed, not maximum speed in a stop-start situation.
On 15 mile stretches of the M1 it is worth it.
The average can only be measured on a stretch of road with no side turnings, no exits into shops, no on street parking, no driveways, etc in between each pair of cameras, as all these hazards will most likely slow even the most antisocial driver down to less than the 20mph average. Now it also has to be possible to accelerate from a standstill at camera A and reach camera B at such a speed that the average is over the speed they are supposed to catch you at, or there was demonstrably no need to put them on that stretch of road at all. If it is impossible to break a law you don't need to enforce it.
Again, on the M1 these conditions are met admirably.
Now even if there were stretches of London streets where, if the road was clear, it would be possible for a pair of average speed cameras to reliably catch speeders, most London streets are chock full, and average speeds are never anywhere near 20mph. As a result I cannot think of many (or any) London roads which could be effectively policed by pairs of average speed cameras. Too much distance between camera pairs and the average speeds will be too low to make it worthwhile putting cameras in, too close and you might as well have Gatsos.
The only cameras which could work are Gatso/Truvelo type fixed speed cameras, which I believe can only be sited somewhere there have been 3 road deaths in a prescribed time period. However, we all know that people speed right back up again as soon as they are past them, the same as they do for speed bumps.
The police have always said they will not enforce 20mph limits as they do not have the resources, which is why all existing 20mph limits are designed to be self enforcing by means of introducing hazards, with of course the express purpose of making the road more hazardous. But slower.

Rich people in London used to buy Ferraris and Royces, not Range Rovers.

Again, doubt it as they weren't the most practical cars compared to Range Rovers, it's the fashion and current trends rather than speedbump.