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In Inner London, there is virtually no potential for increasing motor traffic capacity any further, and in fact in some locations it is due to be reduced.
Someone tell Boris...
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/mayor-sets-out-plan-for-22mile-ringroad-tunnel-under-london-9354896.html -
Incidentally, that's not to say I'm anti public realm improvement - there's much to be said for it - but it's far too easy for an LA to claim they've "spent £200k on cycling" delivering one gold-plated scheme, when the same cycling benefit could have been delivered with a handful of cheap bollards & 95% of the money's going on attractive granite paving stones or some such.
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Oliver, yes, I'm familiar with how Hackney has gone about things (used to live there some years ago) & I admire what's been achieved already. Here's hoping for a bright future - I think with modal filtering it tends to be more popular after it's built than before? As in, even though people may oppose it in the first place, once it's gone in few ever campaign to have it removed -- I'd be really interested if you have some before/after numbers for any of the Hackney schemes.
Interesting point re road building - typically with rat runs, they don't actually take that much volume, perhaps 10-20% of what's on the "A" roads in many cases, so I don't think there's necessarily much of a capacity issue.. however, it does mean that some of the time drivers will have to spend more time on those A-roads, and that in turn may create pressure to widen them.
On the other hand - at least where I'm campaigning (Croydon), there are so very many car journeys which could be transferred to cycling or other non car modes - TfL's own rather conservative stats suggest 30%+ - that any congestion produced as a result of improved cycling facilities is probably self-limiting. Whether that's true in parts of central London where there seem to be more vans and taxis than cars, I wouldn't like to say.
The numbers I mentioned come from needing a handful of bollards per square mile over a couple of hundred square miles. The actual hardware is cheap, but the design work and legal process not so much.. this all, of course, rather depends on how much of that the authorities deem necessary. It's all too easy for a cynical, incompetent or unwilling LA to blow £20k consulting on a scheme whose actual build cost is a tenth as much, or gold-plate it with expensive and fancy public realm upgrades when a few metres of girder would be just as effective from a cycling point of view.
Not sure where you;'re based but after last years tragedy where 6 people lost their lives cycling, the police were cynically out in force (having said for the previous 6 months there was no money for policing). The roads were a lot calmer.
Yes - was certainly noticeable in central London, but didn't have to go far out for the old bad habits to continue as normal. In Peckham you'd not notice anything had changed.
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As a simple possibility, people used to have to renew their driving licences every few years; that they don't have to do this any more is part of the problem. If drivers regularly had to attend refresher courses, driving standards would improve pretty quickly--e.g., you'd be able to remind them of things they regularly get wrong, such as the rules for driving at mini-roundabouts, which are not known to many drivers.
Not to mention ASZs.. but I think there's a bigger problem here, which is that at the national, as opposed to London, context, car-dependency is at a level where it's politically unacceptable to deny obviously incompetent people access to their own vehicle. On an individual scale, you have people driving despite 12 and in some cases 20+ points on their license, and on a population-wide scale, the DVLA turning a blind eye to the fact that many elderly people are no longer fit to be behind the wheel. It's easier for government to ignore the problem than to provide real alternatives - rural bus services have seen cut after cut.
It's key to understand just why the driving test in Britain is poor; it's not that the bar is set low (there is still a large amount of stuff to learn), but the problem lies in the way it is examined.
This extends to the practical test. Much emphasis on procedural stuff like 3-point turns, reverse parking, emergency stops under clear conditions etc., very little on reading the road, driving psychology or vulnerable road users.
I'm curious as to why you seem to think that this would somehow be easier than keeping drivers' knowledge up-to-date?
Modally filtering every last residential street in Zones 1-4 would cost in the low hundreds of millions - bollards don't cost any more than the ineffective variety of traffic calming (in which category I'd place most speed humps and chicanes). Money isn't the issue.
While filtering is a pretty cost-effective solution, and cuts out most of the problems, it would still be a mammoth undertaking to do this, and crucially it would (still) lack public support in many places.
Then do it where it's popular, and develop the argument elsewhere to make it popular (or at least, popular enough to be implementable - there's no statutory requirement for a majority of residents in favour). It's a good enough idea that it ought to be able to spread - once installed, very few people have ever asked for it to be removed. Even motorists like to live on cul-de-sacs.
I'd like to see the argument for it advanced in terms of mobility rights - along similar lines to the case made for disabled-accessible public transport and workplaces. Public support should not be the deciding factor - a kid who wants to go to the park independently - or a grandmother who'd like to cycle to the shops - has no network where rat-running is left uncontrolled, in the same way that a man in a wheelchair has no network when faced with a flight of steps to catch his train. Yes, removing rat runs makes the motor vehicle network slightly less optimal - but for many people, the other modes have no network at all right now. That's plainly an unjust situation, regardless of whether or not the residents of Street A want a bollard at one end.
I also feel that, in training / education terms, it's right that kids on bikes should mix with cars to some extent - but it's absolutely vital that the traffic be neutered to a point where they can do so with adequate margin for error. That's simply not possible with through-traffic - it's against the driver's own immediate interests to behave calmly and considerately, and all the education in the world isn't going to make the kind of dimwitted, selfish scum who do 40 in a 30 while on their mobile change on that front.
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If wishes were horses, Oliver. Seems like half the drivers I encounter don't have a clue what an ASL box is, most don't know what primary position is or why a cyclist would need to ride in the middle of the road where there's a pinch point or obstruction, plenty haven't got a clue about local speed limits.. you are talking about 40M people, the majority of whom are basically ignorant (not willfully so, just as a matter of fact).
Even if the driving test were massively improved tomorrow (which it won't be - much of society is car-dependent & therefore it is a requirement that the bar to be set low enough for the village idiot and his half-blind, half-senile uncle to get over it), it'd still take 50 years to re-educate the population -- maybe as little as 25 if backed by the massive enforcement and media blitzes that were rolled out to tackle seatbelt non-use and drink driving, but those are simple binary actions - do or do not - behaving considerately around vulnerable road users is more nuanced and complex.
Much better, in my view, to educate through engineering - every last minor road in our towns and cities converted a half-mile-long dead end. Cars have directly caused, what, a quarter-million deaths in this country since 1945 - before you factor in inactivity and air pollution. Take away the through routes in our neighbourhoods for five or ten years - all of them - maybe they can have some back when they've learned to behave.
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Hmmm I suspect advance road skills would help in a lot of conflicts on the road. There are so many clueless and mannerless riders not helping matters or themselves. Yeah there are absolute knuckle draggers with the potential to kill but I see so much stupidity on bikes....
Agree wholeheartedly - and yet, when it comes to people on foot and on bikes, our default position towards stupidity in the public realm - except in those places where, by necessity, movement has to take absolute priority over place (i.e. A-roads) - should be one of accommodation and tolerance. Make room for the weak and the stupid, unless there's a really good reason not to - or unless they're endangering the comfort and safety of others (fast pavement cyclists, I'm looking at you).
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for education and as much of it as possible, but (as a general principle extending far beyond cycle campaigning), it shouldn't be used as an excuse to deny the uneducated reasonably equitable access to public life.
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Such a pity that kids who are perfectly capable of riding ten miles (aged 6 or so) have basically nowhere to do so in London. And then we wonder why they get fat. The years between being physically capable of riding 10 miles, and mentally capable of doing Bikeability 2, might pass in the blink of an eye for an adult, but they're a lifetime for the kid - a lifetime in which habits are established, and patterns set for life.
While some skills are certainly needed to use a separate bike network, a lot of it comes down to how much tolerance/expectation other users have towards the least able. On the Dutch networks for example you see very young kids cycling alongside grown ups, and everyone appears to make allowances for them. On quiet roads, cul de saces etc. it is possible to, at least temporarily, establish a high tolerance for the least able.
This an argument for tolerance as much as, if not more, for infrastructure - I have a feeling that in London, even if a segregated bike network were to be built, there'd be some parts of it where the other cyclists at certain times of day would display poor tolerance towards young kids using it. Pedestrians in London can be dicks too, for that matter (try taking the tube with a 3yo at rush hour), but the amount of damage a fat man in a suit can do at walking pace is thankfully limited (although the amount of damage I'll do to him if he knocks my kid over is rather less so).
Tolerance can be achieved by education, engineering or both - I'm more in favour of the latter, filtered permeability used to forcibly establish zones where tolerance for the weak becomes the norm. But it's still an argument for infrastructure in those places where no amount of education can breed the degree of tolerance needed to accommodate the sort of mistakes under-9s will make on a bike.
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Reported on a local facebook group ("Crystal Palace Mums") by multiple witnesses. No reports in local press as far as I can tell, even though the incident was a week ago.
Female rider reportedly hit by a supermarket delivery van outside a school on Bradley Road, Norwood. The accident was attended by the air ambulance, never a good sign. Thoughts with the rider, hoping she can make a full and swift recovery.
Glad you're OK Currid, wishing you a quick recovery.
Just a heads up to all following that the junction concerned is due to be redone soon to make it less hazardous for cyclists and pedestrians. LB Southwark are going to consult on options for it some time this year. I don't know any more than that at the moment, but keep a look out - am sure Southwark and Lewisham LCC groups will hear about it when the consultation goes out. The councillors responsible are aware of this incident and others at the same location.