Taxi drivers' Cycle Superhighways challenge dubbed "desperate" and "unmeritorious"

Tony wrote:

Can we please stop falling for the marketing hype of calling them Superhighways? They are nothing of the sort. Along the Embankment they are between 1.5 and 2m wide in each direction. That's between the absolute minimum and recommended width for an ordinary cycle lane on an ordinary road. Calling them Superhighways does not change that. But it does give the impression that something extraordinary is being done for cyclists when in fact its just very ordinary and totally under-provided for the sort of traffic it is supposed to be taking. If it were designed to the Dutch CROW standard it would be twice its current maximum width.

If you want a proper superhighway, come and have a look at Leeds' idea of perfection.

Cycle lanes that don't exist, have entrances blocked by signs, exit straight into the back of cars parked on the pavement. Have give way lines to traffic waiting to join the road heading in the direction you would wish to travel. Heading the other way, you seemingly come off a perfectly good cycle lane to cross either three or four lanes of traffic depending on where the planners have put the crossing. To get onto the inside of the roundabout. Then to cross another three or four lanes of traffic to get onto the two way segragation that snakes it's way between the cinema entrance and the garage. To be left with no where to go but ride on the footpath to the pedestrian crossing, cross and get back into the flow of traffic towards Leeds. I'm not entirely convinced the segregated lanes are wide enough for the two way traffic they've been marked up for. Oh and don't forget, this is in about half a mile.

And that's how you make travelling by cycle safer and faster in Yorkshire! Still at least the council have made a £9 million effort in pissing eveyone off. One wonders who much of the money was syphoned to pay for the work done at Thornbury and elsewhere on the outer ring road.

Tony wrote:

Can we please stop falling for the marketing hype of calling them Superhighways? They are nothing of the sort. Along the Embankment they are between 1.5 and 2m wide in each direction. That's between the absolute minimum and recommended width for an ordinary cycle lane on an ordinary road. Calling them Superhighways does not change that. But it does give the impression that something extraordinary is being done for cyclists when in fact its just very ordinary and totally under-provided for the sort of traffic it is supposed to be taking. If it were designed to the Dutch CROW standard it would be twice its current maximum width.

They do look a bit narrow. You have to wonder if cycling does take off in the way that Boris hopes how long will it be before the superhighways need widening? Then the argument about wider roads leading to more congestion can be used against cycling.

Then the argument about wider roads leading to more congestion can be used against cycling.

Assuming you means wider cycle lanes, the argument doesn't work because more people cycling = less cars.

And congestion for who - why should cyclists experience congestion, are they not as important as car drivers?

kie7077 wrote:

Then the argument about wider roads leading to more congestion can be used against cycling.

Assuming you means wider cycle lanes, the argument doesn't work because more people cycling = less cars.

And congestion for who - why should cyclists experience congestion, are they not as important as car drivers?

I'm commenting that the cycle lane will become congested if the number of people that TfL want to use it actually do so. Do you not think cycle lanes can become congested?

hampstead_bandit wrote:

Roll on Uber....

In fairness, I'd rather London's roads were populated by experienced black cab drivers than any old Tom, Tariq or Pavel who's just got a car, doesn't really know where they're going and is racing to beat the GPS route on their phone.

But this really is laughably poor from the LTDA. Surely their energies would be better focused on fighting the unfair competition or upgrading their technology to remove Uber's advantage?

Gizmo_ wrote:

hampstead_bandit wrote:

Roll on Uber....

In fairness, I'd rather London's roads were populated by experienced black cab drivers than any old Tom, Tariq or Pavel who's just got a car, doesn't really know where they're going and is racing to beat the GPS route on their phone.

But this really is laughably poor from the LTDA. Surely their energies would be better focused on fighting the unfair competition or upgrading their technology to remove Uber's advantage?

They are all bad, I've had insanely dangerous high speed passes (deliberate) by black cab drivers - punishment passes for daring to be on the road - a city road with 2 lanes so no excuse - they had to move into the other lane far enough that they could have completely entered the other lane but they maliciously chose not to. I've lost count of the number of extremely bad passes by black cabs - at least 10 times.

Google claim they will have autonomous cars in 5 years, I hope this is true, goodbye all minicab, Uber and taxi drivers and good riddance, I hope they crush those vile black smoke emitting heaps of junk too.

Must be Mad wrote:

And on the subject of increasing traffic congestion - I have the perfect solution for Taxi's. How about they start charging passengers on a 'per time' basis? So if a journey takes longer.... they just charge more. Seems like a winner to me.

They already do this - they charge by a combination of distance and time, so the meter keeps going up even when you're standing still. The real issue for black is not how they charge, but what people are prepared to pay for. The reason for the rise of Uber and the falling popularity of black cabs is simply that Uber is much cheaper - the black cab needs to provide a premium service in comparison, but they largely fail to provide something people want to pay extra for. They seem to have difficulty understanding that they operate in a consumer marketplace where they might have to compete for customers...