“Proper cyclists don’t need cycle lanes”: Locals blast “woke” bike lane works, as rugby club claims fans can’t get to matches during “chaos”

Maybe Simoninspalding can reassure them - being in a Holland is OK.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Holland_District

Although to be fair it's flatter - but can be very windy.

Yeah, but 'woke agenda'. 'E knows wot's wot.

timtak wrote:

I feel some sympathy with the unnamed Rotherham business owner. There is one bike lane in my town and I never use it because the cyclists that do are slow. It makes the rest off the road narrower and more dangerous. I can see how the cycle lane improves the lives of slow cyclists, but I am pleased I don't live in the Netherlands.

Another uncomfortable truth for the fans of segregated cycling infrastructure, doubly so when it isn't but also containing pedestrians with their children, pushchairs, grannies and dogs. Or even a horse!

If there are to be cycling paths that are fit for purpose they would, like roads, need to enable traffic mixes in which individual vehicles can cooperate safely when moving at different speeds. Safe overtaking capacity is primary, then. Much easier for bikes than for cars on the existing roads.

I know! Lets use the roads we have for cycling, which go everywhere and are still fit for cycling despite some potholed runs. To bring them up to scratch, let's rid ourselves of the dangerous free-roaming car and lorry. Rail those motored behemoths within a narrow and fenced-off strip to the side. Or improve the railways. 

No overtaking for the motored things, mind. They all go fast enough and, anyway, the drivists generally have no ability to overtake safely even when given oodles of road. Yes, railways it is, then, with cargo e-bikes doing the last mile or five to all of our doors. Think how fit the wage slaves and mammies will be as they pedal themselves to and from the railway stations each day.

There's an old railwaay line just half a mile across the valley from our hoose, even in the depths of West Wales. There are plenty more waiting all over Blighty. Build them back and celebrate their opening by burning effigies of Marples and Beeching! Then build some new ones.

There's trams an' all, you know. And trolley buses.

Cugel wrote:

Another uncomfortable truth for the fans of segregated cycling infrastructure, doubly so when it isn't but also containing pedestrians with their children, pushchairs, grannies and dogs. Or even a horse!

If there are to be cycling paths that are fit for purpose they would, like roads, need to enable traffic mixes in which individual vehicles can cooperate safely when moving at different speeds. Safe overtaking capacity is primary, then. Much easier for bikes than for cars on the existing roads.

What you've described is exactly how "active travel" infra is shown on eg. shiny new UK development "artist's impressions".

That is however NOT how eg. NL understands "separated infra".

You're quite right that it won't work - or rather, isn't sufficiently convenient or "safe" as soon as a realistic number of people aren't driving but are instead walking / cycling. (I'll leave the horses out for the moment, they're making me nervous, and sometimes vice versa).

When you say "[the infra] need to enable traffic mixes in which individual vehicles can cooperate safely when moving at different speeds." that is *exactly the opposite* of one of the principles of the Dutch "Sustainable Safety" philosophy.* In 2010 this was described as:

Homogeneity (of mass, speed and direction of road users)

When this was updated in 2018 the relevant point became:

(Bio)Mechanics: limiting differences in speed, direction, mass and size, and giving road users appropriate protection

Although many - as you have - correctly identify the problem is "motor vehicles" (vs. all other road users) neither the UK approach ( safety through removing the vulnerable road users, which make it convenient for drivers at the expense of everyone else) NOR the opposite idea (safety through removing the motor vehicles) represent how NL (or to a lesser extent other places like Copenhagen, Malmo etc) has managed to get where it has.

Cyclists need their own space** which is not shared with cars, lorries, pedestrians, dogs, trains or large snorting quadrupeds. This space needs to be sufficient for *both* the normal human behavior of side-by-side travel and the normal human tendency for some to impatiently want to pass slower travellers (e.g. wide enough for at least 3 bikes in one direction).

There are fortunately thousands of hours of video showing exactly how this looks like and works in practice. You can see just how convenient it is for people on and off their bikes, cycling at high speeds, using wheelchairs and mobility vehicles, walking their dogs, in their cars etc. Probably there's even something about equines too...

* See:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2021/01/06/the-third-edition-of-susta...

** Exceptions of course - where the overall numbers of travellers are low cyclists and pedestrians can share infra (the Dutch tend to only build cycle paths through the countryside, not footpaths). Where speeds are kept very low and there are very few motor vehicles all modes may mix (e.g. in a small "LTN" which is not a through route at all for cars and isn't a main route for cycling either. Or cyclists and pedestrians in a "pedestrian area" where pedestrians greatly outnumber cyclists).

That's a belief I've heard - it's understandable in the UK. Here where cycle infra exists (few places) it is mostly hopelessly compromised because we can't take space from drivers, or we only spend a fraction of the required money.

Sorry to hear you've had some UK cargo cult infra foisted on you. As you note a big falling here is we don't have a *network* of cycle infra. We also mostly haven't addressed the crucial points at all - junctions.

This belief can of course be changed by going for a ride in the Netherlands. However it's even easier - you can just look on the internet.

https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2008/09/speed.html

https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2015/10/cycle-paths-providing-effi...

https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/its-quicker-by-bike.html

(Plenty other resources available eg. Bicycledutch, NotJustBikes etc.)

You shouldn't be pleased you don't live somewhere without quality cycle infra. Even if you only drive!

The Netherlands has demonstrated that cycling is a acceptable mode of transport and not a race or survival of the fittest. I look forward to the day that I can relax on a commute and not fight with vehicular traffic and fight for position by matching their speed in the city centre. 

Velophaart_95 wrote:

All of these loons using the word 'woke' have no clue what it means. Anything they're against, it seems is 'woke'. Truly clueless...

Anything like Holland's infrastructure (the Netherlands actually) has got to be a good thing, has it not?

Let me guess, they're likely a Tory voting gammon.

You'd think that the notion of being awake to how one is manipulated, used, expoited, neglected, made pariah or scapegoat and generally treated as human fodder for one or several satanic mills (physical and metaphysical) would suggest to the "Tory voting gammons" and similar that they might have another look at their attitudes and at their real life situations.

Ha! - such folk seem paradoxically uninterested in their own interests - other than their interest in being closed-minded reactionary bigots keen to find and persecute others even lower than themselves in the official pecking orders known as The British Class System and approved-attributes-for-being-one-of-us lists.

Sadly its yet another expose of our very queer human nature, that we don't mind sacrificing our physical selves to the imaginary selves created by memeplexes such as religions, ideologies and even by the crude and gerry-build slums of political party propaganda. We'll happily cooperate in trashing the civil society that's the only thing allowing us to survive in favour of becoming little cipher folk, eagerly queuing up to be serfs, amoral servants of the powerful or plain and simple cannon-fodder in the machinations of one oligarchy over another.

Some of us have been awake to the vast and spectacular lies of official history, political dogmas et al .... what power actually does rather than what is says it does .... for decades. They taught us our scepticism in skool, not via the lessons on the timetable but via the many lessons of both playground and the crazed behaviours of the tinpot authorities ruled by the rightly-named headmaster.

Yet many swallow the official claptraps and will repeat them, with red faces and a lot of spittle, to others, in shouty and intransigent tones. Like those old headmasters and their familiars the lickspittle teachers, they will soon resort to violence and intimidation if questioned or gainsaid in their desire for official self-righteousness........

Mind, I can't complain about the many fine advantages given to at least a portion of my generation by Attlee and pals. A pity - a great pity - that such a government was a small anomaly in an immensely long history of ruling thieves & barstids. 

PS 'Scuse my rant. 

PPS I got a free COVID & flu jab today an' all.

PPPS Yesterday's bike ride was a very fine outing, at 17 degrees in the autumn sun, including some new (to me and t'wife) sections of backroads through gorgeous Welsh countryside.

.

Quite right and your mention of modal shift is pertinent.

Protected cycleways *should* be built but not just for people who are "too afraid to mix with traffic". Protected cycleways (and indeed a network of high quality cycle infra) should be built for everyone - especially taxpayers, business owners and drivers. Not to mention medical staff, older people, those with disabilities, children... oh, and people who want to cycle, including those who want to do so at speed!

Having a network of cycle infra of sufficient quality saves us all money, generates more "footfall" for local businesses and makes it more pleasant for drivers. Cyclists are not a "problem" for UK drivers of course... except they would really notice if the occupants of say 1 in every 3 cars were cycling instead, on the existing roads.

They are also excellent for parking in. 

That crossed my mind :). I suppose he meant rugger fans. 

I used to work in Rotherham. It has many attractions for fans of betting shops, charity shops, pound shops, Greggs. I used to commute there by bike from Sheffield. I used the river/canal path network. Had so many dodgy incidents over the years.

ktache wrote:

Can please someone explain what definition of woke these roadworks or cycle lanes fall?

"A Rotherham business owner suddenly woke as he drove over wands 'protecting' a cycle lane and into excavations for roadworks" ?

Thames Water have dug up the same bit of road three times already this year on my commute. I got back from holiday last week and almost thought I'd taken a wrong turn when they weren't there