"Ridiculous" segregated cycle lane under fire from club cyclists — but will it encourage more people to ride?

Yes, road.cc has a very definite "roadie" viewpoint - that's the focus rather than being a specific active travel campaign site.  I'd say it's not limited to that view but that's the default.

Thanks for fighting for better infra.  I wouldn't want perfect to be the enemy of good.  I also appreciate how hard it is to get anything and what you end up with is often different from that promised / agreed.  Sometimes seriously compromising usability.

However too often we end up with something which is billed as "allows the less confident to get from A to B" which isn't truly safe, "subjectively safe" OR convenient.  If the "solution" involves needing to walk a lot, or repeatedly get on and off the bike, it's simply not going to see a great deal of use by anyone.  Inadequate infra isn't the only reason most people don't cycle.  However if it's not convenient - even if we sort out other factors - they're not going to start.

This is different from a "club cyclist complaint".  The point is infra should be both safe (actually and "subjectively") AND convenient.  It is certainly possible to have both.  Without both it is arguably a waste of cash.  No doubt roadies complain in the Netherlands; they complain everywhere.  Having visited I'd say it's a fallacy that they couldn't use the infra to go at a good speed there though.  And likely they'll be faster through many built-up areas too , higher average speed because less stopping and starting / shorter traffic light waits etc.

Again - this is almost always on our presumption of "maximum motor vehicle flow", the local authority and our deficient funding mechanisms.

Agreed on your points however its often a case (based on funding and Councillor feedback) to compromise and deliver an improvement to white painted lines or get nothing at all.

Times are changing however and with the Active Travel England body, local authorities (particularly councillors) will realise they will only get funding if they meet LTN 1/20 standards. Main issue at the moment is trying to deliver LTN 1/20 standards when you only have 10% of the budget.

I can promise you, transport planners and most engineers know what a good cycle scheme looks like, its the political nature that prevents schemes

I cetainly appreciate the frustrations of poorly designed and implemented cycling infra. We have a recently installed section of segregated (from road traffic) infra in Harrogate that is far from perfect BUT it does allow people, including school children, to safely cycle along a section of road that services local schools that would be otherwise far too intimidating to use. This can only be a good thing and with continued consulation with Harrogate Cycle Action hopefully future installations will be better. 

'Two-thirds (64%) of people agree that it is ‘too dangerous to cycle on the roads’ largely because those promoting total bike segregation have spent decades telling everyone "It is too dangerous to cycle on the roads."

Many millions of miles are traveled by bicycle between fatalities. Cycling is safer, per mile traveled, than walking. Can we not stop the fear mongering?

That's a hard "No".  Those promoting total bike segregation are a minority of a minority - often not even a household name in their own households.  The notion that these folks are responsible for any kind of "popular perception" is risible on its face.  Even more so than "cyclists are taking over the roads".

I agree that cycling is an extremely safe activity compared to most.  As you know the statistics do not inform people's thinking.  What people do is notice that it's sometimes very unpleasant sharing the roads with motor vehicles when you're not in one.  It doesn't feel safe.  The incidents of people getting hit by cars - while fairly rare* - reinforce this perception.  The results are rather one-sided!  Add in "would I let my kid / parents cycle there" and that's (one of) the reason(s) why most people aren't cycling.

Could it be that there is some kind of correlation between good cycling infra and fraction of trips made on bike / population cycling?  (Good = separated where needed, forming a network - in otherwords "actually and subjectively  safe and also convenient").  Worth a look!

* But still more frequent than they could be for a little effort and investment.

Well... according to e.g. Carlton Reid, they were right!  The government *did* want them off the road.  However there was a fairly large infra building program (for the time) and some still looks not bad today.

Interesting counterfactual - would the government have put infra everywhere if CTC had gone with them rather than against and lobbied hard for "excellent" infra?  I'm inclined to think that we'd have lost cycling in the UK anyway.  After all transport cycling plummeted most places in Europe / the USA, even in the Netherlands.  I'm not clear why exactly it hung on longer there.  Maybe more infra to start with, maybe something cultural / political, maybe they were just behind the times with the car ...?  Maybe "their streets were too narrow" for cars?

mdavidford wrote:

Quote:

"The only time I used that bike lane [... t]wo scallies on mountain bikes coming the other way decided to swerve in front of me then narrowly miss a head-on collision,"

So it was much better before when someone in a car could have decided to swerve into you instead?

Those plastic wands won't stop a car from swerving into you and without double yellow lines or some other parking restriction you could quite easily find it full of parked cars most of the time.

Backladder wrote:

Those plastic wands won't stop a car from swerving into you

It won't absolutely stop it, but it will make it considerably less likely. The driver (not the car) would have to actively decide to drive through them, rather than just squeeze you out while only half thinking about it, If at all. (Unless they've suffered a serious loss of control, but that's something else again.)

I don't doubt that there may well be a lot wrong with what's been provided here, but 'some eejit once decided to swerve their bike at me, so they should remove it' seems like about the weakest possible argument that could have been made against it.

mdavidford wrote:

Backladder wrote:

Those plastic wands won't stop a car from swerving into you

It won't absolutely stop it, but it will make it considerably less likely. The driver (not the car) would have to actively decide to drive through them, rather than just squeeze you out while only half thinking about it, If at all. (Unless they've suffered a serious loss of control, but that's something else again.)

or are in their phone or drunk etc etc.

mdavidford wrote:

I don't doubt that there may well be a lot wrong with what's been provided here, but 'some eejit once decided to swerve their bike at me, so they should remove it' seems like about the weakest possible argument that could have been made against it.

There was a similar cycle lane installed near me for a few months before they ripped it out due to the rage of the motorists who were hardly effected by it at all, and riding it in the contraflow direction was really scary with cars approaching you on one side and bikes approaching you on the other, the slightest mistake would most likely send you out in to the road head on to the traffic. I stopped using it because I didn't think it was safe and I was glad when they removed it.

Backladder wrote:

or are in their phone or drunk etc etc.

Well, yes - but that's a whole different issue, and the cycle lane hasn't made much difference one way or another in that respect, so that doesn't make for an argument against it.

This may be a unique aspect of bicycle advocacy: "We shouldn't ask the opinion of people who actually perform the desired activity and have learned to do it properly. We should pay attention only to those who are ignorant!"

Can you imagine using that philosophy to design motorways? "Don't listen to that crowd! They have driver's licenses!"

As you know - the target "audience" for cycling infrastructure e.g. "everyone - 8-80" - mostly don't cycle for transport purposes at the moment.  If at all.  The people actually cycling now on UK roads are "the fit and the brave".  Or "cyclists".  To a first approximation a rather specific "out group".  (Wonder why that could be?)

So a better analogy would be "we currently have 'roads' which are used - but by rally drivers.  But we want them to be used by the rest of the population.  Should we take the advice of the rally drivers on what makes a good road and just make more like that"?  Of course simply taking the average opinion of all the people who don't currently drive wouldn't necessarily give you great roads either.

Fortunately we have a "gold standard" we can look to - a place where there really is mass cycling.  In addition we have some "half-way houses" - a whole collection of places - in different countries [1], with different climates [2] [3] and topography [4], with different cultures - that we can compare and contrast to see not just what works but what the bare minimums are and what pitfalls we could avoid.

Even the UK has almost a century of building "cycle infrastructure".  Unfortunately most of it bad or just disconnected and inconvenient.  Built by people who couldn't see why "just mix with the cars" never worked for most people.  Or at best thought of cycling as a minor activity to provide for if we could.  The most "successful" early examples were built in places where the car was being heavily promoted and were less convenient than driving.  Where it's as easy to drive as walk, the UK drives.

Decent proper cycling infra should cater for all types of cyclists, that's ultimately the test of it imo, if you've got stuff like this that involves using crossings and dismounting, it doesnt sound like its very decent at all, even if some bits work for some cyclists.

And I dont think the Dutch would build something like this, so why are we ?

Have to disagree. There will always be cases where compromise is necessary, particularly with old streets etc. The priority should always be to provide safe cycling for those less confident and for people wanting to get from A to B.

But we've old streets!

But they're too narrow! [1] [2] [3]

I agree we want to be able to get from A to B.  Compromise is necessary - and will happen anyway because it's extremely unlikely "cyclists" will ever be seen as the majority.

So often it seems in this context "compromise" means "anything is better than nothing" or "forget convenience and useability, at least it's safe".  It shouldn't.  I hear "compromise" in this context and what comes next is not "finding a pragmatic solution which adequately achieves the overall goal"* but "rule out any change to the status quo to start with, then head for the lowest common denominator".

If "providing for cyclists" means "walking half the time, constantly on and off the bike" you've not provided for cyclists.  Possibly not at all for some with mobility issues.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  It needs to be safe and convenient.  Otherwise it will be used neither by the less confident nor by the existing "fit and the brave".

* e.g. "OK - not on this street - but we need to link from A to B so what about a better provision on a parallel street?"

Don't mistake that for being dogmatic.  Cyclists can always get places.  Not all will.  People who're not confident on bikes can get off (if they've the mobility...) and become pedestrians at any point currently.  We should not short-change them - and dissuade the majority of people who currently don't cycle - by putting up new obstacle courses.  Pragmatism would be accepting very occasional "missing links" - as long as they're still accessible to everyone.

Absolutely, what I'd love to see CyclingUK or some other pro cycling organisations do is take an example road like this, goto one of the Dutch cycling infra build companies and say here's the amount of money you've got to spend, show us what you would do here instead and I bet it wouldnt look anything like what theyve installed here.

Careful what you wish for.  Can't find the reference but recall reading that when abroad a "Dutch infra company" will happily build what the client wants and is prepared to pay for.  Just like other businesses.  I'd hope they'd do a better job but again if the brief was "mustn't reduce motor vehicle capacity, cannot touch the junctions, we don't have room for bus stop bypasses"...  Plus they wouldn't have the framework of all the Dutch requirements and wouldn't be connecting to a Dutch network.  Improvising, there's no guarantee they'd come up with something particularly good.

I think this is where we could really benefit from "education" - less individual drivers, more the politicos, planners and designers.  Or alternatively everyone in the UK - here's what you're missing and what you really could have.

Sadly I think there's some truth to the idea that "Copenhagen is the 'entry-level' version of the Netherlands - that other countries can understand and feel they might be able to afford and achieve".

The issue is that in Amsterdam say, they have entirely inverted the road system, cars are subservient to cycles. So any design conflict, they will design for the bike first and the motorist has to put up with what they are given. They also use a lot of traffic lights, so typically a cyclist might have to stop/start, but they would not be expected to cross traffic unprotected. Of course, a lot of Amsterdam in the centre is virtually traffic free aside from residential access.

In this Solihull example, there are about 4 key points where the cyclist is left to their own devices to negotiate 2 lanes of traffic flowing in both directions.

which is not good in the Solihull example then if the scheme is targetted at "low confidence" cyclists, and how does it cope with 2way cycling ? since one portion appears to involve a bit a of hill.

I just feel the Dutch have a very good track record on what makes cycling infra work, whereas UK attempts (that arent based on the Dutch philosophy or LTN1/20) end up as this hodge podge of things that sort of do something to help in places, but never quite feel right, are certainly clunky to ride and not at all the "cracking design that adheres to all the current guidelines" the local councillor claimed for this.

all cyclists just want stuff that makes them feel safer cycling,is easily navigable and doesnt over complicate a journey for them, it sounds simple yet is rarely delivered.

and Ive seen it time and time again with proposals to improve roads for cycling,again to match the guidelines its claimed, but which the default option is to push you onto a narrow shared path at the first opportunity whenever things get a bit difficult or complicated for the designers to cope with taking away space from motor vehicles or slowing them down to enable safe cycling routes, and completely wrecks your route, because instead of feeling like you are going to your destination, you are being diverted off here there and everywhere and pressing begging buttons or hoping friendly motorists will allow you to cross in their presence, and your nice desire line resembles more like a shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece.

I just get fed up of it, because it simply will feed the anti trolls with their "look at all this money spent on more cycling infra that no one uses" because it really doesnt work if you dont make things simple and easy to follow and wont result in the kind of sea change to modal share we want from it.

Well as I said, the fundamental difference is priority.

Even in high quality London schemes, the designers are reluctant to make cars subservient to bikes. I'd love to see traffic lights that default to red for cars, leaving pedestrians free to cross, and motorists have to wind down their windows and press a button, then wait 90 seconds before the lights condescend to change.

I agree with your point.  Some details - cars aren't "subserviant" to cycles in NL *.  And I hear it's a pretty good place to drive.  And I think they still draw the motor traffic lanes in first.  And increasingly they try to design so not only are you not held up at traffic lights but you don't encounter them on a cycle at all.

Amsterdam itself may not be the best example to look at.

What really seems to make the difference is a different focus and different principles.

* They do try to make it very clear exactly what you have to do in every environment though - which includes "priority".  But cycles do not always have priority - sometimes for good reason (and not even all Dutch people understand / agree with this)!

There are Fietsstraat where cars are "guests" but I think they're not fully "regularised".  They (or other roads) can have very low speed limits / "no overtaking cycles" rules applied.  However I believe we can legally sign both in the UK, now.  The key point is these things should be self-reinforcing e.g. they wouldn't just stick a fietsstraat sign / other rules on a busy, fast street. We're still trying to "sign it better" too often.

Points taken.

What I found really difficult to adjust to was things like right turns across cycle lanes where you had to consciously consider cyclists who would not be stopping
(actually not that different to the revised HWC which has highlighted places where I've had to adjust my driving to allow for the possibility of needing to give way to pedestrians for example). It is examples such as that where I perceived the subservience. It's the same thinking problem as the priority from the right at unmarked junctions across Europe.