Are cycle lanes any use?

On 10 Jun, 14:32, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 14:23:04 +0100, Tony Raven

wrote:

[blanket 20mph]

Why not?

Because people need to get places more quickly than that

'Need'?, you mean like they 'need' a BMW, or a foreign holiday?

"Toby Sleigh" wrote:
If the road is wide enough to have effective cycle lanes then it is wide
enough not to need them. [...]

Idiot drivers seem keener to sit in the middle of the same width road and
harass cyclists, instead of driving in the right of the wide lane.
More enforcement or good cycle lanes, I don't mind which.

Regards,
--
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op.
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On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:12:09 +0100,
Pete Biggs wrote:
David Lloyd wrote:
I'm wondering. Given the comments on urc about the farcilities that
are foisted on us, the jealousy directed at us by motorists because
they believe that they are paying for these farcilities, and the
opinions often voiced that cycle lanes are unmaintained with
dangerous junctions, how do we view cycle lanes as a group? Are we,
as cyclists, in favour of or against cycle lanes as they are today?
How should they be?

As well as cycle lanes being too narrow and encoraging cyclists to put
themselves in dangerous positions, I particularly dislike the green-coloured
surface they put on them now. The rough tarmac (or stone chippings or
whatever it is) noticebly increases rolling resistance.

Unfortunately my local cycling campaign group seems to want more and more
cycle "facilities", even completely segregated ones. They say it encourages
cycling on the continent so it must be a good thing for the UK too. How can
I argue against this?

Well Franklin freferences Wegman and Dijkstra whose paper looks at
cycle-paths in the Netherlands. They claim the new cross-town lanes
in Den Haag and Tilburg produced no safety gain and had not encouraged
much new cycling. So that might be a starting point.

--
Andy Leighton =
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

Tony Raven wrote:
MJ Ray wrote on 10/06/2007 18:37 +0100:
Those papers lack detail and data. I'll write up my notes on this FAQ at
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2007/redways over the next few days.

Your blog starts with a fallacy.

It starts by mentioning the two papers are often cited to justify calling
almost everything "farcilities". Isn't that so?

You have not seen an accident on the
Redways because cycling on both is very safe but that tells you nothing
about the relative safety of the redways and roads.

I don't claim otherwise. However, those papers tell us little about
relative safety too, for various reasons which I've posted before and
will summarise there. It suggests an interesting line for further
research, but isn't complete.

I don't think John
is particularly having a go at the Redways, just using them to
illustrate that even when you build cycle facilities with minimal
constraints, they are less safe than the roads.

Were the constraints minimal? I think the original network was built as a
pedestrian network that cyclists could use, not a cycle track network, but
I don't have a copy of the Master Plan to hand right now.

So it makes a nonsense to try to build constrained facilities elsewhere
when they will even less safe than the roads.

I agree with that, but sometimes, within the constraints, you can build
safer tracks than the competing roads. Old railway corridors are one
example, if done carefully.

You will note he used the information
particularly against the Sustrans concept although I know that is also a
sensitive matter with you.

I'm not sure what "Sustrans concept" is meant, but Sustrans build both
good and bad. Check Sustrans plans carefully. On one hand, they've
got the money and planning authority respect to get dumb stuff built,
but on the other hand, they've got the money and respect to get good
stuff built. Use 'em.

[...]
You need to do some digging around - there are more than just those two
papers out there and some of them break the data down in more detail.

Which papers and which data? The A+E records aren't detailed enough,
even in the source form, and the STATS19 are a tiny fraction of accidents.

Regards,
--
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op.
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

MJ Ray wrote on 11/06/2007 09:59 +0100:

It starts by mentioning the two papers are often cited to justify calling
almost everything "farcilities". Isn't that so?


No. Farcilities refers to facilities which are a farce which is all too
many of them and which are illustrated monthly by the Warrington Cycle
Campaign. I wouldn't call the Redways farcilities, they are cycle
facilities that form an interesting case study for the safety rationale
for cycle facilities.


Were the constraints minimal? I think the original network was built as a
pedestrian network that cyclists could use, not a cycle track network, but
I don't have a copy of the Master Plan to hand right now.

Comparatively yes. They didn't have to fit in between existing
buildings or highways and the planners had a reasonably unconstrained
hand in where they went and how they were designed. That is not true of
the vast majority of facilities that have to fit in around existing
infrastructure.


I'm not sure what "Sustrans concept" is meant, but Sustrans build both
good and bad.

It the concept that cycles need an alternative network that is not the
roads. For me however the roads form a perfectly adequate network that
is generally safer, easier to use and far more comprehensive than
anything Sustrans can ever hope to build.


[...]
You need to do some digging around - there are more than just those two
papers out there and some of them break the data down in more detail.

Which papers and which data?

As I said you will have to dig around. I am not your personal
researcher. But they are out there as I have read them in the past.


--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell

On Jun 10, 3:59 pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 15:54:33 +0100, Tony Raven

wrote:
In town? That's a shame then because in London and other major cities
average traffic speeds are something like 11mph. So being capped to
20mph, rather than racing to the next queue and thus endangering
cyclists in between while gaining no time advantage, will not make much
difference at all.

Inside the immediate city centres, yes, but most people don't live in
city centres, and it is not the only part of the journey where people
may feel intimidated by traffic.


I don't consider myself in the immediate city centre (SE London just
outside zone 2). A blanket 20mph limit wouldn't make any significant
difference to journey times (it /could/ improve them for cars if it
was enforced) and if it did make a (negative) difference I say ****
'em, my safety, my family's and friends' is more important than
anyone's five minutes of journey time. I believe most urban limit
proposals involves some distributor roads with higher limits anyway

best wishes
james

Tony Raven wrote:
MJ Ray wrote on 11/06/2007 09:59 +0100:
Were the constraints minimal? I think the original network was built as a
pedestrian network that cyclists could use, not a cycle track network, but
I don't have a copy of the Master Plan to hand right now.

Comparatively yes. They didn't have to fit in between existing
buildings or highways and the planners had a reasonably unconstrained
hand in where they went and how they were designed. That is not true of
the vast majority of facilities that have to fit in around existing
infrastructure.

Maybe comparatively, but the above makes it sound like the area of Milton
Keynes was levelled and rebuilt. That's not generally true. The
infrastructure had to fit in with the existing towns and villages, roads,
historic sites and lots and lots of water courses. Even in the 1960s, the
main roads were drawn in first and almost everything else came after. If
we could draw in cycleways first, I'm sure we could do better quite easily.

I'm not sure what "Sustrans concept" is meant, but Sustrans build both
good and bad.

It the concept that cycles need an alternative network that is not the
roads [...]

Oh, you mean the concept that Sustrans don't publish anywhere and
contradict with their actions that put most of the National Cycle Network
on roads. On other words, a concept that is dead now if it ever existed.

Regards,
--
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op.
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

"David Lloyd" wrote in
. uk:

I'm wondering. Given the comments on urc about the farcilities that
are foisted on us, the jealousy directed at us by motorists because
they believe that they are paying for these farcilities, and the
opinions often voiced that cycle lanes are unmaintained with dangerous
junctions, how do we view cycle lanes as a group? Are we, as cyclists,
in favour of or against cycle lanes as they are today? How should they
be?

David Lloyd

I can only add a few comments to the more wise members of the assembled
multitude -
Make sure that everyone is talking the same language! There are lanes
and lanes : There's shared use pavements - of no use to anyone, except
perhaps the archetypal little old lady going to the shops (and probably
dangerous fore her too); there's lanes painted on the road - as someone
else has said, if the road's wide enough to paint 'em, you probably
don't need 'em (and why do they vanish where you probably need them?);
there's alternative cycle routes (eg reclaimed disused railways) - these
are potentially the only useful example, as long as there's no dog
walkers with stealth leads, mini-motos, or trip wires. I regularly use
Sustrans Route 6 in Leicester, and between Market Harborough &
Northampton, and these are good examples of how these can work really
well.
No, you don't *need* to dress like a spaceman to ride a bike - do your
own risk assessment - what might happen, what is the likelihood of it
happening, what (if anything) can I do to minimise the risk of it
happening, or to redce to impact if it does happen. (from this
calculation I wear a flouro / reflective jacket when wearing a suit to
work, when on my 'weekend' bike I wear gloves and light / bright
coloured jerseys).

"David Lloyd" wrote in message
. uk...
I'm wondering. Given the comments on urc about the farcilities that
are foisted on us, the jealousy directed at us by motorists because
they believe that they are paying for these farcilities, and the
opinions often voiced that cycle lanes are unmaintained with
dangerous junctions, how do we view cycle lanes as a group? Are we,
as cyclists, in favour of or against cycle lanes as they are today?
How should they be?

David Lloyd

"David Lloyd" wrote in message
. uk...
I'm wondering. Given the comments on urc about the farcilities that
are foisted on us, the jealousy directed at us by motorists because
they believe that they are paying for these farcilities, and the
opinions often voiced that cycle lanes are unmaintained with
dangerous junctions, how do we view cycle lanes as a group? Are we,
as cyclists, in favour of or against cycle lanes as they are today?
How should they be?

The question is, what do you mean by "lane". Up until a couple of
years ago, one knew that anyone talking about bike lanes meant a
piece of the roadway striped off with white paint. That no longer
applies. Nowadays people seem to call almost anything a "bike lane".
We don't know what they are talking about, and I don't think they do
either.

This has come about because those who know what they are talking
about have been swamped by those utterly ignorant about cycling, the
only people still interested in facilities

Jeremy Parker