AA president speaks out in favour of cycling

JQ.

custardy wrote: »

Its those smaller lanes at the side of the road going to waste. does my head in

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20252212

We need judges like that in the UK. :T

Norman_Castle

Johno100 wrote: »

Yep, road space is at premium and we should use it to its capacity.

Bus lanes are created on busy routes to promote bus use. Cyclists use less space than motorists. Both help use the road at capacity. The cyclist would be there regardless of the bus lane.

ozzage

thelawnet wrote: »

The helmet giveaway was criticised as the sort of equivalent of Marlboro sponsoring the lung cancer ward at the hospital. In rather poor taste. Studies show it would be more effective to issue helmets to motorists than to cyclists.

'More' cycle lanes is unfortunately much too vague, on the typical journey you find a cycle lane goes for 500 yards and then there's a parked car in it and you have to pull out into fast moving traffic, or it just disappears under a bus when the road narrows or whatever.

As I understand it proper cycle facilities would cost £billions. The Dutch spend €0.5 billion per year on cycle facilities, the result of which is that cycle usage in the Netherlands is 20 times higher than the UK. We could achieve the same, but it would cost, ooh, I don't know, about what we spend widening the M25 every year, and obviously that would be absurd and unreasonable....

Proper cycle infrastructure is much cheaper than roads and gives a much greater return on investment, according to those countries who actually bother to do it.

Cycle facilities only look expensive when you don't view them as transport infrastructure. How much do we spend on road schemes every year without a peep?

ozzage

Throbbe wrote: »

[declaration of interest - highway designer and cyclist]

Designing for cyclists is actually rather difficult. Car drivers (in theory at least!) have demonstrated a certain level of competence, and you can treat them as a single group (which also includes the designers. Cyclists are more diverse, and what works for an experienced commuter will almost certainly not work for a child (or inexperienced adult). Even for those of us that do cycle, we only readily identify with one type of cyclist.

I can certainly believe that you are a UK transport engineer/designer.

There are no problems with cycle facilities that haven't already been solved elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Netherlands.

The idea that we need different sorts of infrastructure for different cyclists is a fallacy. If the infrastructure is designed correctly, it caters for everybody. No real cycling country has this "dual network" mentality which still pervades here for some reason.

Throbbe

ozzage wrote: »

I can certainly believe that you are a UK transport engineer/designer.

There are no problems with cycle facilities that haven't already been solved elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Netherlands.

The idea that we need different sorts of infrastructure for different cyclists is a fallacy. If the infrastructure is designed correctly, it caters for everybody. No real cycling country has this "dual network" mentality which still pervades here for some reason.

Do you have any supporting information/guidance? It's a genuine question rather than an attempt to start an argument. Every day's a school day.

JQ.

Don't know if it helps with the above discussion, but I certainly found this 6min documentary about why the Netherlands is so Pro-cycling very interesting. I've got to say, it's not what I was expecting :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o