Good cycling infrastructure improves cyclist behaviour

Chuchote

From this excellent piece on Copenhagen's approach to cycling infrastructure:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/oct/16/copenhagen-cycling-innovation-lycra-louts-green-wave-bike-bridges?platform=hootsuite

Good design improves the behaviour of cyclists
If you want to see improved behaviour among cyclists, just build best-practice infrastructure for them – separate bikes from pedestrians and cars and give them their own space in the urban landscape. Copenhagen has the world’s best-behaved cyclists: only 7% bend or break a traffic law and only 1% do something like run a red light or ride on the pavement. Good design improves behaviour.

Also linked:

rollingscone

An inconsiderate system favours the rulebreaker

tomasrojo

... and people know when they're being treated with contempt, and in return treat the system with contempt.

Lumen

Correlation or causation?

More standard issue anti-lycra stuff from Colville-Andersen.

Even in the URL...

copenhagen-cycling-innovation-lycra-louts-green-wave-bike-bridges

Chuchote

Lumen wrote: »

Correlation or causation?

More standard issue anti-lycra stuff from Colville-Andersen.

Even in the URL...

copenhagen-cycling-innovation-lycra-louts-green-wave-bike-bridges

Ach, he's a fashionista, hates lycra

smacl

tomasrojo wrote: »

... and people know when they're being treated with contempt, and in return treat the system with contempt.

Much as Colville-Anderson's contempt for leisure cyclists is regularly returned directly to him by those of us that do wear lycra, it being the most functional material for that task. In fact he seems pretty contemptuous of anyone who doesn't agree with him, comparing "self-serving vehicular cyclists to the Flat Earth Society and Pamplonan bull runners: "utterly useless for the rest of society and the Common Good," for standing in the way of getting regular citizens onto bicycles by rejecting bicycle infrastructure" here.

I've no issue with having separated cycling infrastructure, just so long as its use is optional, but I find Colville-Anderson an insufferable self-serving bore. I'd also question whether further investment in further infrastructure is the most cost effective way of getting more people out of cars and onto bikes. Seems like much more could be achieved at a fraction of the cost.

Chuchote

What's a non-vehicular cyclist. I've been waiting to buy my new bike for two… is it three…? years. Could I be doing without one altogether?

tomasrojo

Well, Vehicular Cycling is a school of thought that maintains that cyclists fare best when they're treated as road vehicles. Richard's Bicycle Book and especially John Franklin's Cyclecraft in the UK are full of opinions and advice that reflect the VC school of thought. The coiner of the term was John Forester, and his Effective Cycling book is the key text in the USA, or used to be. Forester is much more "cranky" than John Franklin, and prone to more extreme statements.

There has been a strong anti-VC backlash in the UK and the USA in recent years, with a fairly common opinion being that VC's opposition to separate facilities for cyclists has held cycling back.

Colville Andersen wrote a famous anti-VC post on his Copenhagenize blog some years back. I personally found it rather irritating, in the way I find much of his output rather irritating, while agreeing with him on quite a lot of things.

EDIT: just noticed that famous anti-VC post linked above. Saves me looking for it!

tomasrojo

smacl wrote: »

I've no issue with having separated cycling infrastructure, just so long as its use is optional, but I find Colville-Anderson an insufferable self-serving bore.

From some things he's said, I think MCA favours separated cycling infrastructure being mandatory to use, or at least he regards people who want to maintain the right to use the road as cranks.

He's in his own way as big a crank as John Forester.

tomasrojo

On whether the Dutch methods work, I think this graph finally convinced me.



I posted it here originally.

I actually like cycling in a vehicular fashion and I find Cyclecraft to be an excellent book, but whatever the Dutch did in the 70s, there was a clear improvement in cycling participation (an arrest of the decline and somewhat of a reverse of the decline), and a very clear improvement in the fatality rate per billion km travelled.

NamelessPhil

I think that in Ireland and the UK it makes sense to ride as a vehicular cyclist because there is not enough connected cycle infrastructure to permit protected cycling. If you are trained to ride as a vehicular cyclist you know what to do where the infrastructure fails and how to participate in an acceptable manner on the roads. Vehicular cycling trains you to identify best practice cycling infrastructure and use it as far as practicable.

The biggest issue with protected cycling infrastructure is that is deals with exit and entry points and access in a very unsatisfactory manner.

Carawaystick

Even the Netherlands falls back to Dublin style cycle lanes at times

Chuchote

tomasrojo wrote: »

On whether the Dutch methods work, I think this graph finally convinced me.



I posted it here originally.

I actually like cycling in a vehicular fashion and I find Cyclecraft to be an excellent book, but whatever the Dutch did in the 70s, there was a clear improvement in cycling participation (an arrest of the decline and somewhat of a reverse of the decline), and a very clear improvement in the fatality rate per billion km travelled.

@tomasrojo I can't understand that graph, what does it show and where's it from?

My own opinion, for what it's worth: the private car, with one person sitting there steering tons of metal between other similar vehicles, and using up vast quantities of energy and fossil fuel to do so (between petrol and oil, road building, steel production, car building), is in its last days. It doesn't feel like that to us, because we've grown up with it as the norm, but it is.

smacl

NamelessPhil wrote: »

I think that in Ireland and the UK it makes sense to ride as a vehicular cyclist because there is not enough connected cycle infrastructure to permit protected cycling. If you are trained to ride as a vehicular cyclist you know what to do where the infrastructure fails and how to participate in an acceptable manner on the roads. Vehicular cycling trains you to identify best practice cycling infrastructure and use it as far as practicable.

The biggest issue with protected cycling infrastructure is that is deals with exit and entry points and access in a very unsatisfactory manner.

Where the infrastructure scores for me is in getting my daughter to cycle to school, where her mum isn't happy with her being on the road proper in rush hour. For her trip from Ballyboden to Kilternan she has decent infrastructure for most of the way, which gives her the opportunity to get stronger on the bike. I think vehicular cycling in traffic demands a higher level of road awareness and agility, so the cycle lanes are good for a novice getting up to speed, an occasional cyclist, or those who are simply not comfortable being in traffic.

That said, it is slow way of getting about with many more stops for pedestrian lights, slowing for dog walkers etc... who stray into the cycle lane etc.. I find the 10k with my daughter on cycle lanes takes exactly twice as long as by myself on the road. I think Colville-Anderson's model for functional cycling breaks down in lower population density cities with large sprawling suburbs, as journeys are longer and sacrificing speed for perceived safety makes longer commutes less practical. For urban areas in Ireland the average journey length is 10k and takes 23mins (source) which is comparable to what you'd achieve as a vehicular cyclist.

Chuchote

smacl wrote: »

Where the infrastructure scores for me is in getting my daughter to cycle to school, where her mum isn't happy with her being on the road proper in rush hour.

Exactly why I'm pushing for cycle lanes to all schools, which would revolutionise Irish child health, not to mention self-reliance.

Even if they're slower, what the hell - a quiet and safe cycle along looking around at what's going on is nice!

tomasrojo

Chuchote wrote: »

@tomasrojo I can't understand that graph, what does it show and where's it from?

It's from this paper:
http://www.sustainability.org.il/_/rsrc/1254491076253/home/bike-news/lessons-Holland-Denmark-Germany
It's based on data from the Ministry of Transport in the Netherlands.

Essentially, there are two trends.

1) A steep decline in the number of kilometres covered by bike per inhabitant of the Netherlands until the mid-70s, when the numbers stabilise, and then recover somewhat.

This, or some variant of it, is usually what people show when they want to say segregated infrastructure gets you mass cycling. It doesn't quite show that, because what it shows is Dutch policy (which wasn't restricted to building segregated infrastructure) stopping a mass-cycling society becoming a low-cycling society, rather than turning a low-cycling society into a mass-cycling society. But it's a clear achievement; just not quite what people often claim.

2) A steep rise in the number of cyclists killed per billion km travelled by bike, which is completely turned around, starting in the mid-70s.

It's the second trend that most impressed me. Whatever they did, they got the fatality rate down, while increasing the numbers of cyclist, and also largely preserving independent travel among the very young and very old.

That's my take on it anyway.

tomasrojo

smacl wrote: »

I think Colville-Anderson's model for functional cycling breaks down in lower population density cities with large sprawling suburbs, as journeys are longer and sacrificing speed for perceived safety makes longer commutes less practical. For urban areas in Ireland the average journey length is 10k and takes 23mins (source) which is comparable to what you'd achieve as a vehicular cyclist.

I have often wondered whether there is a level of cycling participation at which Ireland's traffic "model" (if that isn't too dignified a term) become dysfunctional (seriously dysfunctional, I mean). Take a case such as when there is an unending stream of cyclists passing on the left cars waiting to turn left. There are quite a few junctions where motorists wait for a gap in the stream of cyclists, but if there are hardly any gaps, you could end up with tailbacks. At this point, you think, ok, we'll add traffic lights at that junction for cyclists. Continue along these lines, and you start getting a more Dutch/Danish looking roadscape anyway.

We're not near that level anyway. I'm just projecting. Put it the other way around: what would Utrecht be like if they converted all the infrastructure to normal traffic lanes and make all the traffic share? I'm not sure, but it's entirely possible it just wouldn't work all that well with those numbers of cyclists (even assuming the numbers stayed the same). I'm not taking safety either; just general traffic flow.

Chuchote

Completely agree with tomasrojo there. The main reason (some) drivers are getting so snarly is that there are suddenly way more cyclists. We're coming to the point where separated infrastructure would be rewarding all round on main roads and rat runs.

Lumen

Chuchote wrote: »

The main reason (some) drivers are getting so snarly is that there are suddenly way more cyclists

Whatever the reason, the cagers are revolting. Check out the comments on here...

https://lovindublin.com/pics/this-picture-perfectly-illustrates-the-problem-with-cycling-in-dublin?fb

tomasrojo

I'm too afraid.

Lumen

Chuchote wrote: »

We're coming to the point where separated infrastructure would be rewarding all round on main roads and rat runs.

That's probably how the Nazis justified the Jewish Ghettos. #godwin

Chips Lovell

tomasrojo wrote: »

Take a case such as when there is an unending stream of cyclists passing on the left cars waiting to turn left. There are quite a few junctions where motorists wait for a gap in the stream of cyclists, but if there are hardly any gaps, you could end up with tailbacks.

The issue here is often caused by painting cycle lanes on the inside of left turning lanes. If local authorities really must put cycle lanes on these junctions, they should have them divide out into the outside lane for cyclists to proceeding straight on. You may get less cyclists blindly following the cycle lane into the wrong lane.

Chuchote

Lumen wrote: »

That's probably how the Nazis justified the Jewish Ghettos. #godwin

But there's a difference between forcing people into a cyclist ghetto and offering good separated cycleways which cyclists can use at will, as the Dutch do.

tomasrojo

Oh yeah, it's a rubbish design. My tiny mind can't think of a better example right now though!

Chuchote

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

The issue here is often caused by painting cycle lanes on the inside of left turning lanes. If local authorities really must put cycle lanes on these junctions, they should have them divide out into the outside lane for cyclists to proceeding straight on. You may get less cyclists blindly following the cycle lane into the wrong lane.

This is the way at Christchurch coming from Patrick Street/New Street, though really it also needs the same kind of cycle lane crossing over to the right for the many cyclists who need to turn right into Lord Edward Street. At the moment, most cyclists go straight ahead then squiggle into place with the crossing traffic coming from Thomas Street.

As for ghettoes:

smacl

tomasrojo wrote: »

I'm just projecting. Put it the other way around: what would Utrecht be like if they converted all the infrastructure to normal traffic lanes and make all the traffic share? I'm not sure, but it's entirely possible it just wouldn't work all that well with those numbers of cyclists (even assuming the numbers stayed the same). I'm not taking safety either; just general traffic flow.

I think this is where taking the situation in one country and trying to replicate it in another can come unstuck. For example, the Netherlands has the 30th highest population density on the planet with 413 people per KM^2 where we rank 143 with just 65 people per KM^2. Assuming broadly similar infrastructure costs per KM travelled, at a population level, infrastructure in Ireland costs 6.35 time more per person than in the Netherlands, so what is economically feasible and the right solution for them may be neither for us.

You also have terrible traffic congestion in the Netherlands, far worse than Ireland, so investment in alternate modes of transport is politically popular. Been a few years now, but last time in the Netherlands I spent a serious amount of time on the motorway between Utrecht and Breda.

I think a solution to increase the share cycling has as a mode of transport in this country demands a bit more imagination than just pointing to another place where it works better and trying to cut & paste what they've done. Very many other variables need to be considered.

Lumen

Chuchote wrote: »

But there's a difference between forcing people into a cyclist ghetto and offering good separated cycleways which cyclists can use at will, as the Dutch do.

I don't want good quality segregated infrastructure. It will put me at a serious disadvantage as I'll then be required to use it, and my 90 minute commute will take even longer because I'll be held up by people pottering along on dutch bikes.

Even now a principal complaint of motorists is that we don't use the cycle facilities provided, and they have the support of the idiot civil servants and politicians trying to re-impose mandatory use.

Screw the non-cyclists using lack of facilities as an excuse for the fact that they don't cycle. It's bull****.

FWIW I would probably be in favour of high quality segregated infrastructure for children as long as it's illegal for adults to use.

the.red.baron

Chuchote wrote: »

Exactly why I'm pushing for cycle lanes to all schools, which would revolutionise Irish child health, not to mention self-reliance.

Even if they're slower, what the hell - a quiet and safe cycle along looking around at what's going on is nice!

Is this cycle lanes to all schools just from your gaff or from mine also?

Chuchote

smacl wrote: »

the Netherlands has the 30th highest population density on the planet with 413 people per KM^2 where we rank 143 with just 65 people per KM^2.

If we leave out Leitrim, etc and just look at Dublin density, how does it compare?

the.red.baron wrote: »

Is this cycle lanes to all schools just from your gaff or from mine also?

A mile to every school, main road.

tomasrojo

smacl wrote: »

I think this is where taking the situation in one country and trying to replicate it in another can come unstuck. For example, the Netherlands has the 30th highest population density on the planet with 413 people per KM^2 where we rank 143 with just 65 people per KM^2. Assuming broadly similar infrastructure costs per KM travelled, at a population level, infrastructure in Ireland costs 6.35 time more per person than in the Netherlands, so what is economically feasible and the right solution for them may be neither for us.

That's true, but Dublin's population density from the centre out to the inner suburbs is rather like a Dutch city. irishcycle.com did a post on it a while back. Cork and Galway could probably benefit.

I guess I'm not saying that Ireland necessarily has to copy and paste what the Netherlands does or did in the past, but I have to say that, based on that graph, they really did a great job of turning around a deteriorating situation. Unless I've missed something.

smacl

tomasrojo wrote: »

Oh yeah, it's a rubbish design. My tiny mind can't think of a better example right now though!

Basically it is a matter of space. To have enough space for a cycle lane at a junction with two lanes you need a cycle lane beside each car lane, as can be seen here;



The worst thing you can do is draw in cycle lanes where there simply isn't space for them. They shouldn't be anywhere near junctions where the lanes split if they can't be accommodated, as this leaves the cyclist in the wrong lane if they go all the way to the junction, or encourages late lane changing if they simply disappear near the junction.