Arguments for cycle lanes

Chuchote

Help please. I'm putting together a letter for the residents' association, arguing that we should seek a cycle lane on this quite trafficky street. I'm looking for further arguments, and especially for links to studies and newspaper pieces
My arguments so far are

• Health - lack of fumes
• Good for retail - cyclists stop and buy more regularly than motorists
• Good for cafes - cyclists stop for a cuppa
• Therefore good for community - isolated people get out & meet neighbours
• Good against crime - cyclists are eyes on the street much more than drivers (any links to studies on this would be useful, especially)
• Good for kids - kids cycling to school less in danger of obesity
• Good against pollution - it would halve the pollution in our street
• Good against traffic noise - it would have the noise from traffic
• Good for property prices - loads of British and American studies showing house prices rise where there's a cycle lane
• Good for neighbourliness - when I first moved in, people knew their neighbours on both sides of the road; now they only know the neighbours on the same side, because people no longer cross with all the traffic

Any studies, articles, etc - especially Irish - would be helpful. Anyone know if Daft or MyHome has done a study of the effect of cycleways?
And any points I've missed?

Fian

Most of those points would only really apply if you are seeking to ban vehicular traffic altogether - rather than just add a cycle lane. They are just not persuasive.

If I were you I would adopt the less is more approach and just stick to the most persuasive points. It is unlikely that the residents association will read or absorb anything beyond that. Adding more just dilutes the effectiveness imo.

Imo the persuasive ones are:

• Child safety - buffer between cars and footpath,
• health benefits -children cycling to school
• and property prices, quoting the studies.

magicbastarder

it might be worth mentioning provision of secure parking, if there's any cluster of shops people would be expected to visit. paranoia about bike theft will help keep people off bikes, or prevent them from using them for shopping trips.

josip

Chuchote wrote: »

Help please. I'm putting together a letter for the residents' association, arguing that we should seek a cycle lane on this quite trafficky street. I'm looking for further arguments, and especially for links to studies and newspaper pieces
My arguments so far are

• Health - lack of fumes
• Good for retail - cyclists stop and buy more regularly than motorists
• Good for cafes - cyclists stop for a cuppa
• Therefore good for community - isolated people get out & meet neighbours
• Good against crime - cyclists are eyes on the street much more than drivers (any links to studies on this would be useful, especially)
• Good for kids - kids cycling to school less in danger of obesity
• Good against pollution - it would halve the pollution in our street
• Good against traffic noise - it would have the noise from traffic
• Good for property prices - loads of British and American studies showing house prices rise where there's a cycle lane
• Good for neighbourliness - when I first moved in, people knew their neighbours on both sides of the road; now they only know the neighbours on the same side, because people no longer cross with all the traffic

Any studies, articles, etc - especially Irish - would be helpful. Anyone know if Daft or MyHome has done a study of the effect of cycleways?
And any points I've missed?

Best of luck, but it's a tough task.
Even if you convince the residents association you've then got to convince the council.
Slight OT. I spent a year trying to get DLR CoCo to include our estate in the recent 30km/h initiative because it thought traffic was going too fast close to the green. The council rejected because their traffic survey showed that,

"the median speed in our estate was one of the higher ones surveyed and was too high for a sufficient percentage of drivers to comply with the new limit"

Back on topic.
Will the space for the cycle lane be taken from drivable road space or from parking spaces?
If the latter, it will be very difficult to convince residents to give up parking spaces in favour of cycle lane.

Gerald Fogarty and TCD may be able to help with studies.
http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2016/02/23/26966/

tomasrojo

Might be something in here. I started the thread, but I can't remember everything that's in it.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057481013

Moflojo

Play to your strengths. If it's quite a settled area with young families then focus on the specific benefits to children, such as:
- Children being able to travel to school by bike unaccompanied.
- Cycle lane making street safer; safer environment for kids to play & operate independently.
- Child health & obesity + importance of forming healthy habits (cycling) when young.

If you think many of the residents are also local business owners then put a strong case together on the benefits to those businesses. I think you (chucote) posted this list of studies last week but it'd be worth referencing many of the stats when presenting your case to the residents.

Could you PM me please as I'd be interested in doing something similar in my local area too?

godtabh

Have you read DMURS? Its likely any petition will be assessed based on this.

2RockMountain

josip wrote: »

Slight OT. I spent a year trying to get DLR CoCo to include our estate in the recent 30km/h initiative because it thought traffic was going too fast close to the green. The council rejected because their traffic survey showed that,

"the median speed in our estate was one of the higher ones surveyed and was too high for a sufficient percentage of drivers to comply with the new limit"

Joe Heller would be so proud that Catch-22 is still with us.

godtabh

josip wrote: »

Best of luck, but it's a tough task.
Even if you convince the residents association you've then got to convince the council.
Slight OT. I spent a year trying to get DLR CoCo to include our estate in the recent 30km/h initiative because it thought traffic was going too fast close to the green. The council rejected because their traffic survey showed that,



Back on topic.
Will the space for the cycle lane be taken from drivable road space or from parking spaces?
If the latter, it will be very difficult to convince residents to give up parking spaces in favour of cycle lane.

Gerald Fogarty and TCD may be able to help with studies.
http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2016/02/23/26966/

The median speed is not the correct way of assessing speed. Its assessed based on the 85th percentile. The council are playing you.

Chuchote

josip wrote: »

Best of luck, but it's a tough task.
Even if you convince the residents association you've then got to convince the council.
Slight OT. I spent a year trying to get DLR CoCo to include our estate in the recent 30km/h initiative because it thought traffic was going too fast close to the green. The council rejected because their traffic survey showed that,

Back on topic.
Will the space for the cycle lane be taken from drivable road space or from parking spaces?
If the latter, it will be very difficult to convince residents to give up parking spaces in favour of cycle lane.

Gerald Fogarty and TCD may be able to help with studies.
http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2016/02/23/26966/

I'm hoping to play to greed, based on the studies showing that cycleways raise property prices on the streets where they are and the streets leading to them.

I'm also hoping to play to the fact that this is an area with an elderly population and a new population of parents with young kids, both of which are quite isolated.

Yes, the space would be taken from parking; I'm asking for ticketed parking so that locals would have free parking but park-and-riders could feck off elsewhere.

godtabh wrote: »

Have you read DMURS? Its likely any petition will be assessed based on this.

What is DMURS?

Anyone got a contact email for Gerard Fogarty, by the way? Could you DM me with it?

godtabh

Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets. Freely available online

Chuchote

Deedsie wrote: »

Is there a school or schools nearby? Could it be part of a safe cycle lane to and from school?

Yeah, there are three schools on the road. Here's what I have so far (I have to get this in today):

I'd like to propose that we seek a two-way protected cycleway along the school side of X Road and Yyy Road, and secure bicycle parking on the road.
If we can have a cycleway on the school side, and ticketed car parking on the other side, we'll gain in various ways; we will retain our own free parking, and the road will stop being a park-and-ride dump for people working in town. The cycleway will take up only the space of the cars parked on the school side, and will have many advantages.
A protected two-way cycle path in half of X Road could transform not just the road, but the community. Cycleways have a beneficial effect on roads and communities. Some of the advantages:
◦ Cycleways raise property prices on the road where they are and the roads closest to them
◦ Cyclists see crime as drivers don't, and provide eyes on the street
◦ A cycleway on our road would halve pollution
◦ It would halve traffic noise and vibration, which have become a problem
◦ It would be safe for children - many children could cycle to school safely with their parents and later without, instead of being passive little passengers
◦ It would cut children's obesity levels: one in four Irish kids is now overweight
◦ Parents and children are already cycling to school on the path; this would move them on to a dedicated cycleway
◦ It would increase children's self-reliance - better to cycle yourself than rely on the Mammy all the time and sit in the back of the car munching treats and playing video games
◦ It would reunite the two sides of a road that has become a rat-run - as traffic increased, most people on X Road now number their friends and acquaintances among the neighbours on their own side, whereas it used to be that people knew the people across the road
◦ It would be good for shops: cyclists stop and shop, whereas drivers go to a place where they can park - usually a big supermarket
◦ It would be good for cafes and social life: worldwide statistics show that cafes with cycle parking outside them immediately get a boost in business
◦ This boost to social life would be beneficial to old and isolated people in the community - if there's a thriving cafe, people go and have a coffee and cake and chat to their neighbours
◦ This increase in cafe life and sociability would also be beneficial in terms of community interactivity - if you know your neighbours you can get all kinds of news about how kids are doing in school, any problems that may be coming up, etc, that you won't get with the fleeting visit at the school gates


Some background to cycle lanes (I'm sending this to the main X Road Residents' Association address, and hope it can be circulated, so that people can click on the links):
Cycle lanes boost real estate value - where you build a cycle lane, house prices rise - http://atlanta.curbed.com/2013/8/8/10210634/bike-lanes-property-values-is-there-a-correlation and http://www.icebike.org/property-prices/ (American); http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/living-near-popular-cycling-routes-add-value-home-280901 http://lcc.org.uk/articles/cycle-lanes-and-parking-rival-tube-stations-in-boosting-property-prices (UK)
Facts and figures from the UK on cycle lanes and local value - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/509587/value-of-cycling.pdf
Bike Lanes Mean Business - an analysis of what a cycleway can mean to local businesses https://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Protected_Bike_Lanes_Mean_Business.pdf
Fuel and illness - how diesel fumes are harming our health - http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/down-with-diesel-why-the-fuel-is-in-environmentalists-sights-1.2823984?utm_content=sf-man
Fuel releases pollutants such as HC, CO, NOx, PMs, while WHO says the fumes cause cancer
Diesel contributes significantly to air pollution because it releases unburned hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) or particulate matter (PM), which all contribute to air pollution.
The World Health Organisation has also said diesel exhaust fumes are carcinogenic.
Minister for the Environment Denis Naughten said air pollution in the Republic was costing the State €3,800 per minute in health costs.
More than 14,000 years of life are lost every year in Ireland due to particulates, and while the precise share is hard to define, diesel vehicles are accepted to be the single largest cause. Particulates penetrate sensitive parts of the lungs, causing or worsening respiratory diseases such as asthma, emphysema and bronchitis. Particulates also aggravate heart disease.
Cycle lanes and retail value - http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/03/the-complete-business-case-for-converting-street-parking-into-bike-lanes/387595/
Cycle lanes and impact on neighbourhoods - http://www.pathsforall.org.uk/component/option,com_docman/Itemid,69/gid,244/task,doc_download/
One disadvantage of cycle lanes: they tend to 'gentrify' areas where they are built, and dilute the working-class mix of the area - https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/05/blame-bike-cycling-contribute-city-gentrification

godtabh

Chuchote wrote: »

Yeah, there are three schools on the road. Here's what I have so far (I have to get this in today):

<there is a lot of text there>

What's the width of the road in question? Is it an estate road? (Can you post location?)

Chuchote

godtabh wrote: »

What's the width of the road in question? Is it an estate road? (Can you post location?)

(Links later removed for privacy.)

magicbastarder

people would be far more interested in a reduction in traffic noise than traffic pollution, i suspect.

wally79

From your google maps links I cant see how there would be room

I dont see many house with off street parking so if pay parking came in then you would need marked bays and no more parking on the footpath so you lose a metre at least off the road.

Where would you put the cycle path?

Edit. re read original post. On the school side it might work where the school is but further down the road are you planning to stop people parking outside their house?

Chuchote

wally79 wrote: »

From your google maps links I cant see how there would be room

I dont see many house with off street parking so if pay parking came in then you would need marked bays and no more parking on the footpath so you lose a metre at least off the road.

Where would you put the cycle path?

Edit. re read original post. On the school side it might work where the school is but further down the road are you planning to stop people parking outside their house?

Most of the parking outside houses is by park-and-riders; in fact one neighbour living opposite the school has been stopped getting to work by these several times - they park across her gate. If they were liable to pay, and to clamping if they didn't pay, they'd go elsewhere.

To tell you the truth, I'd be happy with even a single cycle lane (to start with). I'm asking for a tenner while thinking, well, a fiver would be good, €7.50 would be better.

When you say "farther down the road", d'you mean the Rathgar end or the Rialto end? Both are broader than you might imagine - take a look on Satellite View.

godtabh

Chuchote wrote: »

Yeah, there are three schools on the road. Here's what I have so far (I have to get this in today):

<there is a lot of text there>

Based on the location and what you are proposing I dont't think you have a chance of succeeding. If you are serious engage with an engineer to engage with the LA.

Chuchote

godtabh wrote: »

Based on the location and what you are proposing I dont't think you have a chance of succeeding. If you are serious engage with an engineer to engage with the LA.

What's the LA?

And what roads in Dublin would you think would have a chance of succeeding in getting cycle lanes?

godtabh

local authority.

Most roads would be suitable for cycle lanes but they arent always necessary.

In your situation I would think that on road (probably advisory given the parking) cycle lanes on both sides of the road would be more likely to succeed.

Again look at DMURS.

average_runner

Chuchote wrote: »

What's the LA?

And what roads in Dublin would you think would have a chance of succeeding in getting cycle lanes?

To be honest I wouldnt allow my children use a cycle lane on that road.

I would need the cycle to be separate from the road which is not possible here

Chuchote

godtabh wrote: »

In your situation I would think that on road (probably advisory given the parking) cycle lanes on both sides of the road would be more likely to succeed.

Advisory would be useless. The car is lined with parked cars from 7am, as people drive in and leave them all day to go in to work on the bus. So the cycle lanes would simply be painted there and never used, and parents and children would continue to cycle on the paths three times a day - morning, littlies' off-school hour and biggies' off-school hour.

meeeeh

Chuchote wrote: »

◦ It would increase children's self-reliance - better to cycle yourself than rely on the Mammy all the time and sit in the back of the car munching treats and playing video games

◦ This increase in cafe life and sociability would also be beneficial in terms of community interactivity - if you know your neighbours you can get all kinds of news about how kids are doing in school, any problems that may be coming up, etc, that you won't get with the fleeting visit at the

Cut out the sanctimonious crap in the first quoted benefit. Is there any particular reason that you mention word 'parents' most of the the time but when you mention behavior you especially disapprove of you blame it on mammy?

The other highlighted point is a bit airy fary towards the end. Leave the school gossip section out, it doesn't appeal to all. In general your list would benefit from editing. Shorter the points to matter of fact statements without emotionally charged language. Points about kids cycling are also repeating the same stuff, you can lose at least one.

You need shorter matter of fact suggestion, you actually have studies that support your claims but because language is so charged it doesn't come accross as something to be taken seriously.

godtabh

Chuchote wrote: »

Advisory would be useless. The car is lined with parked cars from 7am, as people drive in and leave them all day to go in to work on the bus. So the cycle lanes would simply be painted there and never used, and parents and children would continue to cycle on the paths three times a day - morning, littlies' off-school hour and biggies' off-school hour.

Plenty examples of cycle lanes outside car parking spaces through out the city.

Chuchote

average_runner wrote: »

To be honest I wouldnt allow my children use a cycle lane on that road.

I would need the cycle to be separate from the road which is not possible here

It is possible, but only if people park in their driveways and park-and-ride parking is disallowed.

meeeeh wrote: »

Cut out the sanctimonious crap…

Not worth answering.

godtabh wrote: »

Plenty examples of cycle lanes outside car parking spaces through out the city.

What do you mean by 'outside car parking spaces', please?

wally79

Chuchote wrote: »

It is possible, but only if people park in their driveways and park-and-ride parking is disallowed.

The Google link you put up earlier shows that a lot of houses don't have driveways

Also can't imagine local businesses being too happy if people can't park there at all anymore

Chuchote

wally79 wrote: »

The Google link you put up earlier shows that a lot of houses don't have driveways

Also can't imagine local businesses being too happy if people can't park there at all anymore

As far as I can think, all houses on this road have front gardens or space in front of the house for parking.

A rake of studies have found that cyclists buy more than motorists from local businesses. The main shops on this road are surrounded by a large car park, anyway. The shops other than these are dying because the motorists drive through without stopping.

Removing the Google Maps links from earlier post for privacy now.

magicbastarder

Chuchote wrote: »

Not worth answering.

it may have been strongly phrased, but (s)he was correct. you don't get people to agree with you by criticising them.

cdaly_

Chuchote wrote: »

What do you mean by 'outside car parking spaces', please?

Footpath | Car Parking | buffer zone | cycle lane | Car lane | centre of road

Thus...

josip

cdaly_ wrote: »

Footpath | Car Parking | buffer zone | cycle lane | Car lane | centre of road

Thus...

Do you mean?

Footpath | Cycle Lane | Car | Car Parking | buffer zone | cycle lane | Car lane | centre of road

Chuchote

Ah. No, it's the car parking or the bike lane; there isn't room for both.