Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

I think most people assume that the cycle lane is underused if they see no bikes on it. The counters I mentioned earlier would put that argument to bed or even something similar to what we have for counting cars with those 2 black cables running across the road.

Fact is nobody has the definitive numbers of how many cyclists use a particular stretch of lane but when no cyclists at all are seen during a rush hour period it certainly suggests underusage

That's interesting, can you confirm what cycle tracks you've seen them on?

Since the 30's, at a time when more people were buying cars, more cars appeared on the road? I'll hold my shock in this time.

Cause to effect is very important here, the traffic was induced by the growing need for people to commute more by car. People didn't wake up one day and suddenly decide they were going to aimlessly drive the new road every morning and afternoon at rush hour.

People see what they want to see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

If any roads are seen as quiet in rush hours, can we take them away for nice plazas and outdoor eating space?

One major improvement here is that there now is an emphasis on networks of cycling infrastructure. It seems pretty clear from research, and from experience in Dublin, that isolated streets don't induce many people to cycle. It's not too hard to see why. Even when these isolated streets didn't feature very poor design, people mostly weren't going to make a journey of half an hour when oniy two minutes of it felt comfortable. And the minority of people who were ok with the other 28 minutes didn't really need the infrastructure in the first place. So the emphasis on networks in Dublin and other urban areas is very welcome.

It is true that some people, though definitely a minority in the general scheme of things, are making very long journeys, and nobody expects them to switch to cycling. But a lot of local journeys in Dublin, as you'd expect by the name, are under 5km. And the majority of commutes in Dublin are under 10km. The fact that relatively few of these journeys until recently were being made by bike (or even walking in the local journeys) has a lot to do with designing streets to keep motorized traffic moving: roundabouts, slip lanes, gyratories, long one-way systems. They're all hostile to healthy travel. So its not really a "choice" in all cases to start driving. You might want to walk 3km to do some local activity, but don't fancy sprinting across a roundabout with small children.

(I'm putting emphasis on Dublin, because I know more about that. And it's also the place with the most cycling.)

Daily Mail? The "hated" there seems indicative.