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.

Population growth is what is driving the demand you speak of, not simply the availability of a road

I appreciate that you're probably arguing this in good faith, but I'd like to also suggest (in good faith) that you read up on induced demand. This isn't something that people in this thread have come up with. It's a perfectly logical conclusion that, given lots of options, people will choose the one that's most convenient.

If we build lots of road driving capacity and facilitate very dispersed settlement patterns, we will primarily get people using cars. If we build lots of other transport capacity and plan settlements, we will primarily get people using those. We've been doing the former since the 60's, broadly copying the US model. We're now beginning to do the latter, following an asian/european model.

People in the Netherlands love their cars, but very large numbers cycle because the infrastructure is available and convenient. They have population growth there too, but they develop (as a policy) the full cycle network and rail network in parallel with the road network.

TLDR: Population growth alone doesn't inevitably end up with >60% people driving, the infrastructure availability is the root cause. If we make it slightly easier for people to drive then we'll end up with a larger mode share of people driving. It's logical.

You don't need to suspect: that's a fact! It's why turning lanes exist. When you mathematically model it, the knock-on effects of "just one car" can be enormous. There are videos explaining this phenomenon on YouTube. If we can convert a very small amount of people to other transport modes the knock-on impacts are huge.

This extract sort of sums it up:

It is not entirely a trivial discussion. Critics argue from a place of sincerity. The “lose your independence” message will surely aggrieve some unable to drive as a result of disability. On the other hand, one can see how the RSA got to this place.

https://archive.ph/v8uVQ

Honestly still not convinced that just because a road is built that it induces demand. I'd be more inclined to think that most of our roads are built because the demand is already there. I think there's a huge element to cost as well. The build and maintenance costs of a motorway, for example, are far cheaper than that of a railway line which requires ongoing costs related to staff to drive the trains, insurance, etc etc whereas a motorway just needs to get built and maintained for a week or 2 every couple of years. There's also profit to be had from fuel excise, and toll booth (VAT)

Back to cycling… Ideally I think if cycle lanes were built with the people in mind they would get used far more often and not attract much criticism from car drivers, which in my books is a win-win. In my above example of the Shannon Bridge in Limerick they should have built a cycle-only bridge further upstream, which they could then connect to cycling infrastructure in the centre of the city. The current situation on that bridge in my mind is meaningless

There's an interesting concept for the M20 (Limerick-Cork motorway) which will include a greenway between the 2 cities running parallel to the road. While this is good in theory they could probably use a railway line also running parallel but that feeds in to my earlier cost argument

I don't mean to cast aspersions on anyone, and people can believe or not believe in induced demand, but it's a well-established principle in urban design ("the one professional certainty that every thoughtful person seems to acknowledge, yet almost no one is willing to act upon"), and it's easy enough to find more information about it.