Is it time for radicalism?

[reohn2]

The facility fanatics thread has reached a point where posters are beginning to mention the perceived(if not real) dangers of cycling and the possiblity that potential cyclists are put off by it.
The use of helmets and hi-viz clothing as some kind of solution to that perception is,frankly bonkers as I'm sure most would agree.
These barriers need to be seen for what they are,a pandering to bad driving and victim blaming,and cycling accepted as a normal activity,not just some sport related,sub cultural pastime practiced by ultra fit specimens with Strava accounts chasing times in a fantasy frenzy,or poor people who can't afford a car .
IMHO until that happens cycling in the UK cannot be seen as a more rational,normal and pleasurable means of getting about.
The key to this is curbing motor traffic speed and parking(for all but the infirm)and instilling into the driving populous their responsibility's to other road users and more particularly vulnerable roads,and that the roads aren't theirs but belong to everyone,whether they use them or not and whom they must respect.
The erroneous belief by some road users, that cyclists are a 'problem' who don't pay to use the roads ie;VED,insurance,number plates,and usual tripe,needs to be once and for all overtly dismissed and discredited publicly by the authorities at national and local level,until the message has sunk in to the heads of the more moronic occupants we share these islands with.
And that cycling is a solution to a car centric 'problem',of course this needs some bold politricks and politrickians not noted for their truth,upstanding or realism perhaps the point is somewhat moot,unless they're frightened into doing something positive,their failure of re-election to the gravy train,er sorry house of commons,being their worst fear .Apologies to any good MP's reading.
The reluctance of UK government to accept that we're reaching gridlock and that building more roads isn't the answer to a long standing problem beggers belief IMHO.
Head in the sand attitudes being only overshadowed by the head own rectum approach,to a problem that will only worsen until a completely fresh outlook is taken on transport and is a quality of life issue that needs addressing,soon.
Daily public transport in an overcrowded country is not being met sufficiently unless you're prepared for a high cost personal vehicle or unreliable,jammed-in-like-cattle public transport,that groans under the burden whilst charging exorbitant fees for the privilege.
The bicycle isn't the whole answer,but can part of it,who's spin off of fresh air and exercise leading to better health,something sadly lacking in many peoples lives,imprisoned by a lack of such advantages.
If public transport were attractive enough ie;clean,reliable,convenient and affordable,as roads clear of private vehicles space would then be clear for more cyclists to use the roads and where necessary cyclepaths and streets and pavements not clogged up with unused vehicles of an evening,not to mention the freeing up of city centre car park space wher people could actually live
AFAICS two things stand in the way of this utopia(sic)the motoring ego,and the massaging of it by those making huge profits from it,including the government.
It seems to me that in tailwaggingdogland,anyone wishing to buck the trend of private car use,on poking his/her head above the parapet has to learn to duck with increasing agility and should that agility fail them occasionally,they'll be victim blamed in the classic UK tradition for not having the good sense to be 'normal'.As motoring crime is increasingly looked upon by the powers that be,as an acceptable part of everyday life which is overshadowed by the huge 'benefits'(read profits)made by both government and the motor/petrochemical industries.
Not to mention what we'd do with all the cars should utopia be attained
I don't have any other answers outside of what some would see as radical though to me seem sane,one thing's for sure,life on UK roads for anyone using them is becoming an increasingly stressful,unpleasant,and increasingly unreliable*,daily experience,and unless something fairly radical is done will only worsen

The roads are dangerous.... .... but only when used

* a week last Friday,due to a truck turning over shedding it's load(not an unknown phenomena,as are cars shunting one another causing the same mayhem) on a motorway I was nowhere near,it took me 4+ hours to drive 20miles home which included 1hour to drive the last 2miles.This was slightly uncommon but 2hour delays are a regular occurence for motorway users in the conurbations of this green and pleasant land.

[al_yrpal]

Yes it is, but unfortunately the British public isn't yet ready to support it. Theres a lot more persuading to be done. The good news is that in the last few years many more people are riding bikes for pleasure and some of them will be adding their voices to ours. The way forward is evolution, not revolution, which will only alienate those that have to be persuaded.


Al

[reohn2]

Yes it is, but unfortunately the British public isn't yet ready to support it.

But no one is even attempting to educate them to a disaster unfolding before their eyes.

Theres a lot more persuading to be done. The good news is that in the last few years many more people are riding bikes for pleasure and some of them will be adding their voices to ours. The way forward is evolution, not revolution, which will only alienate those that have to be persuaded.

Al

Only when persuasion has any effect can it be of any use.
It seems we've been trying that particular tactic for more years than I care to remember and it's wet lettuce approach isn't working or if it is,it's having very little effect.
The kind of radicalism I'm meaning isn't revolution of the violent kind,more of a peaceful disruption of the satus quo for the betterment of the whole not just cyclists,though cyclists would benefit as a result.
As it is,no one's gaining as traffic levels and journey times increase on an overloaded road system,whilst at the same time frustration and stress levels rack up,leading increasingly to pretty scary manoeuvres by some.
Along with an almost complete lack of traffic policing,you have a recipe for potential increasing disaster.
Recent history teaches us that building more roads only alleviates the problem for a very short time,which becomes shorter as time goes by as more people use cars as their main mode of transport.
Yet our politrickians(of the five year democratic(sic)cycle)continue with the same stupid,short term thought pattern,which anyone with a grain of sense who takes a small amount of time to think it through can see things can't continue as they are.
We can't even maintain the present road network to a high enough standard as it is,let alone building new ones that we won't be able to maintain in the future!
When do we stop the lunacy,take stock,and think outside the private box on wheels?

In a traffic sense(sense being the operative word),as a nation are simply not getting there and we'll not be getting there even more slowly until we see the folly of the unfettered and universal use of the private motor.

[Tom Richardson]

I think the relevance of this:

as a nation are simply not getting there and we'll not be getting there even more slowly until we see the folly of the unfettered and universal use of the private motor.

depends on your perspective.

Early in this government term David Cameron promised that the primary objective of government policy would be to increase GDP. The unfettered and universal use of the private motor car makes a massive contribution to GDP. It isn't good for human well-being but its very effective economically: purchase of cars, running costs, parking charges, healthcare spinoffs, road repairs and so on all make a big contribution to GDP. Look at the business that a serious road crash generates - tow trucks, car repairs, heath treatments, legal services, insurance claims & etc. And at consumer emporiums like Meadowhall - ok there's train, trams and buses but principally dedicated to getting people to cart consumer goods away by private car. All good for GDP. And then the more that people become tied to car use the more they depend on it. The more that people depend on it the less likely they are to upset the system with radicalism.

There's a common practice in modern politics of stating something regularly so that people eventually start to think they mean it even though they don't. Politicians might say that they support cycling but their actions show otherwise. Ultimately no political party can genuinely support cycling as a common form of transport in place of the private car while they're hung up on gdp.

[sirmy]

The roads are dangerous.... .... but only when used

No, the people using the roads are dangerous, the roads simply lie there and do nothing. How can a stationary, inanimate object be dangerous

[reohn2]

The roads are dangerous.... .... but only when used

No, the people using the roads are dangerous, the roads simply lie there and do nothing. How can a stationary, inanimate object be dangerous

Well,TBH that's what I meant,sorry if I didn't make that clear.

[Tonyf33]

I think the relevance of this:


Early in this government term David Cameron promised that the primary objective of government policy would be to increase GDP. The unfettered and universal use of the private motor car makes a massive contribution to GDP. It isn't good for human well-being but its very effective economically: purchase of cars, running costs, parking charges, healthcare spinoffs, road repairs and so on all make a big contribution to GDP. Look at the business that a serious road crash generates - tow trucks, car repairs, heath treatments, legal services, insurance claims & etc. And at consumer emporiums like Meadowhall - ok there's train, trams and buses but principally dedicated to getting people to cart consumer goods away by private car. All good for GDP. And then the more that people become tied to car use the more they depend on it. The more that people depend on it the less likely they are to upset the system with radicalism.

There's a common practice in modern politics of stating something regularly so that people eventually start to think they mean it even though they don't. Politicians might say that they support cycling but their actions show otherwise. Ultimately no political party can genuinely support cycling as a common form of transport in place of the private car while they're hung up on gdp.

Does it? Yes we manufacture plenty of cars for export in this country, and this industry has increased when european sales have gone down which is a good thing in some respects. But how does actual car use increase GDP, or should that be how can you explain how the country as a whole is subsidising motoring and the massive net negative effect motoring has on the economy overall?

it does need what for some would seem radical changes, for me and plenty of others they are logical changes.

[661-Pete]

I have an observation that some might find interesting.
Earlier this week I was in Holland. No cycling involved. We were being driven by a locally-based colleague, from the airport to our hotel, on the outskirts of Amsterdam. It took about an hour and a half for a journey that ought to have taken twenty minutes. The motorway was totally snarled up, emergency vehicles were squeezing past on the hard shoulder and hurrying on ahead, but we never saw what had happened. Our colleague tried getting off the motorway but it didn't help much.
Another colleague who was planning to drive from Brussels to meet up with us in Amsterdam, gave up on his journey. It seems that a drive normally taking less than two hours, would have taken him more than four. He returned home and came to meet us the following day. It still took him over four hours.
The point. This is the Netherlands: cycling utopia! The place where all the Western world's traffic problems have been solved at a stroke, simply by making the cyclist paramount and giving him/her the best advantage possible!
So does the Dutch solution work? I really didn't want to come home from Holland a cynic, so reassure me someone!
Or was I just there on a 'bad day' when everything went wrong in the traffic network, in Holland and Belgium both of them?
Lots of things could be said. Yes we should have taken the train, and/or the trams. Perhaps we should have hired bicycles (I have to chuckle though, at the thought of putting the suggestion to my colleagues!)
What I'm thinking is, giving cyclists all the space they need, won't solve all the problems.

[horizon]

What I'm thinking is, giving cyclists all the space they need, won't solve all the problems.

It solves the problem of cyclists not having the space they need. It's not meant to solve traffic "problems". In any case there are no "traffic problems" as such, only queuing. In the UK and the Netherlands we use queuing as the method of allocating scarce road space (like bread in the Soviet Union). In Edinburgh it was proposed to change this to charging. The change was roundly rejected by motorists, as it would be in most parts of the UK. If motorists want something for nothing they will have to queue for it. This has got little to do with cycling. Cycle provision as a way of freeing up road space is completely ridiculous - the road space will simply be re-occupied by another car. Although it's debateable whether motorists are careless and arrogant, if they complain about traffic they are undoubtedly stupid. If they vote for a Soviet-style system of distribution they will get Soviet-style queues. Pretty obvious I would have thought.

When anyone tells me that they were caught in a traffic jam, I always ask them why they had so unthoughtfully caused delays to their fellow motorists.

[irc]

In fact per person car use has been declining for several years.

British National Travel Survey (NTS) provides evidence that the number of car/van miles driven per person per year has decreased by about 7% between 1995/97 and 2012.

Between 1995/7 and 2005/7 passenger miles per person on the National Rail network grew by 50%,

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/comm ... ak-car.pdf

Over the last 20yrs UK population has increased by around 5M people so all else being equal adding nearly 10% of users to the existing road network will increase congestion. If there are more road users there should be more roads.

[Elizabethsdad]

Another factor that I perceive is how much bigger cars are these days - even 'small' cars are getting obese such as the new mini. The other day I was behind great big fat car and did a double take when I realised it was a Fiat 500 - used to be one of the smallest cars around. The roads in the main haven't got any wider so there is now much less space leading to a lot more close passes and slower moving traffic because due to people crawling gingerly through gaps only just big enough for their lard-arse mobile.

[ANTONISH]

I have an observation that some might find interesting.
Earlier this week I was in Holland. No cycling involved. We were being driven by a locally-based colleague, from the airport to our hotel, on the outskirts of Amsterdam. It took about an hour and a half for a journey that ought to have taken twenty minutes. The motorway was totally snarled up, emergency vehicles were squeezing past on the hard shoulder and hurrying on ahead, but we never saw what had happened. Our colleague tried getting off the motorway but it didn't help much.
Another colleague who was planning to drive from Brussels to meet up with us in Amsterdam, gave up on his journey. It seems that a drive normally taking less than two hours, would have taken him more than four. He returned home and came to meet us the following day. It still took him over four hours.
The point. This is the Netherlands: cycling utopia! The place where all the Western world's traffic problems have been solved at a stroke, simply by making the cyclist paramount and giving him/her the best advantage possible!
So does the Dutch solution work? I really didn't want to come home from Holland a cynic, so reassure me someone!
Or was I just there on a 'bad day' when everything went wrong in the traffic network, in Holland and Belgium both of them?
Lots of things could be said. Yes we should have taken the train, and/or the trams. Perhaps we should have hired bicycles (I have to chuckle though, at the thought of putting the suggestion to my colleagues!)
What I'm thinking is, giving cyclists all the space they need, won't solve all the problems.

Like Horizon says the Dutch cycling policy isn't intended to deal with motorway congestion.
I'm not surprised that your colleague had difficulty driving from Brussels.
Last month I drove from Calais to Amersfoort and back in a long day. That involved the notorious Antwerp ring road plus the Utrecht ring road. Generally the congestion was horrible.
But the Dutch cycling policy works very well in and around towns - they don't appear to suffer the sorts of town centre congestion that we see here.
Also there are plenty of good cycle paths alongside main roads and their public transport system is well integrated.
Of course if you allow car ownership may of the car owners will choose to drive - but in Holland cycling short distances is common even by car owners and the system is there to enable it. And one of the main arguments for cycling provision in the UK is that it enables short journeys to be made by cycle rather than car. Less pollution etc.

[Tom Richardson]

But how does actual car use increase GDP, or should that be how can you explain how the country as a whole is subsidising motoring and the massive net negative effect motoring has on the economy overall?

GDP is the flipside of consumption and car use adds massively to consumption. It doesn't matter if its consumed inefficiently or paid for by subsidy - its still consumption and adds to GDP. Cycle travel can never compete with car travel for consumption.

[661-Pete]

It solves the problem of cyclists not having the space they need. It's not meant to solve traffic "problems". In any case there are no "traffic problems" as such, only queuing. In the UK and the Netherlands we use queuing as the method of allocating scarce road space (like bread in the Soviet Union). In Edinburgh it was proposed to change this to charging. The change was roundly rejected by motorists, as it would be in most parts of the UK. If motorists want something for nothing they will have to queue for it. This has got little to do with cycling. Cycle provision as a way of freeing up road space is completely ridiculous - the road space will simply be re-occupied by another car. Although it's debateable whether motorists are careless and arrogant, if they complain about traffic they are undoubtedly stupid. If they vote for a Soviet-style system of distribution they will get Soviet-style queues. Pretty obvious I would have thought.

When anyone tells me that they were caught in a traffic jam, I always ask them why they had so unthoughtfully caused delays to their fellow motorists.

Like Horizon says the Dutch cycling policy isn't intended to deal with motorway congestion.
I'm not surprised that your colleague had difficulty driving from Brussels.
Last month I drove from Calais to Amersfoort and back in a long day. That involved the notorious Antwerp ring road plus the Utrecht ring road. Generally the congestion was horrible.
But the Dutch cycling policy works very well in and around towns - they don't appear to suffer the sorts of town centre congestion that we see here.
Also there are plenty of good cycle paths alongside main roads and their public transport system is well integrated.
Of course if you allow car ownership may of the car owners will choose to drive - but in Holland cycling short distances is common even by car owners and the system is there to enable it. And one of the main arguments for cycling provision in the UK is that it enables short journeys to be made by cycle rather than car. Less pollution etc.

Good points, both. Like I said in another thread, I had my mind on other things (being pulled out of semi-retirement to make four overseas site visits in the space of two days isn't my idea of fun!) and I agree my observations were a tad superficial.

What I can offer by way of radicalism - I don't know.

[al_yrpal]

I am still mystified, what is this radicalism? What practical steps IYV should be taken?

Al