TonyR wrote:Mark1978 wrote:The only time cycling modal share has had any big impact is when there is the infrastructure to support it.
Really?
Cambridge has a higher modal share than anywhere - up at Dutch levels at about 30% - and yet has very little infrastructure.
That's not modal share and Cambridge has quite a lot of infrastructure, although more routes use modal filtering than protected space, but the commuter share has increased to 30% from about 25% since 2001 and during that time, Cambridge has been building more protected space as well as even more modal filtering
London now has very high levels of cycling with very little infrastructure to help - in Hackney its 14% and in Central London now cycling is the dominant commuting mode.
London has 3.9% cycle-commuting; most people living in Hackney ride to or through Camden which does have some infrastructure; Central London numbers aren't published as such but Inner London is, which at 6.5% seems far from "dominant", doesn't it?
... Bristol has spent a lot of money on cycling infrastructure but doesn't make the top list
I think it's fair to say that Bristol hasn't been spending a lot of money for very long, much of what they spent was spent unwisely (converted paths with trees) until very recently, plus there's been quite a history of favouring motor vehicles to overcome (there was a dual carriageway diagonally through a fine Georgian city centre square 1937-2000). At 7.5% then no, it's not in the top few, but if London "has very high levels" with 3.9% then what is that?
Ohhhh you can't write that mix of old falsehoods (MK doesn't have good infrastructure but also doesn't have little cycling) and then link to something that shows Milton Keynes a 2.8% national average level of cycle-commuting (not modal share) and doesn't include East Kilbride!
That is also a bit misleading because as well as poor motor-centric plans, both MK and Stevenage have fast trains and commuter services to London. When you look at maps like
http://datashine.org.uk/#table=QS701EW& ... at=51.8917 you can see that effect all around London, with all the commuting towns being a bit darker than similar-size towns elsewhere in the country. If you look at the Active People Survey instead, which isn't only commuters, then many of those places show much higher levels of regular cycling.
In short, the statistics paint a rather more complex picture and it seems completely wrong to abuse them to suggest "infrastructure is useless".
What would be more interesting would be how people feel about cycling on routes with different measures. I do ride on the carriageway when I must (including when a cycleway is crap for some reason) but I prefer to ride routes with fewer or no motors. Isn't that true of most people, given the choice?
Bottom line: what really would get the masses out on the bikes again? The answer may vary from place to place, but reallocating some road space from carriageway to cycleway seems like a good idea for London.