Signs - Minutes or Mileage

[velocyclist011]

I recently attended a cycle meeting where I brought up the issue of no signage in the local area for cyclists. However a long discussion followed on whether mileage or minutes should be displayed on said signs i.e. 2 miles to town centre or 10 minutes?
Is there any guidance or evidence available that encourages people to take to two wheels based on signage? I am trying to encorage new cyclists to try to explore their local area.

thank you for any help given
A.

[Tacascarow]

I would have thought that time is very dependent on ability?

[Psamathe]

Would you base your times on e.g. 10mph or 15mph ? 'Cos that would be a significant difference for the same journey.

I would say stick to miles. Most people concerned about how long it will take them can do rough maths e.g. 15mph is 4 mins per mile; 12 is 5 mins per mile; 10mph is 6 mins per mile - so 3 miles means somebody does 3*4 or 3*5 or 3*6 in their head which is not really too difficult.

Ian

[foxyrider]

Why not leap into the modern world and use kilometres!

[PH]

Why not both? To the experienced cyclist I'd have thought miles would be far more usefull. To the inexperienced or non cyclist minutes might make them consider it. Some have appeared around Derby, I don't know wheather by design but some are near bus stops. Maybe someone waiting ten min for a bus to drive them ten min into town for £2.10, might be interested to see that it's a 20 min bike ride. When maybe telling them it was 3 miles might not mean much or seem a long way.

[Mark1978]

Has to be miles. 10 minutes is completely meaningless, for me that would be 2.5 miles, for my fitter friend that would be 3.3 miles. Bonkers.

[Bicycler]

Why not leap into the modern world and use kilometres!

Because all the other road signs give distances in miles and many people don't think in Km

[Mick F]

I remember this discussion when I was at primary school!

There was some subject or other - I forget what we were talking about - I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. The teacher was asking about distance (I think) and how far places were, and I remember saying that you could say that somewhere was a day away from somewhere else. I was ridiculed.

I was quoting from the telly and the westerns, and how the cowboys talked about the next town being a day's ride.

[Psamathe]

Makes you appreciate that a "league" is (or rather was) quite a sensible unit of distance.

Ian

[[XAP]Bob]

In Australia they m assure journeys by time, but not on road signs.

Maybe we need distance/ascent?

[Mark1978]

I remember this discussion when I was at primary school!

There was some subject or other - I forget what we were talking about - I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. The teacher was asking about distance (I think) and how far places were, and I remember saying that you could say that somewhere was a day away from somewhere else. I was ridiculed.

I was quoting from the telly and the westerns, and how the cowboys talked about the next town being a day's ride.

Indeed if you go back far enough I would suppose time was used as a measure of covering distance. e.g. Knowing that an army takes two days to march to a particular location is far more useful than knowing how many miles it is.

[Ben@Forest]

Indeed if you go back far enough I would suppose time was used as a measure of covering distance. e.g. Knowing that an army takes two days to march to a particular location is far more useful than knowing how many miles it is.

It also led to some miscalculations, 90 mile beach in NZ was so called because drovers thought they covered ten miles a day herding cattle (or sheep?) and it took nine days. In fact 90 mile beach is 60 miles long.

[mjr]

I recently attended a cycle meeting where I brought up the issue of no signage in the local area for cyclists. However a long discussion followed on whether mileage or minutes should be displayed on said signs i.e. 2 miles to town centre or 10 minutes?

Bristol and CUBA (the surrounding Councils that Used to Be Avon) started using minutes a few years ago but I'm not sure if they still do - http://cycle.st/p32548 makes me wonder if it was ever consistent and there seem to be a lot of signs with no distances at all.

I noticed yesterday that London seems to be using miles consistently again. Norfolk uses miles, including some silly ones like http://cycle.st/p63265

Is there any guidance or evidence available that encourages people to take to two wheels based on signage? I am trying to encorage new cyclists to try to explore their local area.

I'm not sure of formal evidence about two wheels, but there was evidence that signs and maps encourage people to take to two feet which backed the EU "spatial metro" projects in various cities. http://followscience.com/content/521271 ... for-walk21 - which I think is why Norwich's cycle routes and bus routes are colour-coded. Of course buses and cycle routes don't use the same colours for the same places - that would be too easy!

Informally, the places with most cycling seem to have the easiest-to-discover cycle route networks, but I'm not sure which comes first.

[stewartpratt]

When I'm on my own on the road I can average nearly 20mph.
When I'm on a straight gravelled trail I probably average 15mph.
When I'm off-road I probably average a bit over 10mph.
When I'm on a shared path I might average over 10mph if it's quiet or nearer 5mph if it's full of pedestrians.
When I'm riding with my kids we average about 5mph.

Time is useless: I don't know who you're using as the yardstick or how busy the route is assumed to be. Show me distance.

Would you expect to take a chicken pie out of the freezer, read the cooking instructions, and see "Remove packaging and place in oven at 180deg. Go for a 10 mile ride. Presto!"—?

[[XAP]Bob]

Indeed if you go back far enough I would suppose time was used as a measure of covering distance. e.g. Knowing that an army takes two days to march to a particular location is far more useful than knowing how many miles it is.

It also led to some miscalculations, 90 mile beach in NZ was so called because drovers thought they covered ten miles a day herding cattle (or sheep?) and it took nine days. In fact 90 mile beach is 60 miles long.

But 10 days is a far more useful measure - driving on sand is unsurprisingly slower than on land...