[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> You will note that in practice where separate-but-equal (not) facilities
>> do exist, it is inevitably the cyclist that has to give way and take
>> detours when a conflict occurs. That's not going to do much for your
>> high-speed commute!
>
> In the Netherlands, a separate bike path isn't used as an exuse to
> force the cyclist to always give way.
What happens when the main road (with parallel bike path) intersects a
minor side road? That sort of crossing is the main site of danger where
even if priority is theoretically given to the path, cars leaving the
main road will still often cut across without paying attention.
> I wonder why William writes about taking the two long ends of a
> triangle; if my experience in Birmingham is anything to go by, the
> short end is a busy road rather than say a field.
In my experience, the only useful examples of cycling infrastructure are
things like shortcuts through areas closed to motor vehicles, or
contraflows in one-way-systems, which are usually designed on the basis
that a mile detour and a hill are a negligible price to pay for less
complex junctions (on a bicycle, the reverse is obviously true).
In practice, these shortcuts don't always need to be made, merely
tolerated :-) But that depends on the situation on the ground.
> I overtake the vast majority of cyclists when I got to work on my
> bike. The only people overtaking me on a bike do so on racing bikes in
> tight biker's clothing. Maybe they are also in better shape than I am.
You won't go at 30kmh without expending substantial amounts of effort,
whatever the bicycle. That is, it will be an athletic workout, not just
a commute. Of course this brings great health benefits, but still may
not suit everyone. In fact a 35km commute is further than I would be
prepared to cycle on a daily basis, and I'm an evangelist with two
decades of regular cycle commuting under my belt and a sporting background.
>
>> say up to 5 miles, which
>> covers 75% of car trips in the UK
>
> 10 trips of 1 mile may be ten times as many trips as one trip of 100
> miles, but ...
It is also 10 times as many cars in the town centre. Of course the real
distribution of trips is much narrower than that, with a lot of travel
in the 2-10 mile range (where people are not cycling but easily could).
>
>> "I would
>> love to ride a bicycle, if only problem (insert arbitrary reason) was
>> solved" actually mean "I don't want to ride a bicycle and am
>> regurgitating the most socially acceptable/convenient excuse".
>
> There's a big difference between the amount of cycling I do here in
> the Netherlands and what I did in the UK. I bet that a great many more
> Brits would cycle, if they had Dutch cycle infrastructure at their
> disposal.
That's a widely held delusion (IMO), fostered by the politically
acceptable excuse that "I would love to ride a bicycle, if only they
would build more paths". Actually, paths are notably more dangerous and
less convenient, with the exception of occasional short-cuts (better
standards might help, but better standards mean fewer paths, which is
why the standards are so low and rarely even met).
Where cycling is popular, this generally long predates any significant
infrastructure installation - that is, the infrastructure follows the
cycling rather than causing it. Feynmann and cargo cults come to mind here..
Meanwhile, it is considered quite natural and acceptable for moderate
commentators in the mainstream media to write things like
"What’s smug and deserves to be decapitated?"
"A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing
piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists"
and indeed cyclists do face this hazard not infrequently, although of
course the location of choice is separate bicycle paths rather than roads.
While such hate speech (and Parris is hardly a rabid mate-monger of
habit, indeed he left the Tories due to their homophobic tendencies) is
considered normal conversation in polite company, there's a large
constituency who will not consider cycling, and a significant minority
who will consider it acceptable to harass and assault cyclists.
Like I said, the issue is social attitudes, not infrastructure.
James
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