London’s new Dutch-style east-west route

bluefinch

rower63 wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

... junctions become very complicated if you have two way cycle lanes on one side of a one way street that goes into a two way street. In those situations I tend to just use the road.

A few years ago I spent hours pulling up all the studies and reports I could find, comparing data from cycle-lane-infrastructure vs without. I was gobsmacked to find that the majority of the studies of those I found unequivocally concluded that cyclists have been more likely to die in a cycle-infrastructure environment than otherwise. At some stage separated networks must necessarily intersect, and at those intersections there's confusion and is where most of the bad stuff happens: one moment you're fully segregated and protected tooling along without a care in the world, next you suddenly have to switch back on again to interpret a complex junction. Looking at the graphic here, it's not difficult to envisage :shock:

It would be really helpful if you could remember any of the studies you pulled up and how they analysed their data. Did they look at deaths in total, or per hundred thousand of population, or per million km cycled? Did they group those killed with those seriously injured, and how did they define seriously injured (in the UK I believe it's two nights in hospital)? Did they distinguish between people killed in traffic accidents while cycling, and people who died while cycling? There is no doubt that the Netherlands, a much smaller country with a much smaller population, usually sees between one and a half and two times as many cyclists dying every year as the UK does, and has a higher rate of injury per hundred thousand of population. I've seen it argued that lots of people die while cycling in the Netherlands for the same reason that lots of people die playing golf here - not because golf is a dangerous game, but because people are still doing it when they are at death's door (12% of cycling kms in the Netherlands are covered by pensioners).

This is my source for that - from the viewpoint of a very committed campaigner, so highly biased of course:

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2012/04/challenges-to-growth-in-cycling-in.html

This is a literature review of twenty three papers on the subject which draws the opposite conclusion from what you found in your study - the authors concluded that the evidence to date suggests that purpose-built bicycle-only facilities (e.g. bike routes, bike lanes, bike paths, cycle tracks at roundabouts) reduce the risk of crashes and injuries compared to cycling on-road with traffic or off-road with pedestrians:

http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/47

rick_chasey

The inevitable vehicular cyclist vs segregation argument.

I'm of the segregation persuasion principally because I think it gets non-cyclists using bikes to get places. I think road sharing like it is most of the time in the UK puts a lot if people off cycling so they end up using cars for perfectly cyclable errands and trips. More congestion, more pollution, less exercise.

meanredspider

Rick Chasey wrote:

The inevitable vehicular cyclist vs segregation argument.

I'm of the segregation persuasion principally because I think it gets non-cyclists using bikes to get places. I think road sharing like it is most of the time in the UK puts a lot if people off cycling so they end up using cars for perfectly cyclable errands and trips. More congestion, more pollution, less exercise.

Yup - it works brilliantly in NL and DK in a way that's hard to argue with

iPete

It comes down to perception and getting people on bikes, can't argue with that being a bad thing. I got a bus the other day, I really couldn't understand why people do that!! An hour to go 3 miles, FFS.

BUT as also pointed out the average bike commute is probably significantly longer than the NL (anyone got some stats on that?) and fast is better.

meanredspider

iPete wrote:

BUT as also pointed out the average bike commute is probably significantly longer than the NL (anyone got some stats on that?) and fast is better.

I'm not sure you're comparing apples with apples. A bit like in Cambridge, because so many people are comfortable on a bike, they use them for long and short commutes and shorter commutes become more common. But you can ride long distances on bike-segregated routes. I could ride to Utrecht on such routes from Amsterdam. On other routes, I could do 50-60 miles without needing to stray onto a bike lane painted on a road. And there's hardly a road which doesn't have a bike lane painted on it if there's no dedicated bike path. In some ways, I wish I'd lived further from work to take advantage of these routes (except I wanted to live in Amsterdam)

rick_chasey

iPete wrote:

BUT as also pointed out the average bike commute is probably significantly longer than the NL (anyone got some stats on that?) and fast is better.

Cause or effect?

The whole point about segregation is to get people to do those short trips by bike.

Unfortunately - as the scr thread will testify to - most people on here like bikes enough they will do it whatever and ride fast enough that segregation would be a nuisance for their scr needs.

I'd rather try and get more people using bikes, however slowly, to go places than keep Lycra racers happy!

meanredspider

Well, I enjoy chasing (and occasionally passing) mopeds on the cycle paths in Amsterdam. If segregated paths can deal with mopeds (theoretically limited to 25kmh but mostly doing nearer 40kmh), I'm sure they can deal with most cyclists. In fact, one of the spin-off benefits, I believe, of the mopeds is that encourage good "lane" discipline. People move over. When I'm back, maybe I'll strap my GoPro to the bike and video my commute. I think, on the occasions that I've measured it on my Garmin, my average speed is about 18mph (30-ish kmh)

notsoblue

Not "Dutch style" (whatever that appears to mean to Londoners) but still interesting.
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121129/bik ... c-new-york

It looks like in some cases, removing multiple lanes, and putting in a proper bike lane increased traffic speed.

iPete

Interesting will need to read in full later.

Now that the schools are back, West>East Embankment is gridlock, may as well be on a slow but steady segregated cycle lane.

Rick Chasey wrote:

iPete wrote:

BUT as also pointed out the average bike commute is probably significantly longer than the NL (anyone got some stats on that?) and fast is better.

I'd rather try and get more people using bikes, however slowly, to go places than keep Lycra racers happy!

You are right but I have inner turmoil in dealing with this

That aside, I still feel that some of the proposed designs can make better use of the space that would accommodate a wider range of cycling abilities.