by Kevin Hague
This week London City launched the first of many bicycle superhighways. They are bold (blue), wide (1.5 metres), efficient thoroughfares for cyclists heading into London from all corners of the city. The City is spending £111 million per year on the scheme to foster a more liveable, low carbon city.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Health & Wellbeing | THE ISSUES by Kevin Hague on Thu, July 22nd, 2010
Tags: cycle super highway, Kevin Hague, London
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Brilliant! When my nephew was living there for about three years, he cycled every day to work – safely and quickly.
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The BBC clip but a more integrated idea seems to be the Bicycle Boulevards being developed as a transport strategy by Portland in Oregon amongst others. (worth googling), samples: Bouvelard gallery
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Cycling culture is alive and well in Europa….just no so big ‘ere
Is is the driving or the drivers?
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mm – poor roads – might have to call up the Sapient!
Does the drivers x the driving = the driven?
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I like the idea of the coloured lanes that clearly define the cycleways. If we combine these cycle lanes with Denmarks pro-cycling initiatives we would be onto a winner:
http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/
I liked JH’s idea of importing second hand bicycles from Japan, like we do cars, and then create a readily accessable inner city cycle fleet it would be great. If we had bicycles avaiable at car parks just outside city centres we could reinvent the park and ride concept. So many possibilities…..
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It may help that London is flat..
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OliverI-Bikes have gears and can negotiate hills, too. In my younger years I cycled the length of the European Alps and cycled over passes higher than 2500 metres. A few city hills shouldn’t discourage the average person.
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And there are electric bikes that assist on hills.
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“I liked JH’s idea of importing second hand bicycles from Japan, like we do cars”
Do the Japanese throw away bikes now? When I was in Tokyo some years back there were hundreds of bikes, but they all seemed to be nice old ones with baskets for tootling from home to the railway station.
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“In my younger years I cycled the length of the European Alps and cycled over passes higher than 2500 metres”
Thighs like the pistons on the Pacific Princess, that sprout!
http://www.fanclubcruises.com/WFMA2002PacificPrincess.jpg
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Sam- this is the link found by Jh:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/104748957/USED_JAPAN_BICYCLES_USED_JAPANESE_BICYCLES.html
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With today’s 24- and 27-speed bikes you don’t need big muscles, just a bit of stamina; and thanks to our risk-averse nanny-state a polystyrene hat as well.
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I happen to know Robert Guyton had some epic journeys on an antique single speed bike.
Here is a link to the ultimate, versatile bike:
http://www.bikefriday.com/
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Sorry gsv_nfa but helmets save lives.
Speaking from personal experience, everybody wear your helmets
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A few drawbacks with Londons cycleways –
1/ cycling in London, breathing in all those fumes when you are puffing, is worse than chain smoking (cycling is supposed to be healthy)
2/ still dangerous. Where possible cycle lanes need to be completely removed from traffic lanes (helps with first issue as well and would get more people on bikes.
3/ you’re going to get rained on every other day.
Overall though, a great thing for London.
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I did a bit of riding in London in 2003, when I was in Britain to do an extended bike tour. Congestion charging for motor vehicles in the central city had recently taken hold, and I found it pretty well-ordered and pleasant riding, compared with, say, Auckland or Wellington.
And while we are continually trying to make things better for cycling with safer routes and traffic conditions, improved air quality etc, even now the health benefits of regular cycling greatly outweigh the risks. Can’t do anything about the rain, but I live on the West Coast, and can say with some certainty that it’s only water, and we don’t dissolve – harden up!
The NZ Cycle Network is a Green Party policy of course, and we have a focus on getting it properly linked into urban areas. The evidence from the UK is of massive economic gains from urban cycle paths (benefit: cost ratios of up to 40:1) and it’s great to see even more gains being realised. Worth identifying which mayoral candidates in NZ’s upcoming local body elections are cyclists, perhaps!
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Kevin,
The point with the rain is twofold. Most people in London work in business clothes, so rain means they really need to be able to have changing facilities – and ideally a small wardrobe – at work. The alternative is a crumpled up suit and shirt in a backpack.
Otherwiae they have to conduct their meetings looking like drowned rats.
Secondly, it’s bloody freezing. I spent four years riding a bike (with a motor) around London streets for a job. Even with full leathers and a wet weather suit (not the sort of thing you’d wear on a bicycle) wet winter days were spent in a semi-hypothermic state.
As for the air polution. Normal soap wouldn’t remove grime from fumes from my face at the end iof the day – it took industrial anti-bacterial soap to scrub out the grime.
I won’t go into what came out of my lungs when I coughed, but someone on a bicycle is going to be breathing at rates of up to ten times more air than normal breathing.
However…it is still a very good idea. If it can actually be separated from the roadway, at least for large parts , then that greatly improves safety from both the accident and air quality point of view.
It’s also been shown that a lot more people are prepared to use cycles if the cycleway is physically separated from vehicular traffic.
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Thanks Photonz. When were your four years? I’m interested to know how things have changed over time. I do know what you mean about the weather. of course a lot more people will find cycling (and walking) viable in nicer weather, but wet or cold weather is not an insurmountable obstacle. Ideally I like to live 10-15km from my commuting destination, so that I get a decent ride in each day (hard with this job!), and while I know it’s important to plan for people to be able to ride with their working clothes on, my preference has always been to ride in bike clothes and shower and change at work (great to see that more shower/change facilities are part of the London plan). I’m a big fan of the ‘Sealskinz’ waterproof gloves and (especially) socks. A light rain jacket is good for showers, but if it’s heavier than that, then a better focus is at-work clothes-drying as well.
Agree with your point about bike lanes. Denmark does it well.
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Kevin – I lived in London in the late 80s, early 90s, however I was back again a couple of months ago.
I was amazed at how little had changed it was. Some observations of what I saw and from talking to people –
- Congestion charge. According to taxi drivers, it made quite a difference to begin with, but traffic is back up to similar levels now.
From my point of view, traffic looked like it was perhaps a little lighter than in the 90s. Motorbike use for delivery has dropped significantly.
I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to align congestion charging in big cities with vehicle economy. i.e. small cars cheap, electric cars and motorbikes free, large cars and trucks expensive etc..
Cycle lanes. There are quite a few more cycle lanes in some areas, often separated by a small island, and probably quite a bit more cycle use overall than there used to be.
No cycle helmets – insane in London. Perhaps even more dangerous now that the traffic is actually moving slightly faster.
There used to be all sort of nicnames for cyclists in London, usually based around what was likely to happen to them.
Motorbikes were dangerous enough, but riding in London on a cycle with bad brakes, poor turning, no ability to accelerate out of danger, little grip from skinny tires, no boots, no leathers, no decent gloves, and a helmet that is little more than a polystyrene cap – is outright scary.
I don’t know if accident rates have gone up or down, but in my day I passed messed up cyclists on a weekly basis.
I beleive the currently there is about one cyclist death a week in London (judging by a stat that around one cyclist a month dies in London in accidents with heavy vehicles, which accounts for 22% of all London cyclist deaths).
I think everything possible needs to be done to physically separate cycles form other traffic.
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Admittedly I don’t cycle as much as I used to, but coldness would be the last reason for that (I live in Christchurch). Part of the reason you get cold on a motorbike is that you’re not really generating any heat, whereas the opposite is true on a push bike. I will admit that rain (or the threat of) is definitely offputting though, because of visibility problems rather than getting wet. I agree that cycling is still going to suffer from the stigma of being less safe (feeling) than driving, so yes, the only thing that will help that is cyclists being more separated from cars with some sort of gate thingee. Sadly not all that realistic for roads in NZ.
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One thing I like about cycling is that strangers talk to you (eg in the rain) “great day for it”!
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It is great to hear of others who feel they need different bikes for different purposes, I have 4 and it is barely enough. Being able to say “we are a four car family” appears to indicate status for many, it would be a real sign that biking has made it when being a four bike family has the same recognition.
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I have my best road bike and a mountain bike in Wellington, and my best mountain bike and an old road bike on the Coast, where I also have a cyclocross bike and my commuter/touring bike. We also have a tandem at my dad’s place in Hamilton – that one is for sale after we used it for just a couple of rides and learned, without any doubt whatsoever, that tandem riding was not for us! Sadly they are all under-used at the moment, as the opportunities to get out for a ride are few and far between, and my Wellington flat is just 2 minutes walk from my office. What’s your cargo bike jh? I have looked very admiringly at the Surly one, but haven’t yet done the trick of convincing myself that I need it.
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Kevin I am sure you will be rapt with the news of the West Coast cycleway getting the go ahead, I think it is the best news for a long time.
I think I will have to get a bike when it is built, could be a great adventure with the kids.
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Yes. Of course the national cycle network project is a joint project of National and the Greens, and I have been working hard to get it implemented in as positive a way as possible (which means as close as possible to our original policy!) My input is more into policy and overall framework, rather than evaluating individual applications and prioritising them, so I can honestly say that I didn’t inappropriately use my position to advance my own local hobbyhorses.
That said though, I chaired the West Coastal Pathway for its first few years, and played a significant role in getting the project rolling so, yes, absolutely rapt to see it funded. From the word go we promoted the idea of this track as something that would be used by tourists, but also as something that would be used by locals for riding to work or school, and just for recreation. From my place I can either ride into Greymouth by heading out to Marsden and then in through Boddytown (don’t laugh at our placenames you non-coasters!) or else take SH6, which is unpleasant and unsafe in places. There are massive gains in getting all of these riders off this road and onto the new route (which will be way more pleasant, and hopefully lead to opening the town up to the seafront and wharf area). When Ian and I were bike touring in Britain we really had our eyes opened to just how much these bike tracks are used. On even quite short bike paths there were literally hundreds, if not thousands, of users (of every age, type and ability) that we would meet coming the other way. It was photos of the British cycle network that we used to start getting Greymouth people excited about the West Coastal Pathway.
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Great idea and way to go. I use to do 50-70 km a day on my bike across my home town. I’d do 100 or more if I had better roads. Good bike roads system also makes it easier for new people to start commuting on a bicycle.
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