Potholes? Nuffink to do with the council, mate

Mr Prior hit the pothole on Lockwood Road in March. His fall left him with a cracked rib and black bruises on his back. He was also in pain for a couple of months.

But, after making a complaint to Kirklees Council six months ago, he’s just been told they’re not liable.

More global warming greenwash

In her first speech on climate change since taking office Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, will speak about the need for Britain to adapt to rising temperatures.

“It is vital that we carry on working to drastically cut our greenhouse gas emissions to stop the problem getting any worse,” she will say.

One simple way of cutting emissions would be a national 50 mph speed limit, rigorously enforced, with massive penalties for ignoring it. It would also see a significant reduction in road crash fatalities. Naturally the ConDem petrolhead government has absolutely no intention of doing any such thing, even though lowering the speed limit to 50 mph would cut transportation-related CO2 emissions by 30 percent.

why ‘The Campaign for Better Transport’ is no friend of cycling

Cycling in Nottingham

Nottingham has been named as England's least car-dependent city in a survey that exposes inconsistent planning across the country with one of the nation's newest conurbations, Milton Keynes, labelled the worst for cyclists and bus users.

Award-winning bus services, a European-style embrace of the tram and a bias against out-of-town shopping centres were cited as powerful incentives for residents of Nottingham to leave their cars at home, according to a report by the Campaign for Better Transport.

Nottingham's investment in 30 miles of cycle tracks, a nine-mile tram network and 230,000 miles of bus journeys per week made it the top ranking city overall. "It ranked highly for factors such as bus patronage, satisfaction with bus services and low car use for the school run. As well as having an efficient bus service, the new expanding tram system is now used by 10 million passengers a year," said CBT.

The green lobbying group judged 19 English cities by three criteria: accessibility and planning; quality and uptake of public transport; walking and cycling.

Dan Milmo, the author of this uncritically regurgitated press release, really ought to read his colleague Nick Davies’s book criticising journalists for failing to tell the truth by simply lapping up PR pap fed to them by vested interests.

In the first place The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT - formerly known as Transport 2000) is not a ‘green’ lobbying group. It exists to promote buses, trains and trams (and there is nothing remotely ‘green’ about buses). It has strong links both to businesses (Eurostar, Stagecoach and Arriva among others) and to trade unions (including ASLEF, the RMT, Unison and Unite-Amicus) and receives funding from them.

There is nothing particularly unusual or wrong about this, of course – the CBT is simply a lobbying group which reflects large and powerful vested interests. These businesses want government to subsidise them and protect them from competitors, and the unions want to look after the interests of the people who work in these industries. The CBT’s hostility to road haulage and car dependency is not rooted in environmentalism but in promoting public transport. And no genuine green organisation would have jet-setter Michael Palin as its figurehead:

A foreword by Palin for its annual report was edited to remove a reference to the individual’s “right to fly”.

The reason why the CBT is no friend of cycling is that cycling is a much better way of getting around cities than buses, trams or trains. But the CBT is not remotely interested in seeing Britain’s towns and cities restructured for cycling. It has no interest in campaigning for the only proven way of bringing about mass cycling.

Complete segregation of cyclists from motorists is what is actually required to make the masses feel that cycling is safe. It's also required to make cycling efficient and safe.

The CBT doesn’t have a clue about cycling, as its utterly ludicrous claims about Nottingham reveal. Nottingham is a car-sodden cycling-hostile city and cycling has been stagnating there for many years (ably assisted by the local collaborationist vehicular cycling sect, offering yet more proof for the simple thesis that among the biggest obstacles to mass cycling in Britain are self-appointed ‘cycling campaigners’). You only have to look at the photograph above to understand both the scope for the re-allocation of road space for safe segregated cycling and the existing conditions which are of the kind which will only ever attract a small minority of hardcore cyclists.

Cycling’s modal share in Nottingham in 1995 was 3.2% (according to this). In fact that figure is misleading as it almost certainly refers to commuter cycling’s modal share, which is invariably higher than modal share per se. If you want to exaggerate the amount of cycling people do, just cherry pick the figure for biking to work. Ironically, over the past fifteen years in the cycling paradise that is Nottingham, the modal share figure for commuter cycling has not increased but has actually dipped slightly:

Nottingham has a population of 274,000 with 45% of this population without access to a car. 23% of the population owns a bike however only 3.1% of these people use their bike to cycle to work.

In reality the overall situation in Nottingham is much, much worse

Basel and Nottingham: compared. Basel has 21% mode share, Nottingham has 1.6%. What is the problem? Nottingham is dominated by a car ideology.

Not such a paradise for cyclists, then, and not a place where car dependency is low, contrary to the fantasies of the CBT.

I sought advice for a randomly chosen cycling journey of 2½ miles in Nottingham. It turned out to involve roads with motor traffic and ‘shared’ use with pedestrians. I was cautioned:

There are some very busy sections on this route.

You are required to dismount and walk on some sections, (for 2% of the distance, 6% of the time).

For full details take a look here.

In Nottingham, the usual atrocious conditions for vehicular cycling are matched by joke infrastructure when it comes to such matters as cycle parking.

NEW bike parking bays at Nottingham railway station will make it more accessible to train users, it is claimed.

The Cycle Hub will provide 92 spaces for bikes – 38 more than previously catered for at the station.

Crikey, 92 places for the main station in a city with a population of 292,400. That’s awesome, is it not? Whereas

in the Netherlands a small city with just 65,000 inhabitants has 2,300 spaces at its station

There is also something very British about what happened next at the frabjous Nottingham station secure cycling hub:

We are very concerned to hear that a bike was stolen from the new 'Secure' Compound only a few days after the opening and have taken this up with Nottingham City Council and East Midlands Trains.

The CBT’s blind spot regarding cycling is exposed by this celebration of the recently published National Travel Survey, which ludicrously asks did Labour succeed after all?

On the contrary, as far as cycling is concerned, it failed, catastrophically. But the CBT is just another of those outfits which brings good news which is utterly bogus:

London has the lowest number of car commuters and cycling is growing dramatically.

That is fantasy campaigning, since London’s modal shares have been essentially static for many years. Where there have been slight shifts they have not involved cycling. Reading this sort of thing you would never know that the latest TfL figures show cycling’s modal share in Enfield currently registering at zero per cent, and in Newham flickering between zero and one per cent. The notion that there is a cycling revolution in London is utterly delusional. And the strange idea that there is going to be a surge in cycling in outer London boroughs is quite bizarre, for all the reasons regularly demonstrated on this outer London blog.

When the CBT does mention cycling it comes up with the usual bland generalisations:

Lower traffic speeds, for example more 20mph zones in towns and cities and 30mph in villages, would provide a better environment for walking and cycling.

No, they wouldn’t. Lower speed limits reduce the impact of collisions on pedestrians and cyclists and result in fewer fatalities, but they do not in themselves make a street cycling or walking friendly. A car-sodden street is still a car-sodden street and 30 mph and 20 mph zones still involve vehicular cycling.

Wackiest of all is the CBT's demand for

safe ways of carrying bikes on the front of buses

Oh, please.

But I suppose no one should be surprised that the CBT is clueless about cycling. Among those working for the organisation is a former Campaigns Coordinator at CTC

Nuff said.

Picture credit: the photo above comes from here.

(Below) Cycling friendly? A thrilling section of the iconic London Cycle Network running through a 20 mph zone, Church Hill, E17.

Vehicular cycling to get worse in Islington

LIVES could be put at risk if transport bosses go ahead with a plan to remove traffic signals from one of Finsbury's busiest cycle crossings.

Transport for London is considering removing lights from a junction in St John Street - even though, at peak times, it allows hundreds of cyclists an hour to cross between Owen Street and Chadwell Street.

Cycling campaigners fear that if the lights are removed, bike riders will risk life and limb trying to cross St John Street - a major north-south route.

Councillor George Allan, a keen cyclist and a Liberal Democrat member for Clerkenwell ward, said: "It would be a devastating blow to the safety and convenience of the hundreds - if not thousands - of cyclists who use that junction every day.

"If they do away with the lights, cyclists would just have to take their chances.

lorries and cyclists: what is to be done?

Ben Thomas:

I was dodging five lanes of swerving vans and buses near King's Cross when I saw the ad on a double-decker yesterday.

You can see it might make cyclists think. But most of the cyclists I've spoken to suggest that, if anything, it might make them think about stopping cycling

The solution is simple. Don’t expect cyclists to share road space with heavy goods vehicles.

One of those “five lanes of swerving vans and buses” should be re-allocated exclusively for cyclists, who are kept segregated from high volume motor traffic, on the successful Dutch model. All other solutions – education for lorry drivers and cyclists, cycle training, conspicuity and high viz gear, cycle helmets, ‘share the road’, ‘three feet please’ – are utterly bogus alternatives which only serve to perpetuate road violence and inequality.

Sadly those two major obstacles to mass cycling – the London Cycling Campaign and the Cyclists Touring Club – remain stubbornly wedded to the catastrophically failed strategy of ameliorating vehicular cycling. They do indeed resemble sects.

Chingford driver killed cyclist and fled

A CHINGFORD motorist who killed a cyclist and then fled the scene has been jailed for five years.

Ali Altuntas had had two or three hours of sleep in the 24 hours leading up to a collision with cyclist Jim Fleming on the A413 at Gerrards Cross on April 1 last year, Aylesbury Crown Court heard.

Mr Fleming, a 47-year-old haywarden for Chalfont St Peter Parish Council, was killed instantly when he was hit from behind by a blue Mercedes car being driven by 37-year-old Altuntas, the court heard.

“He [Mr Fleming] could and should have been clearly seen. He completely failed to see Mr Fleming cycling along the edge of the road and he failed to take any steps to slow down despite having had him in view for many seconds before the collision.”

Mr Fleming was wearing a fluorescent high-visibility jacket and had a light on the back of his bike and another on his backpack. He was not wearing a cycling helmet.

Altuntas had had a “grossly inadequate amount of quality sleep in the 24 hour period before the collision”, Mr Barry said.

“This lack of sleep no doubt contributed significantly to what was, in any event, a catastrophic lack of concentration,” he told the court.

“Police spoke to his wife there and asked about the blue Mercedes,” said Mr Barry.

“The questions were very general. When asked about the car her response was, 'It's been stolen'. Then, crucially, before the police said anything else, she said, 'I don't know anything about an accident with a bicycle'.

“The police hadn't mentioned an accident with a bicycle.

Altuntas also claimed to have sold the car for £1,000 but had lost the phone number of the person who came to his house to buy it, jurors heard.

Mr Barry said these were “the actions of a man with a guilty conscience”. He added the car was never reported stolen and no claim against its insurance was ever made

A police reconstruction concluded a car driver would have been able to see a cyclist in a fluorescent jacket on the A413 from 290 metres away – giving the motorist “five or six seconds” to react.

It is not clear to me why the killer driver’s wife was not charged with perverting the course of justice.

No press report states what driving ban was imposed. The killer driver will presumably come out of jail in two and a half years and will almost certainly be back on the roads a few years after that. Under the British judicial system, the right to drive is the most basic human right of them all.

The twisted logic of vehicular cycling: why Waltham Forest is a failed cycling borough

The London Borough of Waltham Forest is a failed borough for cycling, with cycling flatlining at one per cent modal share for as long as anyone can remember. This naturally concerns no one – certainly not the Council (which continues to encourage car dependency and increased car ownership by re-allocating roads and even pavements for cars and car parking), not the borough’s ineffectual cycling officer, and not the local branch of the London Cycling Campaign, for whom ‘cycle campaigning’ is a social event rather than a serious attempt to change the borough’s car-centric transport infrastructure.

At the root of the borough’s failure to increase cycling is its insistence that cycling MUST be done on roads, amidst motor traffic. The fact that the overwhelming majority of the population don’t want to do this is of no concern. The fact that the local cycling group’s own survey among existing cyclists revealed a deep dislike of vehicular cycling and a clear preference for off-road cycling is likewise of no concern to ‘campaigners’ who represent an organisation which displays no interest in arguing for the kind of safe, segregated cycling which results in mass cycling.

The borough’s Cycling Action Plan asserts:

Most cycling takes place on the road and this will continue to be the case. So it is essential that the road network is made suitable for cycling. Segregated cycle routes and networks will play an important role in some areas, but they will be of limited use if cyclists are unable to use ordinary roads freely.

What these flabby and ill-informed generalisations add up to is the belief that vehicular cycling can be encouraged by ‘improvements’ to the road network. On page 11 of the document is one such example (below). With characteristic dishonesty, the photograph shows High Road Leytonstone in the kind of deserted state you would normally only find early on a Sunday morning or late at night. My own photographs, taken on the same supposedly exemplary cycle lane, show what it’s like to use on an ordinary weekday. And the simple reality is that this supposedly exemplary cycle lane does not encourage cycling but rather suppresses it and keeps it stagnating. Families won’t cycle on cycle lanes like this. Few people will want their children to cycle to school in conditions like this.

If you really want to get lots of people cycling you need to accept the first lesson of how to succeed:

Cyclists should never mix with high speed or high volume motor traffic.