Mr. Ron Binns, the author of "Crap Cycling in Waltham Forest" employs a common blogger's technique. First he examines an argument made by someone with whom he wishes to disagree. If this can be mis-represented or distorted, so much the better. Then comes the fun bit. Aha, he goes, I can prove he is wrong, because look at this - there follows a picture of a car in a cycle lane. Cambridge, it seems, far from being the place where 52% of the population get on a bike at least once a week, is actually a living hell for cyclists.A recent post focuses on the CTC's recent best practice guide by using a picture of an on-road cycle lane in Cambridge - the picture of a very good cycle and pedestrian bridge also in Cambridge and used as the front page of the latest CTC magazine is ignored of course.
This means of developing an argument by selective evidence doesn't work. If you tried it in your undergraduate dissertation you would be marked down and it would be a case of asking Mummy and Daddy for another £9,000 so you could do the year again.
What's more, that car in a bike lane is actually the fault of Cambridge Cycle Campaign, who should have pressed for a segregated bike lane - certainly not that of the driver who shouldn't have been there in the first place, the police who should be enforcing traffic laws, the government who have cut traffic policing by 30% or the local authority who apparently, had the Campaign, with it's 1066 members (many of whom probably were there at the Battle of Hastings, such is the longevity of cyclists, despite it being an allegedly dangerous activity) simply asked for it, would have keeled over and said, "oh alright then."
The problem with cars parking and driving in cycle lanes is not one of design, it is enforcement. Here in Sheffield we experienced problems a few years ago with a segregated cycle lane (we have a quite a few of them in Sheffield and most of us like them) that was parked over by patrons of a nearby mega-cinema. (It's here)
View Larger Map
The police and the local security for the entertainment complex, who said that they had been offered violence when asking people to move, admitted that they couldn't keep cars out of the cycle track and eventually the council installed bollards all the way along the 200-yard section of cycle track, at a cost of some £20,000. Just putting up a kerb alongside a cycle track won't stop drivers abusing them in the UK - we need a change of driver attitudes and that is what the CTC and Cyclenation are fighting for alongside the other measures we think will bring about a mass move towards cycling.
I'm not anal enough to take a picture every time I see a vehicle in a cycle lane - although I do have quite a few and I think mybikelane is an excellent means of catharsis (but I'm not quite sure whether the reports go anywhere useful, unlike fixmystreet which does seem to have an effect)- but here is what happens to the segregated cycle lane on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir in Paris on market day.(yes there is a segregated bike lane under that lot!)
View Larger Map
You may well find a similar situation on Taff Trail at Cardiff Arms on match day. This view of a segregated cycle track in Sheffield may look idyllic, but on a match day you will find it parked up by coaches who have been directed there by the police from nearby Bramall Lane.
View Larger Map
Mr Binns doesn't seem to appreciate that the average 4WD or White Van can make short work of even quite a high kerb separating the roadway from where the driver wants to park.
But CamCycle isn't the worst of the cycle campaign groups. Mr. Binn's venom is particularly directed at the CTC - and let's face it, who do they represent? Oh, their 60,000 members and 20,000 affiliates, you say? Glad we got that out of the way. The key villain at the CTC and prime obstacle to Cycling Nirvana, it seems, is Roger Geffen, the CTC's Campaigns Director. To some it might seem Roger has the dream job - to me it seems his job is a living hell, being shot at by both sides. However, he manages to keep cheerful and passionate about cycling despite it all. Mr. Binns seems to particularly hate him which is odd considering that they both campaigned on the M11 extension that tore the borough of Waltham Forest in two and Roger remembers him as a pretty good guy.
Apparently the CTC decided on it's policy on segregation in 1934 and hasn't moved an inch on it since. This seems odd given how much has happened - a world war and a few minor ones, a massive growth in motorised traffic and so forth.
At the Bristol cycle conference last weekend (the campaigning one not the Dutch Embassy one, which Cyclenation, of which I am secretary, helped organise) Roger scotched a few myths that are being propagated by bloggers such as Mr. Binns. One of these is the notion that Safety in Numbers is a strategy designed to keep cyclists on the road. Actually it was aimed at Road Safety officers, for whom an ideal scenario would be no cyclists, hence no accidents. Another is Right to Ride, to which Mr. Binns and other bloggers have attached the words "On the Road" entirely off their own bats. The Right to Ride network was set up to address a particular problem - the CTC as the "voice of cyclists" was being deluged by Traffic Regulation Orders, Bridleway Orders and the like and they needed a local network of people to deal with these. So ironically if you like, RTR reps spend the bulk of their time dealing with off-road provision and are in the main happy to support it as long as it is of a decent standard.
What really seems to get the bloggers backs up, however, is the Hierarchy of Provision. This suggests that planners should get to grips to the real problems of traffic that are choking communities rather than trying to put sticking plasters over them by painting a few white lines on the pavement. I have to admit that I don't think it's worded very well but I do agree that cycle tracks are best located away from major roads and for example I found Boris's Superhighway CS2 alongside the A13 a deeply unpleasant experience.
But enough of the CTC. If I wanted to change the CTC's policies, as a member I would put a motion to the organisation's AGM. This to my mind would be a better way of changing things than carping at them from the outside.
A recent post of Mr Binn's laid into cycle campaigning groups. This portrayed these groups as well-meaning duffers who blather on about how safe cycling is at meetings, only to be mown down by fast cars on the way home. Happily this stereotype is far from the truth. The group I belong to, CycleSheffield, has lost a couple of members due to cancer in recent years, but hasn't lost anyone due to enemy action by motor traffic for about twenty years. Most of the cycle crashes I hear about or have incurred myself are self-inflicted, or caused by slipping on tram tracks, a serious hazard in Sheffield. It seems that no matter how much evidence we put out there that cycling is a safe activity, the falsehood that cycling is highly dangerous continues to be propagated by bloggers and is sucked up by the media and hence the general public. Having visited several campaign groups this year I've found them to consist of highly clued-up and motivated people - interestingly some of the most aware groups are in the most unlikely of places, such as Wakefield and Chesterfield - who are well aware of the games that local authorities are likely to play with them, the most effective of course being divide and rule.
I've got this far of course without mentioning Holland.(apart from that little bit about the Dutch Embassy conferences of course) Well , the last time I cycled any distance there was 1982, when I tried to follow a bike route out of the Hague that said "Amsterdam" ended up lost in a forest and had to go back and get the train (for which I had to pay a substantial amount for my bike) Hopefully things have improved since then. My partner went to Amsterdam recently and said that as a pedestrian it was awful, with so-called bike lanes filled with fast e-bikes and even small electric cars and no-one paying any attention to stop lights and pedestrian "greens".
I will be going soon though, to visit an old friend who took full advantage of the country's liberal drug laws and now has degenerative lung disease, amongst other problems and is unlikely to live to his sixtieth year. Sounds like a great place to live. See what I've done there - my friend who lives in Holland is unlikely to live his full term and therefore Holland is an unhealthy place to live. Logical, isn't it? Isn't it?
So poor Mr. Binn. He lives in a world where everything is crap and he can point to a few examples to prove it, aided by a few fellow bloggers. Not all is lost however: there are a few people such as VoleO'Speed who are prepared to have a proper debate and admit it when they make a mistake. As someone who was born in what is now the Borough of Waltham Forest I'd rather deal with that kind of person. My name's Simon Geller by the way and if you find you can't leave a comment on this blog it's because of my incompetence, not as a matter of policy. Oh and these are solely my opinions, not those of any organization with whom I am associated.
This means of developing an argument by selective evidence doesn't work. If you tried it in your undergraduate dissertation you would be marked down and it would be a case of asking Mummy and Daddy for another £9,000 so you could do the year again.
What's more, that car in a bike lane is actually the fault of Cambridge Cycle Campaign, who should have pressed for a segregated bike lane - certainly not that of the driver who shouldn't have been there in the first place, the police who should be enforcing traffic laws, the government who have cut traffic policing by 30% or the local authority who apparently, had the Campaign, with it's 1066 members (many of whom probably were there at the Battle of Hastings, such is the longevity of cyclists, despite it being an allegedly dangerous activity) simply asked for it, would have keeled over and said, "oh alright then."
The problem with cars parking and driving in cycle lanes is not one of design, it is enforcement. Here in Sheffield we experienced problems a few years ago with a segregated cycle lane (we have a quite a few of them in Sheffield and most of us like them) that was parked over by patrons of a nearby mega-cinema. (It's here)
View Larger Map
The police and the local security for the entertainment complex, who said that they had been offered violence when asking people to move, admitted that they couldn't keep cars out of the cycle track and eventually the council installed bollards all the way along the 200-yard section of cycle track, at a cost of some £20,000. Just putting up a kerb alongside a cycle track won't stop drivers abusing them in the UK - we need a change of driver attitudes and that is what the CTC and Cyclenation are fighting for alongside the other measures we think will bring about a mass move towards cycling.
I'm not anal enough to take a picture every time I see a vehicle in a cycle lane - although I do have quite a few and I think mybikelane is an excellent means of catharsis (but I'm not quite sure whether the reports go anywhere useful, unlike fixmystreet which does seem to have an effect)- but here is what happens to the segregated cycle lane on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir in Paris on market day.(yes there is a segregated bike lane under that lot!)
View Larger Map
You may well find a similar situation on Taff Trail at Cardiff Arms on match day. This view of a segregated cycle track in Sheffield may look idyllic, but on a match day you will find it parked up by coaches who have been directed there by the police from nearby Bramall Lane.
View Larger Map
Mr Binns doesn't seem to appreciate that the average 4WD or White Van can make short work of even quite a high kerb separating the roadway from where the driver wants to park.
But CamCycle isn't the worst of the cycle campaign groups. Mr. Binn's venom is particularly directed at the CTC - and let's face it, who do they represent? Oh, their 60,000 members and 20,000 affiliates, you say? Glad we got that out of the way. The key villain at the CTC and prime obstacle to Cycling Nirvana, it seems, is Roger Geffen, the CTC's Campaigns Director. To some it might seem Roger has the dream job - to me it seems his job is a living hell, being shot at by both sides. However, he manages to keep cheerful and passionate about cycling despite it all. Mr. Binns seems to particularly hate him which is odd considering that they both campaigned on the M11 extension that tore the borough of Waltham Forest in two and Roger remembers him as a pretty good guy.
Apparently the CTC decided on it's policy on segregation in 1934 and hasn't moved an inch on it since. This seems odd given how much has happened - a world war and a few minor ones, a massive growth in motorised traffic and so forth.
At the Bristol cycle conference last weekend (the campaigning one not the Dutch Embassy one, which Cyclenation, of which I am secretary, helped organise) Roger scotched a few myths that are being propagated by bloggers such as Mr. Binns. One of these is the notion that Safety in Numbers is a strategy designed to keep cyclists on the road. Actually it was aimed at Road Safety officers, for whom an ideal scenario would be no cyclists, hence no accidents. Another is Right to Ride, to which Mr. Binns and other bloggers have attached the words "On the Road" entirely off their own bats. The Right to Ride network was set up to address a particular problem - the CTC as the "voice of cyclists" was being deluged by Traffic Regulation Orders, Bridleway Orders and the like and they needed a local network of people to deal with these. So ironically if you like, RTR reps spend the bulk of their time dealing with off-road provision and are in the main happy to support it as long as it is of a decent standard.
What really seems to get the bloggers backs up, however, is the Hierarchy of Provision. This suggests that planners should get to grips to the real problems of traffic that are choking communities rather than trying to put sticking plasters over them by painting a few white lines on the pavement. I have to admit that I don't think it's worded very well but I do agree that cycle tracks are best located away from major roads and for example I found Boris's Superhighway CS2 alongside the A13 a deeply unpleasant experience.
But enough of the CTC. If I wanted to change the CTC's policies, as a member I would put a motion to the organisation's AGM. This to my mind would be a better way of changing things than carping at them from the outside.
A recent post of Mr Binn's laid into cycle campaigning groups. This portrayed these groups as well-meaning duffers who blather on about how safe cycling is at meetings, only to be mown down by fast cars on the way home. Happily this stereotype is far from the truth. The group I belong to, CycleSheffield, has lost a couple of members due to cancer in recent years, but hasn't lost anyone due to enemy action by motor traffic for about twenty years. Most of the cycle crashes I hear about or have incurred myself are self-inflicted, or caused by slipping on tram tracks, a serious hazard in Sheffield. It seems that no matter how much evidence we put out there that cycling is a safe activity, the falsehood that cycling is highly dangerous continues to be propagated by bloggers and is sucked up by the media and hence the general public. Having visited several campaign groups this year I've found them to consist of highly clued-up and motivated people - interestingly some of the most aware groups are in the most unlikely of places, such as Wakefield and Chesterfield - who are well aware of the games that local authorities are likely to play with them, the most effective of course being divide and rule.
I've got this far of course without mentioning Holland.(apart from that little bit about the Dutch Embassy conferences of course) Well , the last time I cycled any distance there was 1982, when I tried to follow a bike route out of the Hague that said "Amsterdam" ended up lost in a forest and had to go back and get the train (for which I had to pay a substantial amount for my bike) Hopefully things have improved since then. My partner went to Amsterdam recently and said that as a pedestrian it was awful, with so-called bike lanes filled with fast e-bikes and even small electric cars and no-one paying any attention to stop lights and pedestrian "greens".
I will be going soon though, to visit an old friend who took full advantage of the country's liberal drug laws and now has degenerative lung disease, amongst other problems and is unlikely to live to his sixtieth year. Sounds like a great place to live. See what I've done there - my friend who lives in Holland is unlikely to live his full term and therefore Holland is an unhealthy place to live. Logical, isn't it? Isn't it?
So poor Mr. Binn. He lives in a world where everything is crap and he can point to a few examples to prove it, aided by a few fellow bloggers. Not all is lost however: there are a few people such as VoleO'Speed who are prepared to have a proper debate and admit it when they make a mistake. As someone who was born in what is now the Borough of Waltham Forest I'd rather deal with that kind of person. My name's Simon Geller by the way and if you find you can't leave a comment on this blog it's because of my incompetence, not as a matter of policy. Oh and these are solely my opinions, not those of any organization with whom I am associated.
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