It is an insignificant amount. It's not enough to start bulldozing buildings or comprehensively restructuring road layouts to properly incorporate segregated cycle. It's probably do one moderate sized town, certainly not London, absolutely not the whole country.
because everybody counts their success in terms of pounds spent. Re-phase the lights at Elephant and Castle for ten grand? Not a chance! 20 million on dopey cycle lanes for two roundabouts? Just what the doctor ordered!No-one is proposing bull-dozing buildings for cycle lanes, I think that may be being somewhat dramatic. And it isn't for London, it is around £33M for three areas in London (£100M in total), each one a local "town centre". My point was that there is money for cycling, albeit on a local level, so cash isn't an issue for certain areas. Outside London I appreciate it is different.
Anyway, think of some simple stuff. How about shutting off rat-runs and returning residential streets to residents, pedestrians and cyclists. Monetarily it is insignificant, technically, even the worst councils can normally manage some bollards and flower beds to block off a road. So why isn't it done more often?
This is a clear case of confirmation bias.Honestly, not sure what planet you lot live on, but living in Bath, when you look at where people in the city commute to work by cycle the most, it comes down to having access to a good traffic free route (River path) into the city centre.
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=14&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0010&ramp=YlOrRd
This is a clear case of confirmation bias.
Any statistically random dataset split down to a fine enough granularity will demonstrate local clusters - just as you may throw three sixes in a row on an unwieghted dice. You are talking about the proportion of cycle commuters in a single postcode so those red blobs could would actually represent a handful of cyclists on a particular street. There are a few clusters scattered around Bath and one of them happens to be fairly close to a cycle path - you need rather more than that to see a causative effect. As others have pointed out - even if that cluster on the A4 is a genuine (if rather small) prefered cycling location it is just as easily explained by the hills.
However, that display of census data really is a powerful visulisation tool that would demonstrate any link between cycle paths and cycle use. If there was any relationship at all then the routes of cycle paths would show up as bands of orange and red on the map - even with the random noise. So to start take a look at the other end of the Bristol-Bath railway path and look at the map of Bristol that others have mentionned - no sign of it. If anything the northeastern sector of Bristol sees lower levels of cycle commuting than other areas.
Now lets look at Warrington, where I live:
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=13&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0010&ramp=YlOrRd
Now Warrington has a traditionally built central core with a radius of about 2km round the town centre. Normal street layout and a horrible dual carriageway ring road, but nothing in the way of segregated cycle paths. Outside this there are large areas of new-town development (you can see this by the wiggly culs-de-sac and distributor roads) These areas have a network of cycle paths threading through them - yet see the lowest levels of cycle commuting in the town. We also have the national cycle network running east-west through the southern parts of the town - no evidence of that attracting cycle commuters either.
Another example:
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=13&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0010&ramp=YlOrRd
Eric Claxton (a true believer in segregation) designed Stevenage from scratch around a comprehensive network of cycleways (and set the pattern for pretty much all new development over the past half centuary). Not much red on that map.
Nor here:
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=12&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0010&ramp=YlOrRd
The mother of all cycle networks where pretty much the entire population has access to cycleways.
Another example:
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=12&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0010&ramp=YlOrRd
Compare and contrast Shrewsbury with a compact tradititional street network - to Telford with its network of cycleways.
I could go on, but wherever you look on the map, those towns with the greatest concentration of cycleways see low levels of cycling.
Now that isn't nice none of the ones I know are illiterate. Most probably would use the term in a more appropriate context for travelling to work. Not a short hop of a mile or so, which for car users can easily be doubled if not more.The map covers the whole country - just pan an zoom. And hey presto - no cyclists there either:
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=14&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0010&ramp=YlOrRd
and plenty of car drivers:
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=14&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0008&ramp=YlOrRd
(note it is differently scaled so that even the yellow areas show 20% car use)
I would imagine that he illiterate ones who don't understand the meaning of the word "commute" will be found disproportionately in this view:
http://datashine.org.uk/#zoom=14&la...TTT&table=QS701EW&col=QS701EW0013&ramp=YlOrRd
Tis irrelevent in any case - the census question asks about "method of travel to work" - and in the case of Skelmersdale hardly anyone answered "Bicycle".Now that isn't nice none of the ones I know are illiterate. Most probably would use the term in a more appropriate context for travelling to work. Not a short hop of a mile or so, which for car users can easily be doubled if not more.
In real terms is 6 and a bit miles for me to cycle or 13 by car on the quickest route and 10 by the shortest route the real difference is once I'm off the motorway there wher it is two miles by car or 300 m as a pedestrian
well hardly anyone works there......Tis irrelevent in any case - the census question asks about "method of travel to work" - and in the case of Skelmersdale hardly anyone answered "Bicycle".
because everybody counts their success in terms of pounds spent. Re-phase the lights at Elephant and Castle for ten grand? Not a chance! 20 million on dopey cycle lanes for two roundabouts? Just what the doctor ordered!
I don't know what the City spent on rephasing the lights at Bank and on slightly remodelling the junction and rephasing the lights at Holborn Circus. But it can't have been much, and it's made a heck of a difference.because everybody counts their success in terms of pounds spent. Re-phase the lights at Elephant and Castle for ten grand? Not a chance! 20 million on dopey cycle lanes for two roundabouts? Just what the doctor ordered!
We did some work with Gosport Borough Council a few years ago.