Make Cyclelanes Work Petition

[dellzeqq]

16 signatures. 99984 to go!

I wonder if some bright civil servant, looking at this, will simply suggest to his minister that any money spent on cycle lanes would be good money thrown after bad?

 

[snorri]

In fact I wouldn't spend a single penny of taxpayers money on cycling. Tax car parking spaces to the max, raise fuel duty through the roof, shut down rat runs and double or treble the number of bus lanes and give permissions for the redevelopment of high streets and the job's done.

I would like to see speed limits lowered too, otherwise there's nothing to argue with there.

dellzeqq for PM, vote dellzeqq

 

[dellzeqq]

I would like to see speed limits lowered too, otherwise there's nothing to argue with there.

dellzeqq for PM, vote dellzeqq

I'd forgotten speed limits. Which is silly, because it's something that can happily sit with Cameron's localism

 

[downfader]

16 signatures. 99984 to go!

I wonder if some bright civil servant, looking at this, will simply suggest to his minister that any money spent on cycle lanes would be good money thrown after bad?

Yeah. Aint going well. I've been busy the past 2 days and come back to see 6 pages.

Sadly I feel that with motorists in the majority and having vociferous and sometimes illogical viewpoints we will never see cycling and healthy forms of travel taking a stand that can benefit people here in the UK. We have people like the AA bleating on at motorists, patting their poor little hand and telling them that they're a societal victim. Thats not in anyway an antimotoring view - to be pro-cycling you cannot be antimotoring, they are two sides of the same coin and each has benefits the other lacks.

I also feel that the majority of cyclists dont help themselves. Perhaps we argue far too much over small technicalities, perhaps we have been divided and conquered by the vociferous? Brit cyclists have this defeated attitude, too. "It wont work!" How many times have we read or heard that..?

I think Bikeability will have some positive change. First and foremost it teaches the young how the road users need to behave for the road networks to work. It teaches responsibility. It teaches assertiveness.

 

[mickle]

Selling cycling requires the same strategies as selling anything else - it's all about removing objections, or barriers.

So when Bristol City Council asked 'Why don't you cycle' and got answers like 'road danger, weather, lack of cycle lanes' they decided that the way of removing the road danger objection required cycle facilities.

What didn't cross their mind was that they could have addressed the source of the danger by slowing motor vehicles down or removing cars from certain roads altogether.

Or they could have provided everyone in the area with cycle training, which probably wouldn't have - in itself - put more bums on seats but would have removed another barrier.

Remove real or perceived barriers and people will cycle. I really do think it's that simple.

Segregation is so not the answer.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Selling cycling requires the same strategies as selling anything else - it's all about removing objections, or barriers.

So when Bristol City Council asked 'Why don't you cycle' and got answers like 'road danger, weather, lack of cycle lanes' they decided that the way of removing the road danger objection required cycle facilities.

What didn't cross their mind was that they could have addressed the source of the danger by slowing motor vehicles down or removing cars from certain roads altogether.

Or they could have provided everyone in the area with cycle training, which probably wouldn't have - in itself - put more bums on seats but would have removed another barrier.

Remove real or perceived barriers and people will cycle. I really do think it's that simple.

Segregation is so not the answer.

Well said.

 

[Red Light]

I've got to put a word in here. You're being very rude about Stuart who is a practised and resolute cyclist, not at all unused to cycling in London. And London to Paris in two days on a (three speed then one speed) Brompton is not for softies.

You're a Londoner. Do you think that Boris Bikes are rare on the streets in Central London? Is your experience of the Strand one of grid lock along the entire length in both directions or is it more like mine and the photos on Google? And would you think someone giving an example of something meant its the only example of something? I have no quarrel with Stuart in general but he did seem to make three rather odd statements.

Oh - and Bikeability. Waste of cash. In fact I wouldn't spend a single penny of taxpayers money on cycling. Tax car parking spaces to the max, raise fuel duty through the roof, shut down rat runs and double or treble the number of bus lanes and give permissions for the redevelopment of high streets and the job's done.

I can see that going down extremely well with the electorate for any politician that proposes that in their manifesto. So back from the land of make believe, what would you do to increase cycling that is going to be achievable?

Bikeability is not the only solution but it does seem to have some remarkably good results in building confidence in cycling with traffic according to the Ipsos MORI survey with half of pupils and their parents reporteing cycling more and 17% cycling a lot more. Also 45% of parents were a lot more confident of their children riding on the road as were half the children. Now if you think that's a waste of money, its going to be very difficult to find something that you think isn't. And the cost of training one pupil will buy you just under 2mm of Boris Blueway

 

[Tommi]

Bikeability is not the only solution but it does seem to have some remarkably good results in building confidence in cycling with traffic according to the Ipsos MORI survey with half of pupils and their parents reporteing cycling more and 17% cycling a lot more. Also 45% of parents were a lot more confident of their children riding on the road as were half the children. Now if you think that's a waste of money, its going to be very difficult to find something that you think isn't. And the cost of training one pupil will buy you just under 2mm of Boris Blueway

Without a source to the survey it's hard to comment, but just going with the numbers if Bikeability indeed delivers consistent results then in decade Bikeability alone should've achieved somewhere between 4 to 50 times more cycling. Also considering things like does Bikeability attract any significant number of people even to attend in the first place, and does the interest in cycling survive long after being able to drive I'm not sure that still counts as evidence for increase in number of people cycling has anything to do with amount of money spent on training.

 

[dellzeqq]

You're a Londoner. Do you think that Boris Bikes are rare on the streets in Central London? Is your experience of the Strand one of grid lock along the entire length in both directions or is it more like mine and the photos on Google? And would you think someone giving an example of something meant its the only example of something? I have no quarrel with Stuart in general but he did seem to make three rather odd statements.

I think you've got yourself in to a bit of a tizz about some imagined argument. And, in doing so, been disrespectful.

I can see that going down extremely well with the electorate for any politician that proposes that in their manifesto. So back from the land of make believe, what would you do to increase cycling that is going to be achievable?

see my manifesto above. Snorri liked it. Although he was right about speed limits. And, to reiterate, I wouldn't spend a penny on cycling.

 

[Red Light]

Without a source to the survey it's hard to comment

Source

 

[Red Light]

I think you've got yourself in to a bit of a tizz about some imagined argument. And, in doing so, been disrespectful.

No I said they were strange views. I notice you have decided not to comment on whether they were strange in your experience. Are we to assume Stuart G's views on here are sacrosanct and cannot be questioned?

see my manifesto above. Snorri liked it. Although he was right about speed limits.

And, to reiterate, I wouldn't spend a penny on cycling.

I think it will need a lot more than you and Snorri to get a politician to run with your manifesto. Do you really really think it has a snowball in hell's chance of happening? And if not I ask again what proposals do you have with some chance of them getting accepted.

 

[Red Light]

Remove real or perceived barriers and people will cycle. I really do think it's that simple.

Its a lot more complex than that. There are all sorts of ways people can rationalise not cycling when asked in a survey. Whether its the real reason or the most convenient excuse is an open question. If you want to actually change people's attitudes its no good just fixing things they say are barriers. They will just find other barriers to replace them. This is all well known in modern change management theory and you can trace it all back to the seminal work done by Kurt Lewin during WWII on how to get American housewives to serve offal to their families instead of steak. There is a brief description of what he found here. To see how resistant people can be to rational change and how irrational they can be in rationalising it to themselves rather than acknowledge they are wrong its worth reading When Prophecy Fails.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Its a lot more complex than that. There are all sorts of ways people can rationalise not cycling when asked in a survey. Whether its the real reason or the most convenient excuse is an open question. If you want to actually change people's attitudes its no good just fixing things they say are barriers. They will just find other barriers to replace them. This is all well known in modern change management theory and you can trace it all back to the seminal work done by Kurt Lewin during WWII on how to get American housewives to serve offal to their families instead of steak. There is a brief description of what he found here. To see how resistant people can be to rational change and how irrational they can be in rationalising it to themselves rather than acknowledge they are wrong its worth reading When Prophecy Fails.

So to paraphrase, people lie. Is that the subtext of your magnum opus above?

 

[Tommi]

Source

Or rather Source .. That wasn't too hard, was it?

(Silly me, I went to Ipsos MORI site which is far from useful.)

 

[Red Light]

So to paraphrase, people lie. Is that the subtext of your magnum opus above?

No.