OK, a penny for your thoughts...

[-Adam-]

[size=200]Cycleway design in Greater London is stifling sustainable urban development.[/size]

Ok, sounds wordy I know, but thats life. Basically, I reckon that cycleway design is this country is crap. And as such I am stating a good part of my degree on proving this fact. Above is the title, or hypothesis if you like, for my dissertation. Over the next few months I will set about either proving this statement, or in a more unlikely scenario, find that all Londoners are immensely proud of their cycleway network.

I know many of you commute to work in London, and will there for have many opinions on this matter. So please please start discussing this as much as you like. I hope for this thread to run and run over the next few months in order that I might glean some invaluable insight into the world of a everyday commuter.

In terms of research for this dissertation. I will probably use a range of methods. A particularly useful one I think, will be to observe commuting cyclists. I would aim to do this in two ways: 1. to ride with/shadow some people who commute into the city in order to establish their habbits, then discuss with them why they ride the way they do. Or, 2. find a particularly bad place of cycleway provision and just stand there drinking coffee for a couple of hours in rush hour while observing how each cyclist navigates the area.

I will also aim to interview contacts from the London Cycling Campaign, TFL, Sustrans, CTC etc. So if anyone has any contacts with any of these bodies, could they please let me know.

And the obvious one of questionnaires is a possibility, although I am wondering how I will gain a representative sample for this, I.e. not just everyday cyclists like you or I.

So, please please fire away...

Thank you.

Adam

[Tony]

So let me get this right.....erm.....you basically want us to write your dissertion for you?

[-Adam-]

[quote="Tony"]So let me get this right.....erm.....you basically want us to write your dissertion for you?

[Tony]

As a PS, why specifically does Cycleway Design stifle development? The problem is surely the antiquated road system in most of our towns and cities.

[-Adam-]

[quote="Tony"]As a PS, why specifically does Cycleway Design stifle development? The problem is surely the antiquated road system in most of our towns and cities.

[-Adam-]

[quote="marco"]some things to kick the debate off

ASLs on every traffic light junction
What is ASLs?

red left turn legal
Interesting idea, but can you justify the ascociated safety risks?

no motorbikes in buslanes
Couldn't agree more, I suspect that will come up quite a bit

more bike parking points. Lots more.
This is true, but really falls outside of my remit. Remember this is just a dissertation, and not a full blown piece of TfL research!

better parking at stations and other public buildings.
--------- '' ----------

seperate contraflow on one way streets for bike
This is what I'm talking about!

regular municipal sweeping of cycle routes to remove glass
Yep, maybe through design there would be less glass?

20mph speed limit for suburban streets
Again, this one is a bit difficult to link in. But yeah, I agree!

[Keith]

Perhaps not addressing your "stifling urban development" issue, but the main reason that I never use the cycleways down in Crawley is that they give full right of way to the mororist over the cyclist. At least on the road you've equal priority. On the cycleways you have to stop at each and every junction and entrance.

[quote="Sean Hogan - 何祥"]ASLs are Advance Start Lines.

[Tony]

One suggestion.....the current title suggests that the inclusion of Cycleways is is part of the problem rather than the solution. Better to spin it in positive language - e.g.:

[size=150]Study of how enhanced focus on Cycleway Design in Greater London helps to promote more sustainable urban development[/size]

Exact title will, of course, be influenced by what you plan to focus on in your dissertation. As an alternative, you could change your current one to Poor Cycleway Design in Greater London is stifling sustainable urban development. Clearer than currently - but no positive language....so not recommended.

[Daniel Gee]

London Cycling Campaign, Sustrans, CTC are all advocacy groups and i'm not sure how useful they will be to you because in the end they have no power whatseover to make decisions re transport strategy

the design & construction of Cycle routes are the responsibility of individual local and county authorities so your first best point of contact would be your local authority's planning department who should have a sustainable travel devlopment plan. As far as I am aware most authorities don't tend to work with each other so it will not necessarily bear any resemblance to its neighbour's plans except that it will have have to fulfill certain statutory targets set down by central govermemt.

In the case of cycle paths, I beleive, that essentially councils are given one target; which is simply create x kilometres/miles of new cycle paths each year. As far as central government is concerned as long as that target is fulfilled then that authority is meeting its staututory obligations.

It is down to individual authority's how they meet that target. The simplest & cheapest way to do this is just to paint loads of random cyclepaths across every spare bit of pavement & my inference is that this is what many authorities are doing.

As far as I know whether or not people use them and whether or not those that do so , do so uninjured is entirely irrelevant.

And so when LCC, sutrans etc aks what has been done to improve cycling this year the department of transport/enviroment can then reply that this year our local/county councils created 1,000,000,000 miles of cycle way & so yes we are infinitely supportive of sustainable travel.

[Apples]

Dan wrote
[quote]And so when LCC, sutrans etc aks what has been done to improve cycling this year the department of transport/enviroment can then reply that this year our local/county councils created 1,000,000,000 miles of cycle way & so yes we are infinitely supportive of sustainable travel.

[Apples]

My general view Adam is the more special measures put in place for cyclists the worse it will get......I think cyclists are becoming hated as "we " are seen to flout every single law of the highway code.

The Govenrment or Tfl or whoever is in charge should be ensuring [size=150]ALL[/size] road users obey the law.

That said I agree with 20 mph in urban areas and sweeping the glass off the roads.

Riding home last night I lost count of the number of tosser jumping red lights

And at the major crossings where the idiots have to stop , pulling away is like the start of a BMX race

[Graham O]

Not sure that there is any design for cycleways..

I reckon that it goes like this...

Govt announce national target for increase in cycleways and allocate budget...

Councils targetted to provide a specific amount of cycleway in a specific time to ensure overall govt target is met...

Councils quarrel about it for a while cos they are good at that...

Time runs out and council asks Mr Murphy to sort it. He gets a pot of paint and some green tarmac and starts to create cycle lanes wherever he can until the target is reached.

At the end of the day, the council and the govt is happy cos they have met their targets....

I commuted to london for a couple of years and never used cycle lanes...They are dangerous...

[Snoop Doug]

drifting......?

Red lights and the jumping thereof could well be the kind of visible law flouting that is our undoing I'm afraid

I would like to see some on road cycling woven into the car driving test. I feel that most motorists act out of ignorance rather than malice. Maybe putting these people into a full on rush hour ride would help create some empathy?

A joined up approach to all this could indeed support sustainable development. So - local authorities should engage with stakeholders (stop laughing @ the back) to ensure that the money is wisely spent. Surely even one carefully planned route is better than the hundreds of scraps we currently have. The central govt diktat needs to be more specific (oh boy is that ever a problem in large organisations...we need more...let's say customer focus. What specifically do you want? Who do you want to do it? How.....) so that the local govt actions can integrate with, and support it.

Local govts should integrate their plans with neighbouring boroughs. Create a few safe, arterial routes and I believe that people would use them, and they would help support sustainability on a number of fronts. Social inclusion (how many mates have you made thru ACC?) environmental damage limitation, health and well being benefits, etc.

Snoop

[Antloony]

[quote="Graham O"]Time runs out and council asks Mr Murphy to sort it. He gets a pot of paint and some green tarmac and starts to create cycle lanes wherever he can until the target is reached.