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Is it possible to stop councils from building useless cycle lanes?

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  • 16-01-2012 2:08pm
    #1
    monument
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Is it possible to stop councils, and state agencies such as the RPA and the NTA, from building useless or next to useless cycle lanes?

    While you may get bits of ok sections on newer routes, there's no sign of standards improving much overall. Can anything be done?


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    #2
    galwaycyclist
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,912 ✭✭✭galwaycyclist


    monument wrote: »
    Is it possible to stop councils, and state agencies such as the RPA and the NTA, from building useless or next to useless cycle lanes?

    While you may get bits of ok sections on newer routes, there's no sign of standards improving much overall. Can anything be done?

    Stopping them from above

    OK the underlying cultural issue is that we are functioning in an administrative environment of institutional discrimination against cyclists. This is allied with a strong institutional affiliation to the idea that car traffic must be prioritised over other societal goals.

    In such a cultural environment, it becomes almost inevitable that the institutions charged with constructing cycling infrastructure will use it for what for them is a higher purpose - keeping cyclists out of the way so as to facilitate cars.

    Combined with this at local and central government level, we are dealing with a system of reward and performance appraisal that is "output" based rather than "outcome" based.
    • Outputs are km of cycle path constructed.
    • Outcomes are no.s of people cycling.

    The system of disbursing state funds is divorced from any concept of appraising its value in delivering outcomes. The "outcomes" are often of no interest to the local authorities drawing down the money. More importantly they are also not of any interest to the central government officials who approve the funds.

    This is not just an issue for cycling infrastructure it applies accross the board. I once sat at a local authority development plan meeting where the acting city/county manager pointed out, and he was entirely serious, that just because they were spending money on bus lanes that didn't necessarily mean they were trying to get more people to use public transport.

    A third factor is that even where the administration is genuinely interested in doing something for cyclists, there is abject and demonstrable ignorance of basic concepts among those providing the infrastructure. We have a population of civil engineers who frequently appear to have little understanding of basic concepts.

    In a recent exchange I had local authority traffic engineers trying to claim that it is not correct to say that it is illegal to cycle on footways (footpads etc.) ;-)

    But to answer your question. Yes it is possible to stop the construction of bad infrastructure but it requires a political willingness to confront and challenge the established civil service culture. This is the whole point of the National Cycle Policy Framework (NCPF) it sets out a system for directing the administration in a manner that will result in the systematic improvement of conditions for cycling. However delivering the NCPF requires leaders who will direct the administration to act in a certain way.

    Unfortunately however, our current Minister for Commuter Transport appears to be of the opinion that his function, rather than being to offer leadership, is merely to endorse the advice of the institutions, local or central, who seek funds for infrastructure


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    #3
    galwaycyclist
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,912 ✭✭✭galwaycyclist


    Stopping them from below

    If we get bored waiting for a messiah to arrive at Government level an alternative tactic is to get a majority of county/city councillors to vote to change objectionable designs when they come before them for approval.

    You can try lobbying the council officials directly but bear in mind that you are dealing with people who cannot be fired and who therefore have no incentive to negotiate with you. Indeed in many cases they will deem it personally offensive that you even question their designs. Also if you are there as a community activist rather than defending a commercial interest, the officials will calculate, usually correctly, that you do not have the resources to go to the courts.

    To get councillors to change something you need to line up several things in advance.

    1. A majority of councillors who will support you
    2. A proposer for the redesign
    3. A seconder for the redesign

    These are the basic requirements there will be other things you need to do to smooth the path.

    The proposers of the motion to change the design will have to be councillors who are very confident dealing with senior officials and consultant engineers. The officials will throw up various arguments one of which will be that the councillors are exposing the local authority to legal action by rejecting the advice of the consultant engineers - the officials may also hint at legal action against individual councillors. Your sponsor needs to be able to defend the proposed amendment to his or her fellow councillors some of whom will be political enemies. So they need to be able to quote relevant guidance etc. The officials may bring in senior engineers or consultant engineers to try and damage your sponsor's arguments.

    Irish consultant engineers are quite capable of standing before an audience and explaining in measured tones that it is entirely right and proper that a cyclist should dismount and become a pedestrian at every junction. Other arguments I have heard are that large roundabouts are of great benefit to pedestrians particularly wheelchair users and parents pushing baby buggies.

    Long story short you are in an adversiarial situation not a reasoned debate. The consultant engineers are not getting paid to come up with good designs but to help the officials push their personally preferred options through the approval process. That is just how the power dynamics work at local authority level.

    Your councillors, who will not usually be engineers and most of whom may not cycle, need to be ready for this type of thing and prepped to deal with it.

    Tomorrows lesson will be on the topic of bananna skins that the officials might put in the way.


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    #4
    europa11
    Registered Users Posts: 5,730 ✭✭✭europa11


    Why bother building them? I've witnessed Cyclists use the footpaths even where there are cycle lanes. If I were constructing anything it would be pedestrian friendly footpaths, free of cyclists and vehicles parked half on/half off the street.


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    #5
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,489 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    Cut the budget so much that all they can afford to do is paint solid white lines down the edges of existing road lanes, job done.

    Cycle lane is on road, in lane, follows the road and has same priorities :)


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    #6
    seve65
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭seve65


    not so much cycle lanes, but very recently i have seen lots of completely over-specified pieces of road infrastructure (e.g massive pavements and crash barriers) appearing in some of the least important places. I thought we were in a recesssion ? Not to mention roads being re-surfaced where I could tell you of 10 other better candidates in the vicinity. Who is paid to decide this stuff ? And why cant solutions be created appropriate to what is being solved. Problem with the cycle lanes I come across in Cork, besides the issues mentioned already, are that some are not cleaned so they are a puncture nightmare.


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    #7
    seve65
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭seve65


    Cookie_Monster wrote: »
    Cut the budget so much that all they can afford to do is paint solid white lines down the edges of existing road lanes, job done.

    Cycle lane is on road, in lane, follows the road and has same priorities :)
    there are lots of cycle lanes in France where that is precisely what they do.


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    #8
    chakattack
    Registered Users Posts: 1,315 ✭✭✭chakattack


    galwaycyclist wrote: »
    Stopping them from below

    If we get bored waiting for a messiah to arrive at Government level an alternative tactic is to get a majority of county/city councillors to vote to change objectionable designs when they come before them for approval.

    You can try lobbying the council officials directly but bear in mind that you are dealing with people who cannot be fired and who therefore have no incentive to negotiate with you. Indeed in many cases they will deem it personally offensive that you even question their designs. Also if you are there as a community activist rather than defending a commercial interest, the officials will calculate, usually correctly, that you do not have the resources to go to the courts.

    To get councillors to change something you need to line up several things in advance.

    1. A majority of councillors who will support you
    2. A proposer for the redesign
    3. A seconder for the redesign

    These are the basic requirements there will be other things you need to do to smooth the path.

    The proposers of the motion to change the design will have to be councillors who are very confident dealing with senior officials and consultant engineers. The officials will throw up various arguments one of which will be that the councillors are exposing the local authority to legal action by rejecting the advice of the consultant engineers - the officials may also hint at legal action against individual councillors. Your sponsor needs to be able to defend the proposed amendment to his or her fellow councillors some of whom will be political enemies. So they need to be able to quote relevant guidance etc. The officials may bring in senior engineers or consultant engineers to try and damage your sponsor's arguments.

    Irish consultant engineers are quite capable of standing before an audience and explaining in measured tones that it is entirely right and proper that a cyclist should dismount and become a pedestrian at every junction. Other arguments I have heard are that large roundabouts are of great benefit to pedestrians particularly wheelchair users and parents pushing baby buggies.

    Long story short you are in an adversiarial situation not a reasoned debate. The consultant engineers are not getting paid to come up with good designs but to help the officials push their personally preferred options through the approval process. That is just how the power dynamics work at local authority level.

    Your councillors, who will not usually be engineers and most of whom may not cycle, need to be ready for this type of thing and prepped to deal with it.

    Tomorrows lesson will be on the topic of bananna skins that the officials might put in the way.

    Informative post - thanks.

    How did society become so misaligned?


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    #9
    monument
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    europa11 wrote: »
    Why bother building them? I've witnessed Cyclists use the footpaths even where there are cycle lanes. If I were constructing anything it would be pedestrian friendly footpaths, free of cyclists and vehicles parked half on/half off the street.

    Generally, the hope would be that a high quality network of high quality cycle lanes and cycle tracks and generally more cycle friendly roads, would lessen the "need" of some cyclists to use footpaths. I hate those cyclists who use footpaths and do not want to defend them, but the fact remains that few would use footpaths if our roads and cities' street were not designed just for cars (one-way streets etc).

    Looking at it just from pedestrian point-of-view: Forcing pedestrian friendly footpaths would including stopping some of the worst cycle lane designs where "shared use" for both cyclist and pedestrian is used as a common, widespread design along main roads rather than in suitable places (ie cul de sac residential estates and streets, wide paths in smaller parks where separate paths would be over kill, short lane ways where speed can be controlled, city centre pedestrian priority streets where it is made clear who has priority).

    For years now, footpaths of sub-standard widths with a cycle track at the same level with no barrier than a worthless painted line is the standard design -- this design isn't good or fair to cyclists or pedestrians. Even if both areas were wider, cyclists or pedestrians should be separated by a kerb marking a drop in level from the footpath to the cycle track or a an on-road cycle lane.

    galwaycyclist wrote: »
    But to answer your question. Yes it is possible to stop the construction of bad infrastructure but it requires a political willingness to confront and challenge the established civil service culture. This is the whole point of the National Cycle Policy Framework (NCPF) it sets out a system for directing the administration in a manner that will result in the systematic improvement of conditions for cycling. However delivering the NCPF requires leaders who will direct the administration to act in a certain way.

    Unfortunately however, our current Minister for Commuter Transport appears to be of the opinion that his function, rather than being to offer leadership, is merely to endorse the advice of the institutions, local or central, who seek funds for infrastructure

    Surely -- like with the "from below" approach -- one person is not important, what is important is TDs (and lesser so senators)?

    Say, for example, to get in a positive but complicated law change for cyclists one minister isn't as important as getting X amount of back benches to push something and opposition TDs of all colours to support it. Most of the cabinet and the minister who holds the transport or whatever portfolio could be indifferent to the proposal as long as there was enough TDs in the background supporting it.

    Other lobbies do this, are the cycling groups doing it? (I know you can't speak for everybody, and I'm just asking out of interest)


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    #10
    Slideshowbob
    Registered Users Posts: 2,460 ✭✭✭Slideshowbob


    monument wrote: »
    Is it possible to stop councils, and state agencies such as the RPA and the NTA, from building useless or next to useless cycle lanes?

    While you may get bits of ok sections on newer routes, there's no sign of standards improving much overall. Can anything be done?

    Take a court case on personal rights / health and safety?!?


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    #11
    monument
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    Slideshowbob wrote: »
    monument wrote: »
    Is it possible to stop councils, and state agencies such as the RPA and the NTA, from building useless or next to useless cycle lanes?

    While you may get bits of ok sections on newer routes, there's no sign of standards improving much overall. Can anything be done?

    Take a court case on personal rights / health and safety?!?

    Not sure on what legal grounds anybody could take a court case.

    But somebody could make a complaint to http://www.ombudsman.gov.ie/ -- but would have to be very detailed and detail with proof how the problems are systematic. The councils would have all sorts of excuses and the ombudsman may not have the expertises to deal with such a case.


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    #12
    FatSh!te
    Registered Users Posts: 106 ✭✭FatSh!te


    galwaycyclist wrote: »
    Stopping them from below
    The consultant engineers are not getting paid to come up with good designs but to help the officials push their personally preferred options through the approval process. That is just how the power dynamics work at local authority level.

    This is often true. Sometimes there can be reasons for it, for instance larger schemes take many years to come to fruition (i.e. design and actual construction), and can spend many years as the sole responsibility of the LA in terms of pre planning and acquiring land before they appoint a consultant to take the detail of the scheme forward. The consultant engineer is then left with any number of issues which should have been rectified earlier and adversely affect the design of decent cycling facilities on a new scheme.

    I think this highlights another avenue which could be used - addressing the education and knowledge of the designer/engineers (both consultants and LA) about good design for both cyclists and pedestrians, and the various issues they should keep in mind when taking a old or new scheme forward. The various professional bodies such as the IEI or ACEI could be areas too target for this, not sure how to target engineers/urban designers within LA's.

    I know some courses have been run within IEI for the Smarter Travel programme, which have been reasonable, but I'm sure there could be more done.


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    #13
    petethedrummer
    Registered Users Posts: 7,604 ✭✭✭petethedrummer


    monument wrote: »
    Not sure on what legal grounds anybody could take a court case.
    If involved in an accident on one of these ambiguous footpath/cycletrack things, could you take a case with the council?

    Plenty of people sue for falling over on footpaths. Dunno how successful they are these days though.


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    #14
    torturedsoul
    Registered Users Posts: 199 ✭✭torturedsoul


    If they were kept clean and free of debris, maybe I would consider using them. Avoiding broken glass and big rocks on my road bike can cause you to swerve dangerously. This has a knock on affect for all road users.

    I don't think i need to spell that out.

    I particularly enjoy the cycle lanes that suddenly End!


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    #15
    galwaycyclist
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,912 ✭✭✭galwaycyclist


    monument wrote: »
    Say, for example, to get in a positive but complicated law change for cyclists one minister isn't as important as getting X amount of back benches to push something and opposition TDs of all colours to support it. Most of the cabinet and the minister who holds the transport or whatever portfolio could be indifferent to the proposal as long as there was enough TDs in the background supporting it.

    Other lobbies do this, are the cycling groups doing it? (I know you can't speak for everybody, and I'm just asking out of interest)

    Arguably out of scope for the thread but yes we do. The most recent attempt was during the Road Traffic leglislation designed to permit privately operated speed cameras. The amendment we sought was to permit local authorities to operate their own speed cameras. This would not have given them an enforcement role but would have empowered them to gather evidence that could be given to the Garda if necessary.

    I believe that we had sufficient cross party support on the Dail transport committee to get this in but it was shot down by the DoT on, what I believe, was a spurious technicality.

    The problem is that to argue those points within the scope of the decision making cycle requires you to have either full time staff or an awful lot of well-informed volunteers with lots of free time. You need people who can pick up the phone at any time during working hours or get to Dublin for a meeting at short notice. In Ireland, at this time there is no-one whose full time job is to act as an independent advocate on behalf of cycling.

    This does not make that kind of lobbying impossible - just more challenging. It needs a large'ish team of volunteers widely spread through the constituencies and who, more importantly, are prepared to set aside any personal party political views, and talk to all their local TDs.


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    #16
    clonmahon
    Registered Users Posts: 261 ✭✭clonmahon


    galwaycyclist wrote: »
    You can try lobbying the council officials directly but bear in mind that you are dealing with people who cannot be fired and who therefore have no incentive to negotiate with you. Indeed in many cases they will deem it personally offensive that you even question their designs.

    This rings a bell alright, more than 20 years ago I involved in a voluntary organisation (nothing to do with cycling) and had occasion to meet with local government officials in an Irish city. Exactly as you say, when we questioned their ideas and plans, they took it personal and the meeting ended on very bad terms.

    We won't tolerate dissent from the mainstream in this country and those lobbying for better cycling facilities will be seen as some kind of ungrateful, subversives.


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    #17
    Lawr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 157 ✭✭Lawr


    seve65 wrote: »
    there are lots of cycle lanes in France where that is precisely what they do.

    On road! I understand that people advocating off-road cycle lanes feel they are advocating a safer way to travel, but its effect is just the opposite. Cycle lanes and paths have given motorists an excuse to unleash hostility on cyclists who use the road. The cycle paths/lanes are confusing the status of the bicycle. Legally, it is still designated a road vehicle. The laws that make it mandatory that cyclists use cycle lanes/paths if available confuses that status. I had a driver scream at me to get on the cycle lane the other day. This is not the first time this has happened. The cycle lane he was talking about could only be accessed if I had been coming from a completely different direction. The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago going to work. There was a cycle lane--then there wasn't. There was a cycle lane--gone again. Can I get onto the road between patches of cycle lane?

    And I too get more flats on cycle lanes than anywhere else.


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