Benefits of specialised infrastructure: chances of consensus?

enas wrote: »

I don't think attack is the right word, but he is of the opinion that the Hierarchy wasn't an effective tool. Regardless of whether you agree with that, I think it makes sense that when something doesn't yield the desired results in almost 20 years, other people start thinking about different methods.

That is at face value a valid observation but I think there is a duty to fully examine why a method "didn't work" before rejecting it or its advocates.

Also, and this may not be obvious, it may be that it did work all along - given the limitations on what was possible. It may be that having the framework provided by "the hierarchy" allowed the cycling lobby to limit, to a lesser or greater extent, the damage being done by the car lobby.

Yes the established cycle campaigners delivered few cycling utopias but it may be that things would have been much much worse without them.

All speculation obviously.

My objections with hierarchy is that it's been used in a wrong way by both sides. Many campaigners would systematically refer to it as an argument against cycle tracks, creating a false opposition between traffic speed reduction and cycle tracks (both are needed on different types of streets).

Hmmm, I think we need to consider the operating environment. Why would there be any need to oppose cycle tracks?

To answer that question, I have sat in a planning hearing where roads engineers quite openly stated that their cycle track designs would require cyclists to get off and walk at every junction. These cycle tracks had nothing to do with facilitating cyclists.

With respect the cycle campaigners are dealing with an institutional environment that were extreme promoters of car supremacy sometimes to a truly comic level.

The polarisation is a product of the political and institutional environment rather than the fault of frameworks like the hierarchy of provision.

Other analytical tools and frameworks fall victim to the same motives. In one case Galway City Council produced a interpretation of "Link and Place" analysis that allowed them to claim it meant they could de-prioritise walking and cycling on main roads. (see also last sentence below)

Many authorities used it as a moral justification for putting shared used footpaths all over the place.

OK could you expand on what you mean by that a bit? I am aware that many authorities try to turn the hierarchy on its head. But that is not the fault of the framework. It simply reflects the fact that local authority officials operate outside any real control by central government. Put simply they can say or do what they like and nobody in "the Department" in Kildare street is going to do a thing about it (except maybe ask for copies of any invoices)

enas wrote: »

Thanks for your input, I'll try to give a general reply.



I understand your point. And I think you're quite likely guessing correctly. My overall point is that, hopefully, we're reaching a higher level of maturity regarding those questions, and in this context the Hierarchy starts to feel a bit outdated. Maybe I'm too optimistic.

Hmm no I agree that we are reaching a higher level of maturity. That is demonstrated by an increasing recognition that car promotion was the central problem. This means that in contrast, the Hierarchy of Provision becomes increasingly applicable. The change in social attitudes to cars makes the bloggers who reject the hierarchy something of a throwback to the dark ages where it was impossible to imagine a different vision.

I think I'm repeating myself, but I think that the target of campaigners is moving or should be moving. For many years, there was no intention to increase cycling numbers, quite the opposite, cyclists were perceived as an annoyance to get rid of. In that context, campaigners couldn't even dream of increasing cycling numbers, and were merely lobbying for the interests of the existing tiny minority willing to cycle in hostile conditions (as in, authorities were hostile to cycling, I don't mean to "dangerise" cycling). In that context, it was absolutely vital to oppose to the kind of "facilities" that required cyclists to stop at every minor junction, to mention one example.

With regret this feels like a straw man argument. Who says we haven't been trying to increase cycling participation? That is the whole purpose of the hierarchy. It is to increase cycling participation but by doing so in a morally defensible manner. You can't just tell everyone to cycle and then dump them into a traffic situation that is designed, and policed, in a manner that is inherently hostile to vulnerable road users. That includes building little sections of "Dutch" cycle facilities that dump people back into Irish traffic.

So yes in some cases it meant promoting an approach intended, as a first goal, to improve conditions for confident cyclists - albeit that these "improved" conditions would not be acceptable to less confident cyclists. That doesn't mean anyone was "abandoning" the less confident. What it means is a phased approach where the needs of one group are met as part of a strategy with the end goal of improving conditions for all.

Today, there is an official, and I believe at least partly genuine desire to increase cycling modal share, but authorities and governments don't always know how to achieve this. Old habits die hard, and the effect of years of car centric planning can't be cancelled overnight. So campaigners now have an entirely different objective, and can provide guidance in this direction. And when it comes to increasing cycling modal share, I think it's indisputable that we should only concentrate on methods with a proven track record of attracting new cyclists. And unless I'm missing something obvious, only Dutch policies provide such a result.

What makes you think we haven't been pursuing Dutch policies? Who do you think we have been watching?

Let us propose a hypothetical situation. Due to an unhappy accident at an annual conference, the roads departments of all Irish local authorities get wiped out overnight. The Netherlands government in an act of solidarity send all their roads administration staff to Ireland. These people inherit a roads system that has been mismanaged for decades. They inherit towns where developments less than twenty years old were "planned" exclusively around access by car. These towns are "policed" not by Dutch police with a sense if duty towards the community but by Irish garda who consider cars to be the "community".

If these people had to come up with a framework to fix the situation on a phased basis making the best use of available resources - what do you think that framework would look like?

I already have an answer to that question.

enas wrote: »

It has become a much more explicitly stated objective in recent times than it was in the past, hasn't it? For the reasons you just mentioned in the previous quote. I never pretended campaigners were not aware of Dutch policies before.

And to be fair the Dutch are just one model in the list of possible models. My own view would tend towards seeing the German experience as mapping more directly to our own.

Sorry, genuine question, but I don't see how the hierarchy, for I assume that's what you're referring to, leads to Dutch-style planning. Unless I misunderstand something, it assumes an order of preference between choices (traffic reduction/calming over segragation, to simplify), when both are needed in different place and in a complementary way. The closest thing to the hierarchy there is in CROW manual is this, which states exactly that.

OK what do we mean by Dutch-style planning?

I would see the Hierarchy firstly as means for identifying priorities of action on particular routes. And yes it is not likely to result in "ideal" cycling facilities. But that is not where we are in our development. The point being that "perfection" is often the enemy of "good enough". More importantly, "perfection" is often used as a smokescreen to avoid solving real problems. An example would be constructing cycle facilities on a road with a series of hostile roundabouts but doing nothing about the roundabouts. The end result is something that is still not suitable for "potential" cyclists and may be worse for for confident cyclists.

tomasrojo wrote: »

Are roundabouts the single biggest impediment to changing roads to be less hostile to people on bikes? People on foot too, now I think about it. They always put the pedestrian crossings at the mouth of the roundabout, which is really tricky in terms of guessing when the mostly non-signalling motorists are leaving the roundabout, and where the motorists are only concentrating on avoiding hitting or being hit by motorised traffic.

(Serious question. We really have built a LOT of them. My father was a civil engineer, and he really loved roundabouts when he was working. Thought they were a neat, cost-effective way to keep traffic moving. Even was somewhat proud of our country being sort of a world leader in the design and technology of signalised roundabouts, while perfectly aware they're only built when there isn't enough money to do a junction properly.)

Firstly apologies life intervened last week and stuff like Boards had to get dropped for while.

There are civil engineers in my family as well so these discussions can be difficult. Indeed some of what follows I never discuss in some circles because it is not likely to serve any useful purpose.

I would argue that roundabouts are a "symptom" or "indicator" of the single biggest "impediment" to changing roads to be less hostile to people on bikes.

The actual main "impediment" is the attitudes and professional culture among the roads engineering profession and the senior officials who commission most of their work. The central problem we have with our roads engineers, is that they see their jobs as being to find "neat, cost-effective way(s) to keep traffic moving." In this regard they view "traffic" as exclusively motorised vehicles.

This is not just an Irish problem but is likely an issue throughout the english speaking world but particularly ex-British locations. The Irish roads engineering profession sees itself self-consciously as an extension of British practice and this is one area of Irish life where, arguably, the British never left. Branches of British consultancies are involved in many Irish road design contracts.

So the problem we have is that we have engineers who favour concepts of "flow" and "level of service" for motor vehicles over all other considerations. That is to say they choose not to recognise any "level of service" obligations towards cyclists or pedestrians. The result is roads infrastructure that systematically devalues other forms of transport such as walking or cycling. In the case of some designs - such as Irish roundabouts - I would argue that cyclists and walkers were also systematically endangered.

Analysing how this could happen might be a topic that could get a bit fraught. Is it that they are in a state of personal denial about what they were doing? Is that they espoused some concept of "manifest destiny" or "white mans burden". Within this did cyclists and pedestrians represent something akin to noble savages whose elimination was an unfortunate or unavoidable outcome of the necessary moves to "improve" our roads for other purposes? Or maybe it was just that, put simply, cyclists and pedestrians are considered "somebody else's problem"?

Either way, regardless of origins, it is my view that these cultural attitudes represent the primary impediment to changing the roads. And also to point out what should be obvious, such attitudes also make it pointless to talk about throwing money at Irish (or UK) engineers for "Dutch style" cycle facilities. If you throw money for cycle facilities at engineers with such attitudes then they will use that money as they have always done. That being to find "neat, cost-effective way(s) to keep traffic moving." You end up with cycle facilities intended first and foremost to keep traffic moving. This has already happened with pedestrian facilities in front of everybody's eyes. As I asked before, where are the zebra crossings? Who has been rearranging our roads so that priority is systematically removed from pedestrians to give it to cars? What do we really expect if we give the same people money for cycle facilities?

And to further complicate things what are we to do if our police force has exactly the same culture and attitudes? We cannot consider engineering as something that is completely separate from policing.

Edit: To be fair to roads engineers I should point out that, in Ireland, their primary customers are local authority officials. I would argue that Irish local authority officials operate outside of any effective control by the Department of Transport, notwithstanding that the money they spend often comes from the department. The same factor also allows them to evade supervision by local councillors.

2nd Edit I should also point out that in some cases the same local authority officials above may also have an income stream that comes directly from charging for car parking. No cars, no money.

monument wrote: »

Should these people be mixing with mainline motorised traffic?
<snip>

No, do I feel a straw man coming on?

So if you don't want to mix those type of cyclists with heavy traffic at the most problematic of junctions then why advocate an approach based on framework that allows county council engineers to do exactly that?

Edit and to point out the obvious the Hierarchy is designed to prevent cyclists getting dumped into to traffic situations they cant cope with.

monument wrote: »

Ireland did by no means "go Dutch", going Dutch without giving cycling clear priority over side roads, general and clear priority on road puts etc in urban areas, and short traffic light cycle times etc etc is not going Dutch at all. You can't go Dutch when disregarding key principals.

To be clear: I was mainly talking about the miss-use of the Hierarchy of Solutions to advocate no segregation, equally you as another poster pointed out it can be misused to put in shares footpaths etc.

The point is that contrary to what some might claim, the UK never really went "Hierarchy of Solutions" either

And Ireland absolutely did go "Dutch". A copy of Dutch guidance was brought in. I still have a copy somewhere, complete with all the Dutch designs, turning pockets, elephants footprint road markings, bicycle traffic lights etc. Then something magic happened to it after the Irish roads engineers got hold of it and we ended up where we are now.

The same thing happened after UK roads engineers got hold of the "Hierarchy of Solutions". There was a magical transformation and the UK ended up with something completely different than the original vision.

Now if there are people who have a different vision for how we should do things, and who want to be taken seriously, then with respect, they need to explain how this "magic" happens and what they are going to do about it.