Investigating Cycle Route Preferences in the Greater Dublin Area

seamus

shotamoose wrote: »

I think when you're confronted with evidence like this study provides AND you look at what the countries that have actually suceeded in getting lots of people cycling have done, the conclusion that we need much more segregated infrastructure is inescapable.

Actually before you can jump to that conclusion, you need to answer the chicken-and-egg question.

Where a country has a high cycling rate, did the cyclists appear first, or did the infrastructure appear first?

That is, did higher rates of cycling cause a demand for improved infrastructure? If that's the case, then we can't necessarily assume that improved infrastructure will make a significant change to cyclist numbers.

The study provides evidence of what non-cyclists think they want.

Apple are a company reknowned for bringing groundbreaking concepts to market and actually creating a market for them. Do you know that they don't use customer focus groups when developing a new product? They don't ask people what they want, because people don't really know what they want.

You have indicated the correct way of going about this though - we need to look at other countries with similar population patterns. We need to look at those where cycling is big and where cycling is not, to copy the initiatives which worked and avoid the mistakes which didn't.

tomasrojo

I presume cyclist.ie's opposition to moving towards more segregation is deeply rooted in how counterproductive such infrastructure has been in Ireland to date. Remember, we've have about two decades of attempts at segregated infrastructure here, and seen cyclist numbers fall like a stone. It neither drew in new cyclists, nor made existing cyclists happy. It did enforce the notion that certain roads were now off-limits to cyclists.

Of course, people are calling for good-quality segregated infrastructure, but time and again the authorities here have pointed out that their designs meet the requirements in their own design rule book. And the new cycle lane manual is full of rubbish designs, from what I've heard here. So guess what we're probably going to get?

On the other hand, I'll be very interested to see how the Grand Canal route works out, since it's the only thing comparable to Dutch infrastructure we've seen in this country (in that it's segregated from motorised traffic AND pedestrians, and has its own traffic-light system). It MIGHT lead to interesting things, and I'm keeping an open mind about it.

EDIT: In fact, I'm quite excited about it, though I'm also prepared to be let down.

tomasrojo

shotamoose wrote: »

Sorry one more thing.

I've been cycling for years, I'm very skilled and confident at this point, and I still find traffic flying past me at close range extremely intimidating.

Yes, it's a very fair point. And some very experienced cyclists are hurt by close passes that go wrong.

tomasrojo

seamus wrote: »

Actually before you can jump to that conclusion, you need to answer the chicken-and-egg question.

Where a country has a high cycling rate, did the cyclists appear first, or did the infrastructure appear first?

The Netherlands and Denmark have had very high levels of cycling for decades. The large investment in infrastructure came much later. However, it's arguable that the infrastructure kept cycling numbers up when numbers were falling elsewhere.

There is a lot more than infrastructure to the Dutch and Danish models, as I understand them. There are neighbourhoods where cars can only proceed at walking pace, for example, and plenty of other streets with very low speed limits. There is also a presumption of liability that falls on the user of a motorised vehicle in the event of a collision (I'm not sure what effect that has had though).

BostonB

seamus wrote: »

...Basic training courses will also give people the confidence to get out on a bike into traffic. Imagine coming from a place where you haven't cycled in 20 years. In order to get started, you basically have to dive in and have cars flying past you and overtaking you while you're still getting to grips with the basic controls of the bike. I can see how that would be extremely intimidating.

I did exactly that about 3yrs ago. The biggest intimidation (other than wimping out) was that very poor design of junctions and roads. Also much of the one way system, is very cyclist unfriendly. Route finding around Dublin can be a problem. Also the speed of traffic, especially outside of peak, as speed limit enforcement is non existent.

Also the road design, layout for cyclists, cycle lanes is incoherent gibberish. For example on my local road, theres about 5 roundabouts, each one has completely different rules/design for cyclists all new and expensively built.

How are drivers are cyclists meant to know where to be on the road, when the people designing the roads, are utterly inconsistent at every junction.

Mind you these are the same people that spent millions widening our local estates and roads for a express bus lane, where none was needed, only to force all traffic into one lane, defeating the whole purpose of the project.

You couldn't make it up.

shotamoose

seamus wrote: »

Actually before you can jump to that conclusion, you need to answer the chicken-and-egg question.

Where a country has a high cycling rate, did the cyclists appear first, or did the infrastructure appear first?

That is, did higher rates of cycling cause a demand for improved infrastructure? If that's the case, then we can't necessarily assume that improved infrastructure will make a significant change to cyclist numbers.

The Dutch have had segregated cycle infrastructure since the early 20th century - info here. No doubt this was in large part due to demands from cyclists at the time, but it did ensure that cycling in Holland grew and when car ownership soared in the latter 20th century that cycling rates did not plummet as far as they did in other countries.

More recently you've got cities like Copenhagen and (very recently) Seville which pro-actively tried to encourage cycling with high quality, separate infrastructure, and have seen big increases as a result.

But I do agree with you that there is a kind of chicken and egg problem at work, in that it is hard to get good provision for cyclists when there are relatively few of them about. In that sense the 'soft' measures like 30km/h zones etc can help a bit if they help build the constituency of cyclists. In London the congestion charge performed a similar role. But I think it's even more important to grab every opportunity that comes along to make the case for high-quality infrastructure in order to attract non-cyclists, which is why I find the cyclists.ie attack on this new report so baffling.

tomasrojo

shotamoose wrote: »

The Dutch have had segregated cycle infrastructure since the early 20th century - info here.

My understanding is that the Netherlands had some infrastructure at the start of the twentieth century, but it was hardly a salient feature of Dutch life the way it is now. The real increase in cycling infrastructure was about the 60s and 70s.

shotamoose wrote: »

More recently you've got cities like Copenhagen and (very recently) Seville which pro-actively tried to encourage cycling with high quality, separate infrastructure, and have seen big increases as a result.

Copenhagen had very high rates of cycling before that point (you can see clips from, I think, the 50s on copenhagenize.com, and they are cycling on the road. And Copenhagen didn't see a huge increase; what happened is that it didn't see an enormous drop. There is a difference. The same goes for the Netherlands.

I haven't read anything about Seville.

tomasrojo

The Netherlands also doesn't pursue segregated infrastructure everywhere. Smaller town just have 30km/h speed limits.

tomasrojo

I should make clear that I'm not arguing that segregated infrastructure can't increase the number of cyclists. I just think it's misleading to claim that Denmark and the Netherlands saw a huge increase in cyclists after infrastructure was built. It's a big enough achievement not to have seen numbers fall.

EDIT: Certainly, neither country saw cycling at any stage drop below 10% of trips made by bicycle -- probably not even below 25-30%. We saw it drop below 3%

EDIT: This is about how things currently stand. I was a bit out for Denmark:




(From http://www.fietsberaad.nl/library/repository/bestanden/CyclingintheNetherlands2009.pdf)

monument

tomasrojo wrote: »

The Netherlands also doesn't pursue segregated infrastructure everywhere. Smaller town just have 30km/h speed limits.

In fairness, nobody is suggesting segregated infrastructure everywhere. The people suggesting infrastructure also agree with many of the measures Cyclists.ie are suggesting.

I'm still on the fence btw

tomasrojo

I was just trying to find some figures for number of trips made by bike over the decades of the twentieth century. This is an interesting document:
http://www.fietsberaad.nl/library/repository/bestanden/CyclingintheNetherlands2009.pdf

There is a good graph in there, which I'll excerpt now.

Blowfish

shotamoose wrote: »

Side-streets aren't really the issue. It's the main connecting traffic-heavy roads that most people won't cycle on. Apart from pricing traffic off the roads, the best way to make them safe and appealing to people who don't currently cycle is separate infrastructure. It's a complete red herring to argue out that we can't do this on every road and therefore we shouldn't do it on any.

Not true. Here's the increase in collision risk while on an off road cycle lane:

Chips Lovell

It all makes for kind of depressing reading.

When I saw the mockups of junction designs posted by monument, my immediate reaction was that's all when and good provided I'm not obliged to use them. But on reflection, that's a side issue. If I'm cycling on the road, it isn't going to matter much whether a cycle lane is mandatory or non-mandatory, there's always going to be some clown who will give you grief for not using it.

I was going to speculate that perhaps the preference for segregated facilities was given without much thought on the part of the respondents, but it seems from Doctor Bob's post that they were actually shown mock-ups of such facilities. How people can assume that cycling facilities that involve you jumping on and off shared surfaces at junctions makes things safer is beyond me.

tomasrojo

Here's that graph.



You can see that certain countries arrested the precipitous decline in cycling, and they're the ones you'd expect. But the gains since are really quite modest, and the countries that had very high levels to begin with continue to have relatively high levels.

The exception (and it might well reflect what happened in Dublin) is Manchester, which had quite modest levels and now has negligible.

I suppose the point I'm fumbling towards is that there may be a historical point where pro-cycling interventions (soft or infrastructure) have the most effect. After that, it takes generations to get back, if you even can, because you need a critical mass of cyclists to help out other cyclists and to normalise the activity. (The term in ecology is the minimum viable population; not sure what it is in sociology).



(Another clear point from the graph is that WWII really hampered sampling.)

galwaycyclist

So what the Amsterdam numbers appear to show is that they never dropped below a modal share of 25% and that they were able to grow that by about a third give or take.

We are looking at trying to grow cycling by a multiple of about five and doing this with a fraction of the resources available to the Dutch. We can do it but it will require a few reality checks on the way.

monument

Blowfish wrote: »

Not true. Here's the increase in collision risk while on an off road cycle lane:

Using the designs shown on that image, I'm surprised. Very poorly designed.

tomasrojo wrote: »

I suppose the point I'm fumbling towards is that there may be a historical point where pro-cycling interventions (soft or infrastructure) have the most effect. After that, it takes generations to get back, if you even can, because you need a critical mass of cyclists to help out other cyclists and to normalise the activity. (The term in ecology is the minimum viable population; not sure what it is in sociology).

There are also accelerants which we have access to *if* we choice to use them or continue to do so. The bike to work scheme is a good one, but with Dublin Bikes could you imagine the potential of an expanded network in Dublin and other cities on the normalisation of cycling and just getting bums on saddles and bikes on the roads?

Also, historical points -- maybe not as defined as the coming of the car -- can include downturns and slower burning evens like the increasing cost of oil impact on the cost of car and public transport use.

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

When I saw the mockups of junction designs posted by monument, my immediate reaction was that's all when and good provided I'm not obliged to use them. But on reflection, that's a side issue. If I'm cycling on the road, it isn't going to matter much whether a cycle lane is mandatory or non-mandatory, there's always going to be some clown who will give you grief for not using it.

That's why I would contend that if segregated designs are to be use that they should be be of very high quality.

Copenhagen is now looking at routes for longer distance commuters -- we should be doing that from the start. If segregation is to take place on any main route (as opposed to parallel route or using canals and parks etc), it should be designed for all types of cyclists.

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

I was going to speculate that perhaps the preference for segregated facilities was given without much thought on the part of the respondents, but it seems from Doctor Bob's post that they were actually shown mock-ups of such facilities. How people can assume that cycling facilities that involve you jumping on and off shared surfaces at junctions makes things safer is beyond me.

This is what respondents were shown (larger images in the PDF on the opening post):




Isn't the off road cycle track is fairly idealistic? But then again I'm sure people would react quite well to an image of the city section of the canal route or even the outer section without the kissing gates...

galwaycyclist

HivemindXX wrote: »

If a majority of people said yes would make it a good idea to have motorcycle paths alongside the roads similar to the cycle paths we currently have?

This comment leads to an important point. The Dutch cycle paths were originally intended for use by mopeds as well as cyclists. Many probably still are. When the Dutch system was being built the designers were catering for 25% of the existing vehicles (cyclists) plus some motorised traffic capable of higher speeds.

The enthusiasts for this latest piece of "research" apparently feel that it justifies ignoring the existing population of cyclists as design users in favour of a design user who is a beginner cyclist.

What standard of provision might we expect from the traffic engineering community when this is their design user and when they are also being told to.disregard the needs of existing cyclists?

Iwannahurl

galwaycyclist wrote: »

This comment leads to an important point. The Dutch cycle paths were originally intended for use by mopeds as well as cyclists. Many probably still are. When the Dutch system was being built the designers were catering for 25% of the existing vehicles (cyclists) plus some motorised traffic capable of higher speeds.

The enthusiasts for this latest piece of "research" apparently feel that it justifies ignoring the existing population of cyclists as design users in favour of a design user who.is a beginner cyclist.

What standard of provision might we expect from the traffic engineering community when this is their design user and when they are also being told to.disregard the needs of existing cyclists?

A challenging and thought-proving perspective.

In my experience of the Dutch situation (which included cycling with children) the cycle paths were indeed open to mopeds. Maybe Dutch cyclists are used to it or even happy with it, but I found it very annoying. I even felt some of the moped driving was dangerous: they drove way too fast, and on more that one occasion we were 'buzzed' by a moped rider deliberately passing by at speed.

Putting the word "research" in those double quotes is a bit unfair, IMO. If any other group did a similar poll, even one which didn't portray idealised (and possibly in the Irish context mostly unattainable) cycle facilities, you'd still find a sizeable proportion of those polled expressing a desire for segregation.

The problem of course is that the Dutch mean business whereas the Irish (roads engineers and policy makers) mean business as usual.

Experienced cyclists, especially those of the campaigning variety, have been pedalling away like Trojans for years on Irish roads. They have kept the faith, so to speak, fighting the good fight while Government and Local Authorities pretend to cater for their needs while literally cementing our car culture into place.

Irish cycle facilities, while they have evolved to some extent, are still in the Dark Ages compared to what the Dutch and Danish take for granted. But Irish policy makers and roads engineers believe, or pretend they believe, that they are catering for cyclists by providing bits and pieces of Noddy-level tokenistic facilities here and there. The deliberate granting of priority to motorised traffic where such facilities cross a road is evidence that there was never any intention to improve the level of service for experienced commuter cyclists. Self-respecting experienced cycists are hardly likely to leave the road in order to degrade and discommode themselves on such inferior infrastructure. Of course such cyclists are then open to abuse for being ungrateful, uncooperative and possibly even unlawful.

Are they being "told" to disregard the needs of existing cyclists though? AFAIK, the National Cycle Policy Framework, as well as adopting the Hierarchy of Provision, identifies different categories of cyclist and measures to suit them.

Government and local authorities must be getting regular representations from all sorts of people who (think they) want more of the kind of cycle facilities that are on offer. Maybe, like many motorists, many cyclists don't really think about the technicalities of what they're driving on. They know when something is wrong, but they don't necessarily know whether or why something may be severely sub-optimal. So the nature and extent of the demand from cyclists may be such that Irish roads engineers and policy makers know that they can get away with providing the Noddy-level tokenistic stuff.

As Harold Lasswell said, politics is who gets what, when and how. Cyclists constitute 3-4% of commuters, so their power is correspondingly small (despite the rise of the sustainability and Smarter Travel concepts). Let's say half of current cyclists and three-quarters of would-be cylists say they want more segregation. The remaining proportion of cyclists, however vociferous and knowledgeable about the real issues, therefore represent just a tiny minority of all commuters, the vast majority of whom are car drivers of course.

The design cyclist for the engineers may be a beginner, but what is the design cyclist for the lobby groups? There is a gap in the market there, I feel.

tomasrojo

Iwannahurl wrote: »

In my experience of the Dutch situation (which included cycling with children) the cycle paths were indeed open to mopeds. Maybe Dutch cyclists are used to it or even happy with it, but I found it very annoying. I even felt some of the moped driving was dangerous: they drove way too fast, and on more that one occasion we were 'buzzed' by a moped rider deliberately passing by at speed.

This was somewhat my experience too. I only ever did one day's cycling in the Netherlands, in Leiden and the surrounding countryside, and my Dutch friend whom I was visiting in Leiden had a near miss with a moped coming round a corner at high speed. He was going so fast he ended up on her side of the lane.

Still, the infrastructure was stress-free and usable. Not our muck. The road looked pretty well laid-out too with quite calm traffic, and I'd have been quite happy to use that either.

tomasrojo

I think as well that a very important component of the Dutch experience is mostly forgotten with all the emphasis on their high-quality infrastructure; public transport really facilitates cyclists there, which means that even very long journeys often begin with a bike trip.

We made a start with allowing bikes on the Iarnród Eireann off-peak services, but it's nothing compared to what the Dutch provide.

tomasrojo

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Putting the word "research" in those double quotes is a bit unfair, IMO. If any other group did a similar poll, even one which didn't portray idealised (and possibly in the Irish context mostly unattainable) cycle facilities, you'd still find a sizeable proportion of those polled expressing a desire for segregation.

I think so too. It's a consistent feature of such polls, and it's what non-cyclists tell me all the time when they discuss me cycling to work; if there were only a cycle lane on my way to work, I'd cycle, they say. When I point out that there is one, the reason they don't is suddenly the weather.

However, as I said, I'm very interested to see how the Grand Canal route works out. It appears to have some dodgy bits, but it is very much more like quality infrastructure than anything done in the country previously, as far as I know. It may reveal a latent demand on that route.

Iwannahurl wrote: »

The remaining proportion of cyclists, however vociferous and knowledgeable about the real issues, therefore represent just a tiny minority of all commuters, the vast majority of whom are car drivers of course.

This is the general impression (that the vast majority of commuters are in cars), but it's not the case for Dublin city centre, where over 50% of commuters are in public transport, but as you look at places of work further out into the suburbs, dependency on the car increases hugely. You can see it in Figure 3 here:
http://tinyurl.com/3caw9ho
(Word document at ucd.ie)

And as far as I know most short journeys within the city centre are done on foot.

(Not directly relevant to this thread, but I thought it was interesting.)

Iwannahurl

tomasrojo wrote: »

This was somewhat my experience too. I only ever did one day's cycling in the Netherlands, in Leiden and the surrounding countryside, and my Dutch friend whom I was visiting in Leiden had a near miss with a moped coming round a corner at high speed. He was going so fast he ended up on her side of the lane.

Still, the infrastructure was stress-free and usable. Not our muck. The road looked pretty well laid-out too with quite calm traffic, and I'd have been quite happy to use that either.

Ah, but you didn't, did you?

tomasrojo

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Ah, but you didn't, did you?

It's illegal.

EDIT: But I see your point. I didn't feel as aggrieved at not being able to use the road as I would here. Also, my Dutch companion might have wondered what I was up to, abandoning our companionable cycle.

Iwannahurl

tomasrojo wrote: »

I think so too. It's a consistent feature of such polls, and it's what non-cyclists tell me all the time when they discuss me cycling to work; if there were only a cycle lane on my way to work, I'd cycle, they say. When I point out that there is one, the reason they don't is suddenly the weather.

This is the general impression (that the vast majority of commuters are in cars), but it's not the case for Dublin city centre, where over 50% of commuters are in public transport, but as you look at places of work further out into the suburbs, dependency on the car increases hugely. You can see it in Figure 3 here:
http://tinyurl.com/3caw9ho
(Word document at ucd.ie)

And as far as I know most short journeys within the city centre are done on foot.

(Not directly relevant to this thread, but I thought it was interesting.)

My experience too: "reasons" nearly always turn out to be excuses after a little probing.

With regard to the numbers, I was thinking of the national figure (3%?) but of course you're right. There's a much higher proportion of non car users in urban centres.

The car lobby is much more powerful, however, due to sheer weight of numbers and higher status.

What I was getting at, though, is the possibility that there is a current and potential cycling constituency (and hence political lobby group) that may not have an organised voice.

However, I accept that it is very difficult to campaign on behalf of people who claim to have good reasons not to cycle, when in fact they are just giving excuses. Not even Enda Kenny can do anything about the weather.

tomasrojo

There must be quite a lot of city centre-based public transport users who might be amenable to cycling, even just when the weather is fine. Public transport is rather slow compared to cycling over shorter distances. And rather expensive when you do it everyday.