Benefits of specialised infrastructure: chances of consensus?

galwaycyclist

enas wrote: »

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 I should have responded on this as well this is what you linked from Dutch guidance (CROW).



Ok if someone were to put forward something like this as a framework for improving Irish roads as a cycling environment, then I would characterise this as misguided, cynical and possibly corrupt.

On face value it simply ignores where we are in this country. It apparently ignores key issues. Are there any roundabouts? Are there any slip roads or merge tapers? What are any t-junctions like? What are the kerb radii or entry half widths like? What are the sight envelopes? What are turning speeds like?

Something like this would simply give local authority engineers an excuse to divert funds into roadside cycle facilities while doing nothing to fix serious and long recognised infrastructural deficiencies.

This could be a manifesto for business as usual: "roads that are inherently hostile to cycling but now with added cycle facilities"

tomasrojo

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.)

enas

galwaycyclist wrote: »

On face value it simply ignores where we are in this country. It apparently ignores key issues. Are there any roundabouts? Are there any slip roads or merge tapers? What are any t-junctions like? What are the kerb radii or entry half widths like? What are the sight envelopes? What are turning speeds like?

The point is that this diagram is hardly given any emphasis in the Dutch manuals. It surely doesn't serve as a design guideline. But the issues you're raising tend to be well understood and dealt with in the Netherlands (as you obviously know it).

The reason I was quoting this is that you were suggesting (unless I misunderstood) the Hierarchy has been inspired by CROW, and I don't see how. This diagram is the closest thing I can find to the hierarchy, yet it says something completely different. Just one example: it says it's not enough to have a 30km/h speed limit to mix cyclists and cars, you also need to have a less than 2500 PCU/hr traffic. Only then it's OK to mix cars and cyclists. That point so often gets forgotten when discussing about reduced speed limits.

How in practice a road is made to have this reduced amount of traffic is not said anywhere in this diagram, and is whole different matter (for one thing such roads should be closed to through traffic). And this is precisely what I mean by Dutch-style planning, to reply to an earlier question of yours (design road so as to reduce traffic where needed, properly separate cyclists where motorised traffic will concentrate, etc.).

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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.

What is there in the German experience that you think should serve as a model for Ireland to imitate? Why not copy the best, and settle for not even the second best?

galwaycyclist

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.

Carawaystick

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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.

They also operate outside of any local democratic control too. Co Managers and staff ignore elected reps a lot of the time

tomasrojo

Thanks for that, galwaycyclist. I have to say, my father has a completely different view of streets from mine, as apart from being a civil engineer by training, he drives everywhere. It's remarkable how differently he can see things.

Incidentally, Seville gets another mention in the media, (ht @dublincycling):

Such schemes [bike-share schemes and bikes lanes] can quickly convince more people to start pedalling. They are particularly popular with women, who transport planners say are more nervous than men about sharing roads with roaring traffic and typically make up less than a quarter of urban cyclists. In 2007-2010 the Spanish city of Seville built an 80km network of separated two-way bicycle lanes; the share of trips in the city that were by bicycle went from nearly zero to 7%. In Taipei few women cycled before its YouBike share scheme started in 2009; now they are half of the city’s cyclists.

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21663219-cities-are-starting-put-pedestrians-and-cyclists-motorists-makes-them?utm_content=bufferb8721&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer


Again, untrue things can get repeated endlessly by journalists, but I'd be interested to see any peer-reviewed studies of the Seville experience.

enas

galwaycyclist wrote: »

If you throw money for cycle facilities at engineers with such attitudes then they will use that money as they have always done.[...]

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.

You're right in many regards. I think we've already come to this conclusion in another discussion (possibly years ago), but to me this points to the necessity of stronger local government and local taxation. Those design decisions should only be made by democratically elected local representatives, and not administrative or technical staff. Those schemes should be entirely funded through local taxation, and nothing else. Local taxation should be paid by the same people who vote at local elections, and can be implemented on a cost neutral basis. I firmly believe this to be strongly connected with the issue at hand, but it's obviously a whole other level of discussion.

Bedshaped

enas wrote: »

You're right in many regards. I think we've already come to this conclusion in another discussion (possibly years ago), but to me this points to the necessity of stronger local government and local taxation. Those design decisions should only be made by democratically elected local representatives, and not administrative or technical staff. Those schemes should be entirely funded through local taxation, and nothing else. Local taxation should be paid by the same people who vote at local elections, and can be implemented on a cost neutral basis. I firmly believe this to be strongly connected with the issue at hand, but it's obviously a whole other level of discussion.

Funding should go where funding is needed. When you base local funding on local taxes you see exactly what I saw on my cycling trip through California. Money going to unnecessary places to make wealthy places look even more pristine and poorer places having little to no upkeep or maintenance.

If 100 people cycle through Ballymun and 10 people cycle through Ballsbridge every hour, Ballsbridge absolutely should not be more deserving of cycle infrastructure just because their revenue is higher.

tomasrojo

I assumed the bit about building infrastructure based on local taxes was more to do with not relying on revenue from parking.

I remember this conflict of interests being mentioned before in relation to Dublin City Council: the council really does want to see fewer cars, but they don't want to lose revenue from parking.

I assume if the space used for parking was reallocated for other purposes it could actually generate more revenue -- but maybe not for the council.

RainyDay

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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.

Just to be clear, the local authority may have an income stream from parking, not the officials. The officials get paid regardless of what happens with parking.

I know that local pay-and-display parking in suburbs tends to cost more than it brings in, given the cost of the terminals.

galwaycyclist

RainyDay wrote: »

Just to be clear, the local authority may have an income stream from parking, not the officials. The officials get paid regardless of what happens with parking..

Sure but it may be that they still view it as "their" money regardless of who it legally belongs to. Also cash from car parking is likely to viewed as having a higher "value" than other funds because it is not locked in to a particular purpose as in grant moneys tied to particular "schemes".

RainyDay

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Sure but it may be that they still view it as "their" money regardless of who it legally belongs to. Also cash from car parking is likely to viewed as having a higher "value" than other funds because it is not locked in to a particular purpose as in grant moneys tied to particular "schemes".

Honestly, I think you are overestimating the importance of this. Any money raised from car parking is a pittance in terms of the overall road budget. And it may well cost money instead of raising money in many situations.

tomasrojo

RainyDay wrote: »

Honestly, I think you are overestimating the importance of this. Any money raised from car parking is a pittance in terms of the overall road budget. And it may well cost money instead of raising money in many situations.

I think I read (think it might have been a Frank McDonald piece in the Irish Times) that Dublin City Council does get net positive revenue from car parking. I might be misremembering though.

From what I've read recently, I think that more revenue could be extracted from the land dedicated to parking if it were switched over to retail, restaurant or entertainment. That's the case in the USA, where there is enormous social pressure to provide free or below-cost parking, which is a subsidy for motorists that bakes in higher prices for everyone else for everything (Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking seems to be a key text in this area). May not be the case here, but I'm assuming it is, and that subsidised parking has similarly negative consequences.

And whatever about net revenue, I bet Dublin City Council is under enormous pressure to provide "reasonably priced" parking, which hampers any effort to free up urban space for other transport modes or land uses.

RainyDay

tomasrojo wrote: »

I think I read (think it might have been a Frank McDonald piece in the Irish Times) that Dublin City Council does get net positive revenue from car parking. I might be misremembering though.

You might be right. I was speaking in the context of pressure from residents to introduce pay-and-display parking in suburban areas. The income from such parking fees rarely covers the cost of the terminals.

tomasrojo wrote: »

And whatever about net revenue, I bet Dublin City Council is under enormous pressure to provide "reasonably priced" parking, which hampers any effort to free up urban space for other transport modes or land uses.

Yes, I'd have thought that this pressure was far more significant than the impact of any net income from parking on the local authority officials.

tomasrojo

A group of Irish councillors, campaigners, officials and engineers visited the Netherlands on a cycling study tour between September 15-18

http://irishcycle.com/2015/09/28/experience-from-the-netherlands-part-1-the-infrastructure-was-there-to-make-cycling-as-safe-and-pleasant-as-possible/
http://irishcycle.com/2015/09/29/dutch-cycling-notes-part-2-i-have-never-felt-as-relaxed-and-happy-cycling/

Seems relevant to this thread.
Overall, very positive experience, they say.

This bit in part two is interesting. The Dutch don't like to rely on legislation

Less reliance on legislation – and a recognition of the futility of enacting laws that are basically unenforceable

"Let's all be nice to each other"/equal respect campaigns seem to fall into that pointless category as well, as far as I can see.

enas

tomasrojo wrote: »

Seems relevant to this thread.
Overall, very positive experience, they say.

Sounds like good news, thanks!

On a note related to my last couple of posts, this post by Mark Treasure -- again -- is a good illustration of what Sustainable Safety is, and how it can lead to the removal of infrastructure, in order to achieve full separation of cycling and motorised traffic.

monument

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Ok I should have responded on this as well this is what you linked from Dutch guidance (CROW).



Ok if someone were to put forward something like this as a framework for improving Irish roads as a cycling environment, then I would characterise this as misguided, cynical and possibly corrupt.

On face value it simply ignores where we are in this country. It apparently ignores key issues. Are there any roundabouts? Are there any slip roads or merge tapers? What are any t-junctions like? What are the kerb radii or entry half widths like? What are the sight envelopes? What are turning speeds like?

Something like this would simply give local authority engineers an excuse to divert funds into roadside cycle facilities while doing nothing to fix serious and long recognised infrastructural deficiencies.

This could be a manifesto for business as usual: "roads that are inherently hostile to cycling but now with added cycle facilities"

Are there any roundabouts? Roundabout design is an issue which still needs sorting in Ireland but that would fill a thread of it's own. Quickly to say: Roundabout design can be cycling friendly.

But as for slip roads, kerb radii, turning speeds etc -- all of those are addressed in the Manual for Urban Roads and Streets.

I'll happily take and argue with you on misguided, and cynical... But you might want to be careful with the possibly corrupt bit

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Am I wrong in thinking that in the past Mr. Treasure and his associates were happy to attack established cycle campaigners for advocating the Hierarchy?

If we're talking about Dutch-like principals the hierarchy previously put forward in the UK seemed rightly twisted compared to anything the Dutch do.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Has anyone else noticed the disappearance of zebra crossings around Ireland?

No, I've noticed their resurgence... Zebras have had a comeback outside Dublin and Galway, not sure about Cork. Comeback isn't really correct as in there are often places which never had zebras at all. For example:

• Ballaghaderreen had a raised one installed years before its bypass opened -- it was in the centre of town but before it was bypassed last year, it was the N5 main Dublin to Mayo road with no real alternative for national or local traffic. Very high volume of traffic and trucks and high volumes of coaches, but yet others use traffic volumes and trucks as excuses not to have raised crossing -- the issue is usually speed. It was the centre of town near to a sharp turn for the bulk of traffic, so speeds were low.
• Limerick has had new ones installed recently.
• Westport also has (I can only really think of one for sure and, like Limerick, it includes bicycles with questionable legal backing)
• Ballina has gained at least seven of them in recent years -- two urban in the core town centre but busy roads, two suburban on busy roads, and three on a one-way system on both side of the river in the town centre. Compliance from motorists is mixed, best in the town centre at a roundabout due to low speeds and high walking volumes. Most of these are on n-roads.
• Lonford has gained at least one I know the location of and I think it has a number of others
• I can't recall them in Sligo but I've read about them on boards.ie from a poster who seems to know their zebra from their pedestrian crossings.

Few newspapers etc seem to call them zebra crossings their correct name so there's little record of these popping up all over the place.

monument

Should these people be mixing with mainline motorised traffic?

buffalo

monument wrote: »

Few newspapers etc seem to call them zebra crossings their correct name so there's little record of these popping up all over the place.

I learned the other day what a Belisha beacon is!

galwaycyclist

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.

galwaycyclist

What I find curious sometimes is that people point at the UK and point at the low cycling levels and blame the "Hierarchy of Solutions" from 1996.

There is another country that started from the same place and chose a diametrically opposed policy. Instead, in 1998, that country commissioned Dutch engineers to draft an adaptation of Dutch cycle facilities guidance. This was adopted and this "Dutch" approach was supposedly the foundation of infrastructure provision and cycling policy.

Curiously, 17 years later, both that country and the UK ended still in the same place with transportation cycling levels largely stagnant apart from one or two exceptions. In both countries, little has been done to systematically address fundamental issues with traffic management, road design, policing and town planning.

Why is it that Mr. Treasure and his colleagues rarely pick out this shining example of copying the Dutch?

Could it be that the fundamental challenge lies outside things like "going Dutch" or the "Hierarchy of Solutions"?

By the way the country that "went Dutch" in contrast to the UK with their "Hierarchy" is us.

It's Ireland.

monument

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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.

There's no straw man argument.

Trying to make out that Ireland can't have high-quality segregation is the straw man argument.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

What I find curious sometimes is that people point at the UK and point at the low cycling levels and blame the "Hierarchy of Solutions" from 1996.

There is another country that started from the same place and chose a diametrically opposed policy. Instead, in 1998, that country commissioned Dutch engineers to draft an adaptation of Dutch cycle facilities guidance. This was adopted and this "Dutch" approach was supposedly the foundation of infrastructure provision and cycling policy.

Curiously, 17 years later, both that country and the UK ended still in the same place with transportation cycling levels largely stagnant apart from one or two exceptions. In both countries, little has been done to systematically address fundamental issues with traffic management, road design, policing and town planning.

Why is it that Mr. Treasure and his colleagues rarely pick out this shining example of copying the Dutch?

Could it be that the fundamental challenge lies outside things like "going Dutch" or the "Hierarchy of Solutions"?

By the way the country that "went Dutch" in contrast to the UK with their "Hierarchy" is us.

It's Ireland.

Both countries did half-baked things and got half-baked results.

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.

galwaycyclist

monument wrote: »

There's no straw man argument.

Trying to make out that Ireland can't have high-quality segregation is the straw man argument.

With the deepest regret it was interpretable as more than just a straw man argument

You came on here with a picture of mothers and small children cycling and this question.

Should these people be mixing with mainline motorised traffic?

With regret, in the context of this discussion, that is interpretable as saying that people who follow the "Hierarchy of Solutions" think its ok to mix small kids and arterial traffic.

That might be interpretable as unhelpful and looking to pick an artificial argument with someone.

I don't know of any serious contributor to the field who would argue such a thing.

galwaycyclist

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.

galwaycyclist

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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.

Actually now that I think about it, Andre Pettinga, who I believe is known to Monument, was involved in bringing this Dutch guidance to Ireland. That would have been around 1997, 1998.

tomasrojo

This historical information interests me. The few times I've been in Manchester, the cycling provision there reminded me very much of here. Did the Irish engineers just copy the UK engineers and then look for something in the Dutch manuals to justify what they'd done? From what I can see, Irish planners and engineers look to the UK primarily.

tomasrojo

After the Irish delegation to the Netherlands, here's a British delegation off to Denmark:

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/campaigning/article/20151002-campaigning-news-Minister-for-cycling-to-undertake-tour-of-European-cycling-capital

Minister for Cycling accompanying Chris Boardman.

monument

To be clear: the images of Dutch people cycling were not directed at galwaycyclist -- it's why it was in a different post but sorry for not making it clearer.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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

As I said, missuse of the Hierarchy, by two sides. We're about on the same page on this.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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.

In fairness, it was a going Dutch which never really happened.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

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.

It's not magic and it's not one thing on it's own... It's a mix of law changes where needed; it's a national push to force a reexamination of how we look at roads and streets (for example, so on residential streets lane-less contra-flow and 30km/h follows without thinking); it's better and sometimes firmer guidelines including the current Manual for Urban Roads and Streets, an updated version of the NTA's Cycle Manual, a near to complete re-write of the NRA's / TII's manual covering national and other rural routes; etc but it's also getting more and more support and buy in to those things.

tomasrojo wrote: »

After the Irish delegation to the Netherlands, here's a British delegation off to Denmark:

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/campaigning/article/20151002-campaigning-news-Minister-for-cycling-to-undertake-tour-of-European-cycling-capital

Minister for Cycling accompanying Chris Boardman.

Next we'll have a boards.ie cycling study tour... Ryanair is starting to fly to Amsterdam soon. I'm only half joking.

galwaycyclist

RainyDay wrote: »

Honestly, I think you are overestimating the importance of this. Any money raised from car parking is a pittance in terms of the overall road budget. And it may well cost money instead of raising money in many situations.

There is a discussion document here on car parking revenue and the implications for cycling and other policy areas.


http://www.galwaycycling.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/GCC_PreBudget2016_Submission_Discussion_Paper_Parking_Levy.pdf

enas

galwaycyclist,

We can't argue against the fact that the hierarchy of solutions has never been properly implemented in the UK (i.e. in the way it was intended), but at the same time we can't seriously argue that Ireland even "went Dutch", you even explain it yourself.

I think the general issue with the hierarchy of solutions is that it doesn't seem to be an effective tool for getting what we want, as campaigners. The reason, in my opinion, for this, is that it's consistent with too many things. Good Dutch design is arguably consistent with the hierarchy, while the usual bad stuff we find in the UK is also (claimed to be) consistent with the hierarchy.

I fairness, I'm not a fan of the "Go-Dutch" campaigning approach either, since people understand what they want from it. I'm with monument, what we need is a mix of specific measures. My opinion is that this should be crafted from what the Dutch do, but we should be precise about what we want, instead of simply reducing it to "copy what the Dutch do".