Benefits of specialised infrastructure: chances of consensus?

tomasrojo

This is an interesting look at claims made for presumed liability:
http://singletrackworld.com/columns/2015/12/bez-selling-a-dream-at-the-cost-of-reality/

But the reason I mention it here is that this graph is not one I've seen before, and it suggests some interesting things:


As I've said before, the increase in cycling after infrastructure construction began in earest in the 70s wasn't stratospheric (and it isn't true that infrastructure turned the Netherlands into a cycling nation; it rather seems to have halted the precipitous decline of the previously very high levels of cycling, which is itself a great achievement), but look at the change in road death rates at the same time.

As I said, quite interesting, and I'd never seen this graph before.

tomasrojo

A Cochrane review of the record of infrastructure in preventing injuries to cyclists was published last month. I haven't read it in any detail, but the authors' conclusions are not very ... conclusive.

Cycling infrastructure for reducing cycling injuries in cyclists (Review)

There is a lack of evidence that cycle paths or advanced stop lines either reduce or increase injury collisions in cyclists. There is also insufficient evidence to draw any robust conclusions concerning the effect of cycling infrastructure on cycling collisions in terms of severity of injury, sex, age, and level of social deprivation of the casualty.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010415.pub2/pdf

They do believe that roundabouts increase the risk of collisions for cyclists, and I doubt many here would disagree. They reckon 20mph speed restrictions might decrease the risk of collision.

Whatever about the scientific merits of this review, I like the use of "Plain Language Summary".
This is very clear in comparison to the usual science-y style:

Quality of the evidence
We carried out a thorough search for relevant papers. The quality of the evidence was low with 20 of the included 21 studies using a controlled before-after study design. Few studies considered how factors such as weather and volume of traffic may affect collision rates. Few studies considered how changes in cycle rates seen as a result of installing infrastructure may affect changes in collision rates.

enas

tomasrojo wrote: »

A Cochrane review of the record of infrastructure in preventing injuries to cyclists was published last month.

Do we have any specific information about the type of infrastructure that was considered there? Without this, it's very hard to draw any conclusion from those (lack of) conclusions, since outside the Netherlands, there's very few realisations that are claimed to increase safety, at least from a significant number of people. I had a quick look, and it seems UK type of "infrastructure" are dominating their data.

I hope I'm wrong, but if that's right, there's no big surprise there. Furthermore, there's a big risk such results might be used misleadingly, by the sort of people opposing infrastructure. By misleadingly, I mean using results that show that current realisations (the well-known ASL, cycle lanes, etc.) are useless, therefore proper infrastructure shouldn't be pursued.

tomasrojo

I must have a proper read of it. This fact might be important: of the twenty-one studies, nine studies were from the UK, three from the United States, three from Denmark, two from Sweden, two from New Zealand and one each from Belgium and the Netherlands.

enas

tomasrojo wrote: »

I must have a proper read of it. This fact might be important: of the twenty-one studies, nine studies were from the UK, three from the United States, three from Denmark, two from Sweden, two from New Zealand and one each from Belgium and the Netherlands.

Yeah, that's what I saw too. Also, the terminology used on section "Types of interventions", page 7, is very much UK-esque (on road cycle lanes, shared bus lanes, ASLs, cycle paths that may be marked to segregate from pedestrians, etc.).

Also, lumping together, if that's what they did, interventions of type "1. Cycling infrastructure that aims to manage the shared use of the road space for both motor vehicles and cyclists" and of type "2. Cycling infrastructure which separates cycle traffic from motorised traffic and may include special routes exclusively for cycle traffic, but which may be shared with pedestrians either in mixed or segregated conditions" sounds a bit unfair to me. It reminds me of helmet studies that amalgamate all sort of data and deduce that cycling to your local shop is as dangerous as fast downhill mountain biking.

tomasrojo

Doesn't sound like appropriate grouping, no. Will try to get time to give it a close read.

Still, thought it belonged here. Cochrane reviews are a big enough deal, even though they're not all of high quality.

enas

tomasrojo wrote: »

Still, thought it belonged here.

It is completely relevant, and thanks for sharing this. I'm looking forward to your further findings, I'm obviously very interested, and I'm a bit tight on time myself.

monument

tomasrojo wrote: »

Cochrane reviews are a big enough deal, even though they're not all of high quality.

Yes and all the cycling ones seem to be not of high quality...

Bicycle helmet legislation for the uptake of helmet use and prevention of head injuries

Increasing pedestrian and cyclist visibility to prevent deaths and injuries

Wearing a helmet dramatically reduces the risk of head and facial injuries for bicyclists involved in a crash, even if it involves a motor vehicle

http://www.cochrane.org/search/site/Bicycle

galwaycyclist

monument wrote: »

Yes and all the cycling ones seem to be not of high quality...

Bicycle helmet legislation for the uptake of helmet use and prevention of head injuries

Increasing pedestrian and cyclist visibility to prevent deaths and injuries

Wearing a helmet dramatically reduces the risk of head and facial injuries for bicyclists involved in a crash, even if it involves a motor vehicle

http://www.cochrane.org/search/site/Bicycle

Knee jerk reaction is to ask is this another case of the medical profession interfering in matters that are outside their professional understanding?

The Cochrane Review is a medical journal. My first question would be how the typical review panel for a medical journal would be qualified or competent to review or assess evaluations of roads infrastructure? (This is not meant to pre-judge the paper in question itself.)

However when the medical profession start interfering in such matters I think there should be a robust test applied to establish their entitlement to do so.

tomasrojo

Performance of Municipal Cycling Policies in Medium-Sized Cities in the Netherlands since 2000

Our findings support the following hypotheses regarding the performance of cycling policy in Dutch cities: first of all, the way cycling policy is implemented seems important: setting measurable and verifiable goals, following through with most of the proposed policy interventions, allowing for experimental measures to be explored and showing strong leadership. Second, providing adequate cycling infrastructure and decreasing the attractiveness of car use (e.g. by increasing parking tariffs and increasing the area of paid on-street car parking) seem to be key drivers. Finally, we found that external circumstances, such as demographic trends, seem to influence cycling policy outcomes. Future research is needed to test these hypotheses.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01441647.2015.1059380

via @fietsprofessor on Twitter.

Interesting emphasis. Makes sense that you need someone of influence to take a stand and then see it through to the end. So many ventures get watered down to nothing here.

tomasrojo

Some recent papers on infrastructure:

First Denmark:

An interim evaluation of the effect of 161 bicycle projects that have received grants from the Bike Fund now came to the conclusion that cycling increased by 24 % on those stretches where new infrastructure has been provided. The evaluators also found that a clear majority of those attracted from other modes were car users.

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/new-danish-evidence-build-it-and-they-will-come-approach-works

Then Seville (can only see the abstract, but might be the analysis of Seville whose absence I regretted up-thread):

The development of a fully segregated network of cycle paths in the period 2006-2011 is analysed, with particular emphasis on its consequences for mobility in Seville. We show that this effort, in such a short period of time, has been a valuable tool for the promotion of bicycle mobility in a city without a tradition for cycling. Apart from the obvious aim of achieving segregation from motorized traffic, the Seville network considered connectivity, continuity, visibility, uniformity, bi-directionality and comfort as criteria for the design of the infrastructure. All these criteria aim to make cycling not just safe, but also easy and comfortable for everybody. Our analysis also suggests that the fast building of this type of infrastructure provides solid grounds for the development of utilitarian cycling, with high cost effectiveness, even in a city without a previous tradition in this sense. However the strategy also has certain limitations, which are analysed in the paper.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073988591500061X

monument

‘The Value of Cycling’ - a report for the UK DoT:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/509587/value-of-cycling.pdf

This report was commissioned to provide a review of the literature on the value of cycling. It focuses on evidence of the wider economic benefits of cycling as a mode of transport, such as retail revenue, employment
effects, and public spending efficiencies.

The aim of the research is to collate the evidence base which outlines the benefits and disbenefits of investment in cycling as a mode of transport. Existing appraisal methods already take into account health benefits (reduced mortality), decongestion benefits (including generalized reduction in traffic collisions), and personal journey amenity benefits.

Searches of the academic and grey literature were undertaken. These searches centred on the impacts of cycling at the individual, neighbourhood, town/city, regional and national levels, with a view to developing an understanding of the benefits of cycling and the value associated with the mode.

The findings of the review suggest that there is evidence of the value of cycling as a mode of transport. However, it is less clear what the exact nature of that value would look like: the valuation and monetization of the complete range of potential benefits of cycling do not appear to have been widely considered. This is not unexpected. It is relatively easy to assign financial and economic values to investment in infrastructure but the monetization of social and individual impacts is much more challenging.

The findings show that cycling has largely positive impacts for people and the places where they live. It can improve their well-being, lessen their spend on travel, and enhance the liveability of their environment.

In terms of public spending, cycling and related infrastructure have been found to be substantially lower cost than other transport modes. At the same time, there are benefits to businesses of cycling, both as a utility and leisure mode, as well as the benefit of running a business in an area which is conducive to cycling. These effects appear to have received more detailed economic valuation than individual impacts.

Cycling has been shown to benefit both the employer and the employee. While it would appear that the benefits in terms of sick leave are relatively low, the role of cycling facilities for attracting staff seems to hold great potential. Moreover, for the prospective employee, ease of physical access to work opportunities is central to the ability to gain employment and cycling provides a tool by which joblessness due to transport exclusion may be overcome for some social groups.

The literature suggests that cycling can assist in meeting strategic goals in diverse areas such as helping to introduce parity of access to employment opportunities, contribute to retail and other business vitality, and create vibrant spaces.

There is a concern in the literature that the currently widely-used appraisal methods do not incorporate the full extent of benefits associated with cycling and this means that, as the mode competes for funding, it may always be seen as less viable than other options. Furthermore, there is little recognition of the disbenefits of non-cycling modes of transport in current appraisal
methods.

In conclusion, there is substantial discourse about the benefits of cycling. These benefits are found across a range of thematic spheres (e.g. improving accessibility,increasing employment access, contributing to vibrant communities and individual well-being) and geographic scales (neighbourhood, local, regional, national).

However, despite assertions of various positive impacts, the literature is less forth-coming about the ways in which these may be realistically captured. The nuanced impacts that go beyond mainstream economic measures are difficult to harness into substantiated and replicable metrics.

For cycling’s potential to be realised and infrastructure schemes to be financed, there is a need to give priority to developing appraisal methods that incorporate the full range of relevant cost and benefits that relate to cycling, and indeed consistently across all modes of transport. Social accounting and audit may be one approach that offers a framework for exploring the broader scope of assessment as it concerns itself with more than economic impacts and is not solely expressed in financial terms. It accepts the use of qualitative input, incorporates multiple perspectives, and includes social, economic and environmental impacts.

Carawaystick

Deedsie wrote: »

Hi,

Just wondering what cyclists opinions are on what the ideal cycle routes through College Green should be?

This would be my proposal as it would reduce the interactions between pedestrians and cyclists leaving a large area for pedestrians to congregate and a cycle lane so cyclists wouldn't be impeded. Be great to hear opinions of other cyclists on it. I know not everyone would use the cycle roundabout I have included but the council need to offer a proper cycle route through the plaza.

What's the design speed of the turn right to dame street? Or the left turn from grafton st towards Dame street?
How do you get from Pearce st to Dame st?

Carawaystick

But Pearse st does not lead to Westmoreland st? College streeet is between dOlier/Pearse st and Westmoreland st.

In the Corpo presentations, there is no cycling lane up/down Grafton street.

It shouldn't be a pedestrian/cycling area, the cycling area should be clearly separate from the pedestrian area.

tomasrojo

A study in Cambridge has found “eighty-five percent of the effect on increasing cycling was explained by use of the infrastructure”.

http://road.cc/content/news/186152-cycle-infrastructure-responsible-85-cycling-increase#st_refDomain=t.co&st_refQuery=/7PgYbn7Jlt

(The flatness of Hull is mentioned in the comments. Coventry-born genius poet Philip Larkin was once asked what he liked most about his adopted home town of Hull, and he replied that the flat terrain made it nice for cycling. Was a rather back-handed compliment, but he did enjoy cycling his roadster around.)

galwaycyclist

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/to-increase-cycle-use-cities-need-to-be-anti-car-say-academics/019669

Unless cities become explicitly anti-car, say the academics, the provision of kerb-protected cycle lanes in cities where cycle use is low will not lead to the modal share revolutions that some advocates believe will come once protected cycleways have been built.

On a photograph of a classic Dutch bike on a cycleway a caption in the book describes the scene as an “Amsterdam rarity: strictly separated bicycle lanes.” Amsterdam has high cycle usage, says the book, because motoring was discouraged by traffic calming and “reducing automobility” by making car parking expensive or fiendishly difficult.

tomasrojo

Interesting point there that scaling back on motorist pandering is harder than installing infrastructure, despite being cheaper, because of the political courage required.

I guess, as we can see from the loss of nerve over the Liffey cycle route, installing cycling infrastructure that displaces motorised traffic also requires political courage.

monument

“Amsterdam rarity: strictly separated bicycle lanes.”

I must have cycled a lot more of Amsterdam or maybe the authors didn't leave the very central area? Segregated cycle paths are on the vast majority of main routes around the city.

While the city centre does not include cycle paths, that's mainly because they are not needed (just as they are not needed in Temple Bar etc), and nor are they needed on other streets with only local traffic and restrictions.

tomasrojo

I only cycled in Leiden, but as far as I recall, it was pretty much all segregated.

monument

tomasrojo wrote: »

I only cycled in Leiden, but as far as I recall, it was pretty much all segregated.

I remember Leiden because it's less segregated in the core city centre and some streets mix a lot with buses -- compared to almost zero mixing with buses in the likes of Utrecht.

I had an OCD-like look at Amsterdam again and all but two of their main arterial routes have near to full segregation. Even the ones without it, it's mainly the central section and both are part segregated, part not. The city has plans to fix the central main routes without segregation -- I was told a while back that many shop owners who were anti-change have changed in recent years to pushing for change.

tomasrojo

Yeah, I don't remember Leiden being that pleasant to cycle in, but it was ok, especially the outskirts, as we went for a cycle to a more scenic spot and it was quite nice, apart from nearly being taken out my a moped. I remember being impressed that my hosts had a trailer to carry a surfboard down to the lake, which may have been the seed that blossomed into my two-trailer-and-bakfiets household.

It was a long time ago now, so I think my input on the infrastructure in Leiden is close to valueless.

galwaycyclist

monument wrote: »

“Amsterdam rarity: strictly separated bicycle lanes.”

I must have cycled a lot more of Amsterdam or maybe the authors didn't leave the very central area? Segregated cycle paths are on the vast majority of main routes around the city.

While the city centre does not include cycle paths, that's mainly because they are not needed (just as they are not needed in Temple Bar etc), and nor are they needed on other streets with only local traffic and restrictions.

And here from the book summary

The 256-page full-colour book, published by Eindhoven University’s Foundation for the History of Technology, is an expansion, translation and updating of a Dutch research report produced by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure. This was published in 1999, and written by Adri Albert de la Bruhèze and Frank Veraart.

So, your experience in 2015 may not be comparable with what the authors were trying to illustrate in 1999. We won't know till we get a copy and read it.

For me and others the important question is not "what does Amsterdam look like now in 2015 having been a mass cycling city for several decades?".

The question for me and others is "what are the key policy initiatives that lead to the restoration of mass cycling here and elsewhere?". The question is how to preserve or restore a mass cycling culture rather than how to manage it once it is already in place?

On that point I, and others, have observed that it may often be the case that segregated cycling infrastructure follows the cyclists rather than the cyclists appearing as a result of the cycling infrastructure. Indeed your own anecdote regarding the Amsterdam shop keepers may be illustrating that very point.

I had an OCD-like look at Amsterdam again and all but two of their main arterial routes have near to full segregation. Even the ones without it, it's mainly the central section and both are part segregated, part not. The city has plans to fix the central main routes without segregation -- I was told a while back that many shop owners who were anti-change have changed in recent years to pushing for change.

tomasrojo

Cycling surge in London due to protected Cycle Superhighways, says TfL
http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/cycling-surge-in-london-due-to-protected-cycle-superhighways-says-tfl/019677

(Also, road capacity in central London has not reduced by 25% by the installation of cycling infrastructure.)

tomasrojo

Do we have anything equivalent to London's "quietways"? Anyway, they don't seem to be very successful:

Rather than closing 13 junctions along the route to motor vehicles (but allowing bikes to pass) the council opted to just make the quietway route narrower, which will reduce the average 4,000 vehicle a day traffic on the road by just 10%. The route is thus only a quietway in name, according to the London Cycling Campaign.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/jun/14/lessons-from-londons-failing-quietways-scheme

If that's true (roughly the same number of motor vehicles in a narrower lane) means that this has made the route much worse.

tomasrojo

Also from that:

A few weeks ago I spoke to Paul Steely White, who heads Transportation Alternatives, a New York City-based campaign group which helped push for the cycling infrastructure in that city. He used a parallel which struck me. I think it’s entirely relevant to the failing quietways scheme:

It’s akin to being in the time of cholera and saying, ‘We’ve got this engineering approach that involves separating our water from our sewage, and it involves digging up the street – what do you think about this? Are you OK with this?’

There’s a way to design streets now that kill many fewer people and are much fairer, more equitable and more efficient, and we’re just going to do it, dammit.

I've seen the mid-20th-century approach to street use described as "traffic sewers", which did strike me as fairly apt.

galwaycyclist

tomasrojo wrote: »

Do we have anything equivalent to London's "quietways"? Anyway, they don't seem to be very successful:


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/jun/14/lessons-from-londons-failing-quietways-scheme

If that's true (roughly the same number of motor vehicles in a narrower lane) means that this has made the route much worse.

Yes we do although we aren't using the jargon. The Irish Design Manual for Roads and Streets advocates the use of very narrow traffic lanes in the name of speed reduction.

The side effect is that cyclists are squeezed or being used as "mobile traffic calming" when motor traffic is moving. When motor traffic is halted, then cyclists are physically blocked from filtering by queuing cars - unless they hop up on to footpaths.

I view the speed reduction argument as spurious. Yes narrow lanes may reduce traffic speed but that is not the same thing at "achieving traffic speeds that are appropriate for mixed urban traffic". There are narrow rural roads up and down the country where motorists expect to drive at 100kmh. If they can "only" do 80kmh in parts it is hardly a victory for the safety of vulnerable road users.

Why this "road narrowing " would then magically "work" in urban areas escapes me.

traprunner

The only way I could see road narrowing working if there was a kerb on both sides of each lane. The fear of hitting the kerb would be enough to reduce most motorists speed.

tomasrojo

Five years later, in December 2015, the first Radschnellweg (bicycle highway) in Germany was opened, between the western cities of Mülheim an der Ruhr and Essen. It is just the first stretch of what is going to be the biggest bicycle highway in the world: 62-miles long, connecting 10 cities and four universities.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jun/30/intercity-cycle-highways-revolutionise-daily-commute

The article says 50,000 cars will be removed from circulation when the network is completed.

The potential of e-bikes is mentioned too.

And:

Spapé is often consulted by traffic planners from other European countries, and her message is always: don’t spend too much time on feasibility studies and don’t aim for perfection.

tomasrojo

I suppose this has a reasonable fit to this thread; about facilitating walking and cycling in cities:
Will car drivers ever learn to share the road with bikes?

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/28/will-car-drivers-ever-learn-to-share-the-road-with-bikes

Bike Snob NYC quoted (as Eben Weiss).

“There is still the automatic victim blaming and lack of investigation on the part of police when a pedestrian or cyclist gets hit by a driver,” Weiss says. “It’s enough for the driver to say, ‘They came out of nowhere’. The police tell reporters, ‘It looks like the cyclist ran the light’, and that’s it.”

Which is the equivalent of our own "I just couldn't see them! They weren't wearing enough hi-viz!"

magicbastarder

i posted that link to my facebook page. a friend responded with this.
http://extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/200/