[Closed] THIS is how you make a city cycling friendly...

Why I never moved there (or similar) when I had the chance I’ll never know.

#nopassportnow
#carcultureforever

The (netherlands) government acted on the will of the people, if people wanted the infrastructure here then our government would do it.
The unfortunate bottom line in Britain is that the majority of people don’t want it.
Interesting to see how much vehicle traffic there was/is in that video, it looks the same as here really.

The unfortunate bottom line in Britain is that the majority of people don’t want it.

It won’t change in our lifetimes. I used to be mildly optimistic but it was wishful thinking. 40 years of commuting it still looks pretty much the same outside of a few key places in London, Cambridge or Bristol.

History is important to that bottom line. Where we are today is a product of where we didn’t go back then (post-WW2). Apart from the 1970s protests there are a number of factors why Dutch cycling is where it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_the_Netherlands#Overview

Amsterdam 1982:

I cycled to work every day in the second half of the 1980s in and around Birmingham outskirts. If I ever saw another cyclist back then it would be something to remember. I don’t really remember any. I was always the only adult on a bike wherever I worked, travelled, shopped or visited. Though I remember 1982 our geography teacher travelled a mile to work on a bike. He had a Holdsworth tourer. It was such an unusual thing to see an adult ride a bike to work that I even remember the brand of the bike 🤣

@DrP

But..how cool is it that they actually made 4 tunnels..one for traffic each way, one for peds, and one for bikes!!

Bonkers, they'd never do that in this country!

Oh, wait...

(The Tyne Tunnel has separate pedestrian and cycle tunnels, recently refurbished, and now there's a second vehicle tunnel there are two lanes in each direction.)

Also, can't help but think that giving all the pedestrians bikes to ride through the cycle tunnel is a bit of a clumsy solution when there are two whole vehicle tunnels still open... if they really loved bikes... 🤔

Bonkers, they’d never do that in this country!

Oh, wait…

That was opened 70 years ago to be fair. The scheme was out in place in 1937.

At their peak, around 20,000 people used the Tunnels every day. By the time the Tunnels closed for refurbishment in 2013, that had dropped to 20,000 per month (pedestrian and cycle)

The figures speak for themselves.

Nowadays it’s more likely a battle to get infra. Even using existing tunnels.

http://www.queensburytunnel.org.uk/

Damn... beaten to mentioning the Tyne Tunnels

Incidentally, pedestrian and cycle tunnels were completed and opened in 1951, quite a few years before the first vehicle tunnel (1967), and 60 years before the second vehicle tunnel was completed (2011).

In the 50s and 60s UK and Netherlands had similar rates of cycling. The push towards cycling only started in the 70s. There is a great video on YouTube explaining the change. It was based on children getting killed,bad air quality etc .

Clyde Tunnel has pedestrians and bikes separate from cars (peds and bikes are mixed - although IIRC there is a fence between them).

I think (if Wikipedia entry is to be believed) the Dutch already had a healthy cycle transport culture before the 1970s which is what gave them the edge/motivation when it came to ‘fighting back’ in the 1970s. At which time we in the UK had already for decades been increasingly ridding ourselves of our attachment to bicycle-transport much as if it were a kind of social disease. Same in the USA. Cars were now the ‘grown-up’ option for all distances, and bikes were considered primarily for for kids, the odd village granny, extreme poverty and/or or those with a driving ban.

Although earlier (inspired by the Dutch) Britain had built at least 280 miles of dedicated, separated cycling highways in the 1930s when bikes far outnumbered cars. Ironically, British cyclists were the ones to first push for surfaced highways. It’s too depressing.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/britain-forgotten-1930s-bike-network

By 1960 they were forgotten about. Even by the transport dept. Carlton Reid has written extensively about this.

read the ministry’s minutes going through the 1960s and found records of ministers saying that they’d never built anything like a bike highway before.

Kickstarter campaign

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carltonreid/lets-rescue-britains-forgotten-1930s-protected-cyc

Wikipedia entry:

Amsterdam, 1982
Cycling became popular in the Netherlands a little later than it did in the United States and Britain who experienced their bike booms in the 1880s, but by the 1890s the Dutch were already building dedicated paths for cyclists. By 1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any other country in Europe

I think (if Wikipedia entry is to be believed) the Dutch already had a healthy cycle transport culture before the 1970s which is what gave them the edge/motivation when it came to ‘fighting back’ in the 1970s.

Healthier that the UK, certainly: the UK was swayed sooner and more rapidly by the transatlantic push for motorisation.

UK/Netherlands cycling per head:

(source)

Britain had built at least 280 miles of dedicated, separated cycling highways in the 1930s when bikes far outnumbered cars.

Indeed, and remember that the Maastunnel in the original post was built in the 1930s-40s when the same was true in the Netherlands—so in that respect it's fairly unremarkable: at the time, the bicycle was a (the?) dominant vehicle. The Stop de Kindermoort movement came a little over 30 years later, and (as per the first graph above) didn't really result in an actual resurgence in cycling, but halted its decline; the other key outcome was that it coincided with (and no doubt heavily influenced) a change in approach which reversed the rising death toll generally on the roads.

Netherlands traffic deaths:

(source)

UK modal share since 1952:

(source)

The Dutch one looks of a similar vintage though.

I wasn't trying to suggest our attitude to cycling/pedestrian infrastructure is in the same league as theirs though - this is just the exception that proves the rule. This week sees a number of temporary cycleways within a couple of miles of the tunnel being dismantled after opposition from people who can't handle change/having to be more than 50 yards from their vehicle at any point in time.

the first vehicle tunnel (1967), and 60 years before the second vehicle tunnel was completed (2011)

Might be missing a few there… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Road_tunnels_in_England …including the Beaminster tunnel which dates from the 1830s 🙂

Might be missing a few there…

I think he's referring just to the Tyne Tunnels.

Oh, well that would make sense 😂 Doh… sorry. Got thrown by the fact that the tunnel near me was opened in 2011 🙂

I think he’s referring just to the Tyne Tunnels

Indeed, perhaps could have been clearer that I was referring to first vehicular Tyne Tunnel and second vehicular Tyne Tunnel - the oddity being that the first vehicular Tyne Tunnel was opened as bidirectional with a single lane in each direction, and reconfigured to run as unidirectional only after the second vehicular Tyne Tunnel had been completed 40-odd years later. One of the main arguments for constructing the second vehicle tunnel was to be able to operate one tunnel northbound, one tunnel southbound - obviously, the additional capacity is useful, but having all the traffic moving in the same direction in a tunnel makes all sorts of other things a whole lot safer - and makes stuff like incident management and tunnel ventilation a lot more straightforward.

Got thrown by the fact that the tunnel near me was opened in 2011

A3 Hindhead by any chance?

The councils are putting in blockages on some roads to encourage cyclists.this is a step forward and I am s petrolhead.we know what councils should really do is build some pump tracks and urban bits next to cycle tracks which is what Bournemouth council did just to make that commute a bit more enjoyable.

I dont think the Clyde tunnel can be compared to any of these. It isnt nice and flat for starters, rather a long downhill which is quite enjoyable, only you get to the bottom and realize these the same going uphill. And thats quite a slog.
Plus its bloody freezing.

I had the exact same experience in the late 90s in North Birmingham. Down to exactly one of my teachers riding a bike to school and being regarded odd for it , although he had a Dawes Galaxy 🙂