EU declaration on cycling?

UK exceptionalism.  apparently from previous conversations ion here what works all over europe cannot work here.

EU parliament calling for a cycling strategy from the commission (I originally saw the commission's post).

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/european-parliament-calls-double-cycling-europe-2030

UK exceptionalism. apparently from previous conversations ion here what works all over europe cannot work here.

Ugh

You are the one who has said that Molgrips on numerous occasions.

It's not UK exceptionalism. It's an understanding that different countries have different social contracts with each other and with their governments. And also the recognition that it's not 1974 any more.

Here's an analogy. Ford is an American car company. They make (or used to make) Fiestas, but they didn't sell them in the US. Why? Because people in the US didn't want to buy them, on the whole. They exercised the free choice they had in the market and bought bigger cars not small hatchbacks. There wasn't really a mechanism to force Americans to buy small hatchbacks. In the UK though, they were massively popular.

The Kindermoort thing, that worked in the Netherlands in the early 70s. But we've been talking about that in the UK since then, and still we drive everywhere. We build cities based around cars. We build our families and economies around cars. Undoing all that has happened in the last 40 years requires something completely different. As I said on the other thread, and you ignored - where I live, which is absolutely typical of modern cities and towns, there's nowhere to cycle to. That's a massive drawback when it comes to encouraging cycling!

Exactly what I said.

Uk exceptionalism.  Stuff that works all over europe according to you can never work in the UK.

there is a range of cycling measures used in countries as diverse as the netherlands with its conformist ethos to France with its anti authoritarian ethos.  Stuff that works all over europe but apparently nothing can be learned for the UK from this .

Its classic UK exeptionalism

You use that term in a derogatory sense. 'Exceptionalism' means people thinking their country is better than others.

But the reality is that every country and every time is different. That's just the way the world is. Do you accept that?

I agree with that

what I do not agree with is that nothing can be learnt from places where cycling is much more used in everyday life - thats the exceptionalism.  that what works well in dozens of diverse countries but none of it can work in the UK.

Exceptionalism does NOT mean that we think it better.

I agree that we are too dependant on cars-out of town shopping centres, commutes to work etc but

We build cities based around cars

I think most cities were around before cars. More like we happily demolished pesky buildings to make life better for car drivers.

At some point it has to stop.
Building more roads to ease congestion just attracts more traffic. The Dartford bridge was designed to alleviate the existing tunnels. 30 years later they want to put a third crossing in as traffic has grown.

Exceptionalism does NOT mean that we think it better.

Oh ok, it's another one of those things where you have your own definitions of words that no-one else shares. Ok, thanks for clearing it up 🙂

What exactly can we learn from the Netherlands? That cycling is good? Yes, it is, we already knew that. What we need is the secret to persuading fat lazy Brits of 2023 to not be lazy any more; and how to persuade them to vote for the massive sums of money required to retrofit cycling to our cities.

I live in one of these big modern developments on the edge of a small city, as you know. They are building thousands of new homes here or even further out. It's about 6.5 miles from here into town and it's a right ball-ache. Many people who live in my street drive to the shop which is 700m away. I could see them being persuaded to walk that far, but if they are lazy enough to drive to the shop there's no way on earth they'll be persuaded to cycle to town and even less chance they'll vote for any government forcing them to.

However, if there were decent public transport to town, that would be a different story altogether. So I think that given how our cities have been built over the last 40 or more years, it's better to invest in mixed-mode solutions and not push cycling as the solution.

And cycling would do nothing for (for example) the murderous traffic problems on the M4 every day, because people are travelling further than even I could feasibly cycle every day. That is also a problem that good public transport would solve.

Once you have a great PT network that's cheap, you stand a much greater chance of getting people to ditch one of their cars, which means people might start to look at bikes to cover the mile or two to get to a local station or tram line.

I think most cities were around before cars. More like we happily demolished pesky buildings to make life better for car drivers.

Bits of them were. But by area, far more of them were built after cars. And then when cars became common place we started using that fact to design the extra bits which was a massive mistake, but it was made and it will be really hard to unpick.

Building more roads to ease congestion just attracts more traffic.

It does, but most of those people I think are travelling to jobs, and if they couldn't travel they wouldn't be able to get those jobs. Personal mobility is pretty important. Hence the need for PT.

No thats the dictionary meaning.

someone or something that is not included in a rule, group, or list or that does not behave in the expected way:

Its not just the netherlands.  Its every other country that promotes cycling.  from the consensus of the netherlands to the authoritarian ethos of germany to the anti establishment ethos of the french etc etc.

But according to you nothing can be learned for the UK from what works in dozens of other countries

Of course its multi modal - I have always said that.  You keep on doing this - claim I say things that I do not.  cycling is a part of the answer not the whole answer.  public transport run as a service etc

So you think we just need a load of nice cycleways alongside the roads and that'll sort it?

Of course its multi modal – I have always said that.

So have I. Where we differ is that you gloss over all the huge difficulties we face when trying to promote active travel. I want to talk about them, because those are the problems that need solving. You mistake this for me thinking it can't be done or it's not worth trying.

Why then do you reject the experiences from other countries out of hand?

I do not gloss over the difficulties. thats why I say it needs to be carrot and stick and multi moda and take time - Its just the solutions are there and available and well proven as used in dozens of other countries

So you think we just need a load of nice cycleways alongside the roads and that’ll sort it?

No I do not.  I have said otherwise all the time

Your answer to every possible solution is " it cannot work in the UK"

Your answer to every possible solution is ” it cannot work in the UK”

I just described a solution a few posts back!

Why then do you reject the experiences from other countries out of hand?

Not out of hand, I'm just not sure the relevance. In 1974, in the Netherlands, how many families had two working parents? How many owned two cars? How far did people have to travel to work? Were they driving or getting PT? How did they persuade people to cycle? Was there an associated increase in PT spending, in other words did they just put cyclepaths in or was there a complete multi-modal approach? Did car ownership go down? Did car mileage go down? Is car mileage per person now lower than it was then? How big even was Amsterdam in 1974?

I’m about 2008 in Hobart I saw a great presentation from some Danes about the Copenhagen success story regarding reducing driving and increasing cycling. Some truly impressive stats… which I can’t find now. But this article explains some of the policies:

https://cityobservatory.org/cph_bikelanes/

Hobartian response: that wouldn’t work here.

We build cities based around cars. We build our families and economies around cars. Undoing all that has happened in the last 40 years requires something completely different. As I said on the other thread, and you ignored – where I live, which is absolutely typical of modern cities and towns, there’s nowhere to cycle to. That’s a massive drawback when it comes to encouraging cycling!

It’s quite possible to get around most towns and cities by bike, there are always networks of smaller roads avoiding busier main roads. I very rarely use my car to get around town, the only time is when I’m doing a major shop, and the places I mostly shop at are spaced around town, but even if they weren’t, I’d still be walking over a mile trying to carry several heavy bags of shopping, which isn’t really an option. And neither is a taxi, they charge a fortune, and I have no nearby bus-stop either.

The real problem is for the huge number of people living in villages spread across tens of square miles of surrounding countryside, where there is likely to be perhaps two buses a day, with a long walk to the nearest bus stop, as in the case of my friend who owns a hotel and tea-room. The nearest bus stop is at least a mile away, either across country following a footpath, or along a narrow, dangerous country road with steep and bendy sections with zero visibility. I’ve walked it, it’s bloody scary in daylight, terrifying in the dark!

All these declarations are fine for the city-dwellers, they ignore millions of people who don’t live in cities. And wouldn’t want to.

Cycling is already a "front" of the Culture War. The EU telling us all to get onto bkes will re-confirm to some that Brexit was the right and inevitable thing to do.

I wonder how they cope in rural areas in other countries?

They drive. Same as people who live away from cities do in this country.

I wonder how they cope in rural areas in other countries?

A mix of stuff.

Decent cycle provision, decent public transport and driving.  Also social measures like using the planning system to stop "out of town" food shopping - so every town and village retains its local shops.

Driving will always have to remain a part of the mix but experience from other countries shows it can be a much smaller part and also less damaging -

The EU telling us all to get onto bkes will re-confirm to some that Brexit was the right and inevitable thing to do.

It won't even make the news. The link in the OP is already a month old and AFAIK no one reported it.

A mix of stuff.

Decent cycle provision, decent public transport and driving. Also social measures like using the planning system to stop “out of town” food shopping – so every town and village retains its local shops.

Driving will always have to remain a part of the mix but experience from other countries shows it can be a much smaller part and also less damaging –

Exactly

So here we go again, a circular argument on STW where with slightly smaller blinkers people might see that they are both broadly correct, and focusing on the areas of agreement rather than digging trenches around petty disagreements, we might make progress.

STW and British exceptionalism in a nutshell

The future of cycling as transport is a gammon on an E conversion wobbling his way to the pub.
Once it’s easier and more convenient to cycle ,people will do it. People are lazy.

People aren’t just lazy (and what’s wrong with that anyway), they are also scared. Make it safer to cycle, and people will embrace it. That means thinking of people we’d call “non-cyclists” first, not us lot. And that means infrastructure changes done right, which means learning from elsewhere… which as TJ says is not something we have a good track record on here in the UK.

Firstly, absolutely everything that @kelvin said ^^

Secondly:

What exactly can we learn from the Netherlands? That cycling is good? Yes, it is, we already knew that. What we need is the secret to persuading fat lazy Brits of 2023 to not be lazy any more; and how to persuade them to vote for the massive sums of money required to retrofit cycling to our cities.

We don't need to persuade people, we need to force it now. We're way past the point of asking nicely if people wouldn't mind awfully just thinking about their journey - could it be walked or biked - just as the same as we're way past the point of all that "share the road" / "share with care" / "respect other road users" crap because society has shown that it simply can't do that and it's incredibly selfish (as well as that people are lazy and will take the easiest option). We've spent 60+ years making driving the easiest option.

We now need to undo that and the "vast sums of money" involved are nothing compared to the cost of NOT doing anything - of carrying on fixing the millions of potholes, the air pollution, the congestion, the road danger, the cost to the NHS of inactivity, created by the millions of cars, especially the millions of journeys that are <2 miles and would be easy to walk or cycle for the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time if the infrastructure was there for them.

What the rest of us can see clearly and what Molgrips and TJ will hate is that if you take each of their not too distant positions and roll them up into a single argument... It would be excellent! 🙂

You are pretty much both saying the same bloody thing but in such a way as to wind each other up 🙂

It does keep them occupied though....like buying two kittens

The Kindermoort thing, that worked in the Netherlands in the early 70s. But we’ve been talking about that in the UK since then

Who is "we"? I don't think that particular movement has ever gained much recognition or traction in the UK.

It's a chicken arm egg thing though isn't it? Do we wait for more cyclists before providing infrastructure or do we provide infrastructure in order to make cycling more attractive?

Geography plays a massive part in the difference in cycling in the UK compared to the Netherlands.

I do agree that cycle paths should be constructed alongside main roads where feasible, a painted white line is not enough and there needs to physical separation.

However, I am from the NE of England, Newcastle and Durham are 2 of our main cities. Newcastle could very easily be a successful cycling city, as it its fairly flat, although pretty hilly compared to NL. Durham is a nightmare, there is no way that many people would choose to cycle to get about, its just way too hilly.

Its not just the netherlands - its all over europe.

Edinburgh has a high ( for the UK) rate of cycling.  Facilities are poor and its full of hills.

It’s a chicken arm egg thing though isn’t it? Do we wait for more cyclists before providing infrastructure or do we provide infrastructure in order to make cycling more attractive?

Neither - its a paradigm shift over a long time and gradual with making car drivers pay more instead of the huge subsidy they get by not bearing the full costs of motoring and transferring that subsidy to cycling infrastructure and public transport along with using planning and road design to reduce the perceived need to travel.  You know - taking what works in other countries and bringing the best of it here

MUlti modal, multi factorial and gradual

crazy-legs Full Member

We don’t need to persuade people, we need to force it now.

How would that work though? Any party that suggests using anything but the lightest of touches to encourage people out of their cars will be drowned under an avalanche of "war on motorists" headlines and never make it into government.

Seatbelts were a 'war on motorists' but we got over that.

I do agree that cycle paths should be constructed alongside main roads where feasible

Having spent a morning avoiding some of the national cycling infrastructure that follows a main road, I think what we need is active travel infrastructure which goes directly, easily, peacefully...and the bloody roads and drivers can go the long or award way. And learn to stop so that prams, families, runners, cyclists, everything else comes first...

And learn to stop so that prams, families, runners, cyclists, everything else comes first…

You mean like in every european country except UK and malta?  🙂  Its weird in the low countries when a car stops to let you cross a junction on a bike.

Exceptionalism does NOT mean that we think it better.

This is why “This is Manchester, we do things differently here” winds me up. Different =/= better on so many fronts (not mentioning European-style boulevards)

Having spent a morning avoiding some of the national cycling infrastructure that follows a main road, I think what we need is active travel infrastructure which goes directly, easily, peacefully…and the bloody roads and drivers can go the long or award way. And learn to stop so that prams, families, runners, cyclists, everything else comes first…

Well the best cycling infrastructure I have used was in NL. The cycle lanes are shared with mopeds and micro cars. They also tend to follow the path of the roads. IME cyclists don't stop for pedestrians apart from at light controlled crossings.