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From fringe to mainstream. How do we get there too?

(18 posts)

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  1. SRD
    Moderator

    http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/one-negligent-cycle-super-highway-3.html

    Something has definitely changed. Two years ago when people first took to their pedals to protest at the woefully inadequate plans for Blackfriars Bridge (two years on, they're unchanged by the way), we were regarded by the media and London's politicians as something of a novelty . Now, calls for safe space for cycling are starting to go mainstream. But they're only going to stay mainstream if you join in and show you want to push for a solution.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  2. Baldcyclist
    Member

    I don't think we have to. Cycling is niche, there is nothing wrong with that.

    I actually don't think the masses are out there thinking, oh if only it was safe I would go out and buy a bike. Of course that is not to say that we shouldn't try to make things safer for those that do (want to) cycle.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  3. SRD
    Moderator

    I don't think mainstream means 'everyone doing it' or even a majority of the population. But that media reports, policymakers etc don't see it as 'wacky'.

    Don't see how safer infrastructure can possibly be accomplished if it is seen as a fringe activity of some cranks.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  4. chdot
    Admin

    "Don't see how safer infrastructure can possibly be accomplished if it is seen as a fringe activity of some cranks."

    This 'used' to be a problem.

    30 years ago an Edinburgh councillor told Spokes that there would a cycle path through The Meadows (just MMW) "over my dead body".

    He later apologised.

    NOW Govs have targets - 10% and more.

    BUT...

    Posted 12 years ago #
  5. Dave
    Member

    target = "aspirational shared visions", but yeah...

    I think this ("mainstreaming") is the single most important thing on the whole cycling agenda - much moreso than I used to.

    Mainstream obviously doesn't require universal participation. Lots of people aren't married, but marriage is still mainstream and so issues around marriage are taken seriously.

    A wild cornucopia of analogies are available...

    Posted 12 years ago #
  6. chdot
    Admin

    Actually SRD was talking about making calls for safety improvements "mainstream" - not cycling as such.

    CS does though -

    http://www.cyclingscotland.org/news/making-cycling-mainstream

    Of course (discussions here and elsewhere) it's about making cycling a sensible (and doable) option for more people.

    Cycling as a way of making life more pleasant (for 'everyone') - particularly in urban areas.

    This means improving things for pedestrians too.

    Easier said than done.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  7. Instography
    Member

    Someone who knows more about it will correct me if I'm wrong but the point where things like recycling, health and safety, quality etc go mainstream is when the desired behaviour stops being seen as the product of individual decisions and starts to be seen as system failure. Solutions stop being seen as individual behavioural modifications and start being seen as system modifications.

    There was a tweet going around the other day: British complain that cyclists jump red lights and the Danish engineer says, "what's wrong with your design?". He sees it as a system failure.

    I'm not sure cycling safety is much different. Part of mainstreaming it would be to stop treating each death or serious injury as a sad, isolated incident and instead draw them together and present the problem as systemic and the people as victims of a transport system that sees death (drivers, cyclists and pedestrians) as inevitable and, by doing nothing, treats them as acceptable collateral damage.

    Part of it, and perhaps a difficult part of it, would be to stop seeing individual drivers as errant fools or dangerous psychopaths (even if some of them are) and start seeing them too as the outcome of a system that at best fails to adequately sanction those behaviours and at worst promotes them. This would identify the real problem as the people who refuse to change the system to address its failures.

    That seems to me what the blog in the OP is saying.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  8. chdot
    Admin

    "present the problem as systemic and the people as victims of a transport system that sees death (drivers, cyclists and pedestrians) as inevitable and, by doing nothing, treats them as acceptable collateral damage."

    Indeed.

    Though for some reason the A9 is different and deserves special treatment/money. (And that that doesn't include double tracking the rail line to Inverness.)

    Posted 12 years ago #
  9. Instography
    Member

    It's well established that road design should engineer out the errors, lapses and violations of drivers as far as possible. Individual behaviours are solved by system changes. It's not so long ago that someone was seriously proposing that roadside trees should be cut down so that drivers leaving the road wouldn't be killed by crashing into them.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  10. minus six
    Member

    acceptable collateral damage

    that's it in a nutshell.

    everyday horror, rendered invisible by isolation.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  11. Baldcyclist
    Member

    "
    acceptable collateral damage

    that's it in a nutshell.

    everyday horror, rendered invisible by isolation.
    "

    Isn't that what happens when something becomes "mainstream"? Driving is "mainstream", the deaths are pretty much just accepted.

    70 people are killed every year, and 4000 injured every weekend doing DIY, no calls to shut down B&Q. It's "mainstream".

    Posted 12 years ago #
  12. Instography
    Member

    Driving deaths aren't just accepted. Think about how roads have changed and how vehicles have changed and you'll see that much of the reduction in driving related deaths and injuries has occurred through changes to the driving environment - the roads and vehicles - and very little through changes to driving - look how inadequate the driving test still is.

    The government sets an explicit target to reduce road casualties and actively works to achieve that by making changes to the driving environment, spends very little on the environment for cyclists and pedestrians and only a tiny part of their spending goes on individual behaviour modification.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  13. chdot
    Admin

    "
    More people die and are seriously injured because of inattentive motorists than because of terrorists; more misery is caused by road crime than electronic crime. Improved road safety has the potential to save many lives and road safety starts with proper investigation of road collisions and uniform adoption of the highest standards already exhibited by the best police officers.

    "

    From new CTC Road Justice campaign -

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=10691#post-117690

    Posted 12 years ago #
  14. Charterhall
    Member

    Cycling becomes mainstream when mainstream people are welcomed into cycling forums without being made to feel that they don't fit.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  15. neddie
    Member

    I thought the current government had [controversially] removed any targets to reduce road casualties...?

    Posted 12 years ago #
  16. Instography
    Member

    From Transport Scotland:

    There are currently 5 national targets for casualty reductions by 2020 – these figures show a reduction compared to the baseline for each:

    * 170 people were killed in 2012, 42 per cent below the 2004-08 baseline average level (target of 40%). This is also an update to National Indicator 32, to reduce deaths on Scotland’s roads.
    * 1,959 people were seriously injured in 2012, 25 per cent below the 2004-08 baseline average level (target of 55%)
    * On average 4 children were killed between 2010 and 2012: 72 per cent below the 2004-08 average (target of 50%).
    * 193 children were seriously injured in 2012: 41 per cent below the 2004-08 average (target of 65%).
    * A slight casualty rate of 24.69 casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometres in 2011 (the latest available traffic volume estimate): 24 per cent below the 2004-08 average (target of 10%)

    - See more at: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/news/road-casualties-statistics-2012#sthash.iVxWdnWO.dpuf

    Posted 12 years ago #
  17. neddie
    Member

    Thanks Insto. Perhaps it was the English government (or whatever they're called) I was thinking of?

    Posted 12 years ago #
  18. Instography
    Member

    It's interesting that of the five national targets for road safety each of them has seen progress, often exceeding the 2020 target or more progress that would be expected for this stage. One way for cycling and pedestrian safety to see similar levels of progress and become mainstream is for Government to set specific targets for it.

    Of course, the cycling targets could become like the climate change targets. Ignored and unachieved. But supportive politicians could start the debate. CoSLA could start the debate with local authorities. Sustrans, Cycling Scotland and anyone else with an interest could recognise that people will not cycle in huge numbers until it seen to be safe.

    And for as long as they don't do attempt to make cycling safer we should blame them - all of them - every time another poor old guy or young woman or whoever gets hit by a lorry, for encouraging people to take to roads that are manifestly unsuitable for mass cycling.

    Posted 12 years ago #

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