"
CycleBath (@CycleBath) tweeted at 7:56pm - 23 Jul 13:
Odd, rather confused piece by @sustrans http://t.co/iwKi0LdfZp
@DavidHembrow’s comment is spot-on.
"
Long thread here -
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Sustrans and shared paths (a controversy)
(23 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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For some reason this got up my nose.
http://mccraw.co.uk/misguided-embarassing-counterproductive/
Posted 11 years ago # -
Roads are for fast moving traffic: >15mph
Shared paths are for slow moving traffic: < 15mphIMO speed differential, and proximity are the two things that 'scare' people, 'our' shared paths (the NEPN for example) aren't very wide, so there *may* be a proximity issue. Speed differential on a shared use path, potentially quite a lot too if your going at 15 or 20 mph.
Think it's worth remembering that a lot of drivers don't actually realise they are too close/fast when passing cyclists, they don't do it deliberately either.
Posted 11 years ago # -
NEPN for instance allows you to pass a ped with greater clearance than when driving on many a country road.
As you know, I'm the last to condone dangerous antics but it's really more a question of expectation than safety IMO. My own view is that it's just unrealistic to share space with peds yet preserve their primacy, just as the first horse rider impacted peds, and coaches, motors in turn.
For society to judge whether advantages outweigh that impact, but always remembering that cyclists on NEPN are just peds who bought bikes. Distinction artificial.
Posted 11 years ago # -
As you know, I'm the last to condone dangerous antics but it's really more a question of expectation than safety IMO. My own view is that it's just unrealistic to share space with cyclists yet preserve their primacy, just as the first horse rider impacted peds, and coaches, motors in turn.
For society to judge whether advantages outweigh that impact, but always remembering that drivers are just cyclists who bought cars. Distinction artificial.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Dave - this harkens back to our first argument on the forum, but until you are elderly and infirm, or walk frequently with someone who is, or with a toddler, you will not understand how terrifying bikes can be. Even if you as a cyclist are confident that you are in control and safe, it can be truly terrifying for someone 80 plus who is trying to keep active, but who knows that a slip and hip fracture could easily and literally be the death of them.
Two dedicated cyclists I know - lifelong enthusiasts of the sort who wouldn't walk 100 metres if they could ride it - have both recently had bad encounters with cyclists who they thought were reckless. We need to listen to people like them, who know and love cycling and know that cyclists aren't the devil incarnate, but who still find shared path use worrying.
I still agree with much of what you wrote, but you write from the perspective of a fit young man, not from knowledge or empathy of how unstable, uncertain and tentative life can be if you are unwell, with mobility issues, or elderly.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Anyone know the reasoning behind the appearance of two (at least) no cycling signs, which appear to have been applied using the same stencil, so I'm guessing done by the council? They both may be valid, but also stup ... rather pointless.
One is as you come off the cycle path at wester coates terrace. As you meet the pavement from the path, which you have to cross to access the road (and there'a a lowered curb to help), there's the lovely no-cycling sign. Are cyclists meant to get off their bikes for all of 3 feet? Some wag has added a rather suitable question mark.
There's a similar situation, with the same sign, at a path in Braehead in Barnton.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I witnessed on the NEPN recently a cyclist going not mega fast, but reasonably frighten a youngster say about 4 or 5, it was no fault of the childs parents, kids move suddenly they just do. cyclist didn't slow down on approach, or even apolgise.
I appreciate the debate over shared paths v dedicated, however at the moment the NEPN is shared, like it or not.
to quote baldcyclist
"Roads are for fast moving traffic: >15mph
Shared paths are for slow moving traffic: < 15mph"If we want to move cycling forward we need people on our side, whether they are peds, motorists or whatever, we do not do that by fast close calls.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Two dedicated cyclists I know - lifelong enthusiasts of the sort who wouldn't walk 100 metres if they could ride it - have both recently had bad encounters with cyclists who they thought were reckless. We need to listen to people like them, who know and love cycling and know that cyclists aren't the devil incarnate, but who still find shared path use worrying."
^this!
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Wilmington's Cow - you hit it on the head. We don't have any solutions for the problems of motorist primacy (except segregation) despite having now had well over a century of visibility of them.
The only things that seem to work are physical measures that circumvent the problems by separating people. Wailing on cars / the behaviour of some drivers is futile.
My point would very much be the same - there's no way to deliver some kind of cycling nirvana where people share space and never annoy each other. Attacking cyclists as a whole for some of them being human is not useful; it's counterproductive.
On NEPN for instance there are only two real options that would remove conflict: remove cyclists or implement hard segregation. The alternative is the current state of affairs, in which 99% of people are happy 99% of the time, but not always. I prefer this, but it's easy to see that others might not. That's why when cars were first invented, and people decided they didn't like sharing space with tons of speeding metal, society came up with segregation (pavements).
Posted 11 years ago # -
I still agree with much of what you wrote, but you write from the perspective of a fit young man, not from knowledge or empathy of how unstable, uncertain and tentative life can be if you are unwell, with mobility issues, or elderly.
I can take this on the chin.
Perhaps I should add that when I do find myself walking on NEPN (or the canal, especially) I find the presence of cyclists agonisingly annoying. Regardless of how fast or slow they are going, I detest being constantly ting-tinged, having to look out for other people trying to pass, moving aside to make space instead of walking along side by side. I mean really, as a pedestrian I would support an outright ban on all cyclists leaving the road at any time.
Only the fact that I am also a cyclist gives me the (sometimes retrospective) wisdom to see that the benefit to cyclists of not being killed in a car crash (and all the benefits society as a whole accrue from cycling) outweigh the loss to me of having to share the space.
Posted 11 years ago # -
dave, glad to see that your two recent posts contradict each other, from my reading. The last one shows how you can share a perspective, thus there is hope that people can learn to rub along with cyclists slowing down a bit instead of treating paths as empty roads and pedestrians being aware of other users of the path.
Not a solution for all but a way of looking at using the paths without as much aggro. I was out with two of my kids on short cycle last Saturday of about six miles on the WoL path, mobbed with cyclists, walkers, dog walkers and horses. All rubbing along. No boy racers trying to rip it up.
Posted 11 years ago # -
That's why when cars were first invented, and people decided they didn't like sharing space with tons of speeding metal, society came up with <snip>
What they came up with in fact was a man walking in front of the cars holding a red flag. Kind of a compulsory speed limit, if you like.
Kerbed pavements/sidewalks have been around a long time: here are some from Roman Pompeii.
Posted 11 years ago # -
True. I guess it would be more accurate to say: segregation became popular as soon as mixed modal transport became popular. For the Romans, having all those chariots racing around clearly encouraged early innovation!
I wonder if the Roman Chariot Club was also as keen to decry "demonic charioteers"...
Posted 11 years ago # -
dave, glad to see that your two recent posts contradict each other, from my reading.
I don't think there is any contradiction?
Let me put it another way: I get equally annoyed with constant streams of cars restricting my movement and enjoyment of the city, pretty much all the time, as I do with cyclists.
As a pedestrian I'd love for cars to disappear altogether inside the bypass.
However, I both drive a car inside the city and have to acknowledge (when I'm not desperately trying to walk across a busy road, that is) that the "good" of driving outweighs the benefit of having things my way.
In just the same way, I think that:
- it's a universal truth that allowing cyclists of even the greatest slowness and courtesy into a 'shared' space disadvantages peds
- toughIt's a shame because the underlying issue is not contentious. How can we defend speeding drivers? Drunken drivers? Mobile phone drivers? All the same activity in cyclists is equally impossible to defend.
That's really at a tangent to the issue in the OP, however, as nobody (AFAIK) has said that a cyclist who actually is a demonic killing speed machine is anything other than a problem.
Posted 11 years ago # -
While I agree with Baldcyclist's 15mph figure in terms of a reasonable speed for shared paths, I have recently had an incident with a ped when I was travelling around 8mph, because they didn't see me coming (despite it being a long stretch of straight path where I could see her long before I got to her), and her 2yo child suddenly shot out to my side of the path unexpectedly. The thing is, my speed was deliberately slow because I had anticipated the possibility of this happening, and when it happened, I was able to stop very quickly and in plenty of time to prevent a collision. Alas, I was apparently still to blame for scaring her and her child, because I was going too fast. And I had the GPS trace to prove I wasn't (IMHO).
Therefore, ped and cyclist perception of "too fast" differs. I suspect she thought I was going too fast because she didn't see me coming (not sure how, tbh), and thus she got a fright when something moving at a greater speed than 3mph came upon her.
Furthermore, I think the size of the path should determine the speed a cyclist should go at. The eastern part of the Silverknowes path (next to the sea) is massively wide and caters for speeds in excess of 20mph, as I am sure most of us who have ridden it will have hit speeds of around 25mph without incident. The western part, however, gets a lot narrower, and 20mph is no longer a safe speed, unless there are pretty much zero peds. I suspect that there are some demonic killing speed machine operatives who may not realise this?
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't think the Romans built pavements to keep pedestrians segregated from Chariots!
The Romans, and everyone up to the advent of the motor car built pavements to keep their precious boots and skirts out of horse manure & general human detritus that built up in the streets!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Undoubtedly true. However:
"Judge then my disappointment on entering London to see no signs of that opulence so much talked of abroad; wherever I turn I am presented with a gloomy solemnity in the houses, streets and the inhabitants; none of that beautiful gilding which makes a principal ornament in Chinese architecture. The streets of Nankin are sometimes strewed with goldleaf: very different are those of London; in the midst of their pavements a great lazy puddle moves muddily along; heavy laden machines with wheels of unwieldy thickness crowd up every passage; so that a stranger instead of finding time for observation is often happy if he has time to escape from being crushed to pieces.
The side-walks are exceedingly low and very narrow. Oxford, Regent, Cannon and a few other streets are the only exceptions. I have frequently seen brewers' teams and others come within one foot of the store windows, and have been obliged to jump into a store door to escape being struck. To walk two or three abreast in the city is perfectly impossible. In very few streets is there any protection to the curb and consequently the hubs of the wheels, especially when passing other teams, extends several inches over the side-walk."
W. O'Daniel, Ins and Outs of London, 1859
N.B.- "pavement" refers to a stone paved street, like in Pompeii.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't think there is anything wrong in having contradictory views. Or indeed to see the error of my ways and change my mind.
Before I got backmintomcycling I did not like the cyclists on the WoL path arrogantly blasting past my little children without even a tingaling on their non existent bells
Now as a cyclist I look out for my brothers and sisters of the free and fixed wheel when out with my kids , though they are older they still need to step to the side if speeding cyclists approaching.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Dave - I wonder if the Roman Chariot Club was also as keen to decry "demonic charioteers"...
Typically I can't find the quote now I need it, but I have heard a "youth of today" type quote complaining about speeding on the roads of ancient Rome.
The search did turn up an early HGV ban in the city - apparently Julius Caesar banned them during the day, leading to complaints about being unable to sleep at night for the noise of the deliveries...
Robert
Posted 11 years ago # -
gembo,
With the exception of '84-'85 when my bike was in my auntie's garage and my parents had no house I never really didn't cycle. Why would you stop and start again?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Was out with one of our mutual acquaintances, cycled to he Carbeth inn, had an orange juice,cycling back to Glasgow he was knocked over a hedge by motorist. A couple weeks later I come a cropper on great western road,put the rear mech through the back wheel. Sell bike as decide might be third time unlucky for me.Then move to Edinburgh and get really into running. Before all this, swimming was my passion. So I start back at the swimming too and the cycling gets the heave ho. I regret the sequence of events but can't do anything to change it. Yesterday, sou'westerly on the A70 for first Time in months, ecstatic
Posted 11 years ago #
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