Are 73% of cyclists against cycle lanes? « CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum

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Are 73% of cyclists against cycle lanes?

(24 posts)

Started 3 years ago by Dave
Latest reply from miak

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Dave
Member

SWEM are claiming that a huge majority of cyclists don't want segregated lanes. I must say I've seen a few not using them on the Lanark Rd which I find a bit baffling and looks very damning when you see mobile phone footage being shared around residents groups and councillors.

It feels like the cause of cycle infrastructure is attached to a rubber band here. If these lanes don't stick the backlash will be vicious and the political capital needed to make any future changes at all will be nearly impossible to come by.

Who is it that is so self-centred that they'd rather have nothing, and we'll be driving our kids around in the car (literally) than have the current lanes where we're biking them?

Posted 3 years ago #
Dave
Member

According to Strava, I'm the person who has cycled down Lanark Rd the fastest since January 2015. If I'm OK with it, what's the ****ing problem?

Posted 3 years ago #
Stickman
Member

Existing cyclists, who by definition are happy to cycle in traffic ?

Also, selection and response bias.

Posted 3 years ago #
neddie
Member

The cycle lanes aren't for existing cyclists. They're for the huge latent demand of people who would like to cycle some journeys, but won't because of fear.

Posted 3 years ago #
neddie
Member

Stickman beat me to it

Posted 3 years ago #
jonty
Member

As an infrequent user I always make a point of using the downhill Lanark Road cycle lanes and I certainly find it less stressful than I used to. However, the surface is pretty unpleasant, there's always at least one car blockage (although it's certainly much better than before) and the way the lines are painted (for the benefit of motor traffic) make the bollard bases feel slightly threatening.

If I were a frequent downhill commuter used to braving the road as it was and more invested in getting from A to B than supporting Edinburgh cycle infrastructure investment I can quite imagine that taking the lane would seem preferable, especially given that with the new 30mph limit it's actually feasible to fully take the lane ahead of the traffic, avoiding having to pull in and out over the tarmac seam between lanes. If they are safer while doing so, then that's surely a good thing?

It would be interesting to see genuine analysis on this from a group which doesn't aim to paint the lane as useless. Are there parts that are being used and avoided? What's the difference uphill/downhill? Hopefully this is the sort of thing the council are trying to monitor.

Posted 3 years ago #
Stickman
Member

Also, rather than a simple “yes/no” about these temporary, imperfect lanes why not ask if they would use fully segregated, permanent lanes following the best designs from elsewhere?

I suppose SWEM wouldn’t dare ask that because such designs would mean proper and significant reallocation of road space.

SWEM are a single issue group who want to stop the cycle lanes in order to preserve parking. All their other supposed concerns about emergency services delays etc are only invoked to support that objective.

Posted 3 years ago #
chdot
Admin

“SWEM are claiming that a huge majority of cyclists don't want segregated lanes.”

How/where are they asking?

Question?

Just one?

Posted 3 years ago #
Stickman
Member

@chdot: their pals at East Craigs commissioned a market research firm to do a survey of their area, and they are pushing the results heavily (does anyone want to say “response priming”?) - have SWEM done the same?

Posted 3 years ago #
chdot
Admin

And how did they identify “cyclists”?

Posted 3 years ago #
Dave
Member

Nobody asked us, and I doubt many of the parents at nursery since we've privately asked several and they seem supportive. My first thought was that it's just a made up number, but then I keep seeing footage of people cycling in the road. Hanging around the wrong people maybe

Posted 3 years ago #
Stickman
Member

And how did they identify “cyclists”?

You aren’t suggesting that people opposing bike lanes would *lie* on a survey?

Posted 3 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Yeah, probably the kind of response that goes something like "As a cyclist myself, I am opposed to these new fangled lanes, because it means I can't park my motor vehicle outside my own home". Respondent has a bike rusting in shed in the back garden, used once when new, got sore bum or beeped at by an impatient driver, been in shed ever since for last ten years.

Posted 3 years ago #
ejstubbs
Member

@jonty: Are there parts that are being used and avoided? What's the difference uphill/downhill?

I don't commute these days, and I don't live in Juniper Green/Currie/Balerno anyway so my direct experience is limited but I have used the new lane from the Longstone junction as far as Redhall Bank Road and I found it much more relaxing being able to concentrate on making progress without having to worry about impatient drivers behaving badly in my vicinity. The surface at the start of the lane at Longstone is pretty rough, though (which said, that didn't seem to put off the guy I saw riding an illegal electric scooter up there, despite his tiny wheels being particularly vulnerable to the non-trivial irregularities in the tarmac).

On my other passages along Lanark Road I have definitely seen more people using the westbound lane than the eastbound. All of the westbound users I've seen have been "normal people on bikes" making steady but not exceptionally rapid progress uphill i.e. the very kind of users who make up the latent demand described by neddie: not willing or able to tough it out in the motorised traffic lane but happy to put in the effort to travel by bike given a more protected environment in which to do so.

Posted 3 years ago #
MediumDave
Member

I'm an infrequent leisure user (of this route - bike is my main form of transport for all purposes and I'm more than happy to mix it with traffic) but I use the uphill lane pretty much always and the downhill from time to time. It's just nicer.

I do find that I go considerably slower in the downhill lane (to give increased time to avoid obstacles/exit the lane if necessary). Perhaps taking it slow is no bad thing but if I was commuting along Lanark Road I probably would take the main lane downhill if traffic was free flowing.

Swapping to 32mm tyres front and rear has helped a lot with the poor surfaces. Even on 28s, Lanark Road was Quite Unpleasant. Racing whippets on narrower tyres might quite reasonably wish to avoid the rough edges.

Posted 3 years ago #
twinspark
Member

"Are there parts that are being used and avoided? What's the difference uphill/downhill?"

Could the "sampling" be taking place where there is an issue? I've not used Lanark Road, but in the case of Comiston Road, if you'd sampled at the Pentland View junction, you'd have seen me, and I know others, not using the segregated section even although I and others did before and after. It was all down to the feeling of safety.

Now that refinemnets have been made in that area I use the entire segregated lane.....

Posted 3 years ago #
Rob
Member

"Also, rather than a simple “yes/no” about these temporary, imperfect lanes why not ask if they would use fully segregated, permanent lanes following the best designs from elsewhere?"

Fully segregated, fully joined up, permanent lanes. I don't use the Ferry Road cycle lanes because getting to and from them means braving heavy traffic. I'd be all over them if they were done properly.

"The cycle lanes aren't for existing cyclists. They're for the huge latent demand of people who would like to cycle some journeys, but won't because of fear."

See also the "if cyclists don't care about their own safety, why should we build cycle lanes" argument. Most 'cyclists', i.e. people who could/would cycle, look after their own safety by buying and using a car.

Posted 3 years ago #
Morningsider
Member

Actual peer reviewed research into the impact of Covid-19 cycle lanes found that they "...produce large increases in cycling".

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/15/e2024399118

Polling by YouGov for Cycling UK show that 56% of people in the UK support Covid active travel measures, including a specific mention of cycle lanes, while only 19% oppose them.

Three-quarters of cyclists do not oppose cycle lanes - that's patently false - regardless of how that figure was "calculated".

Posted 3 years ago #
gembo
Member

SWEM ARE two standard deviations from the norm

I have always used the bollareded lane

I know one cyclist who doesn’t

On the way down but does on the way up

Posted 3 years ago #
fimm
Member

One other thing to say about the Lanark Road lanes in particular is that they don't have good connections (apart from to the canal WoL path). I use that road mostly to head up through Juniper Green and the Lanark Road the other side of the Gillespie Crossroads is pretty hostile. If there's no obvious safe way to get to the lanes how are people going to get there?

I do use the lanes in both directions but I can see why cyclists descending would not.
Didn't someone upthread say they'd seen video of a cyclist not using the lane? Uphill or downhill?

Whoever is criticising people for not using the lanes, not all cyclists are aware of all the "politics", for want of a better word, around these things. They're making the decision based on what is better for them and their journey.

Posted 3 years ago #
chdot
Admin

“not all cyclists are aware of all the "politics", for want of a better word, around these things. They're making the decision based on what is better for them and their journey.”

Yep.

Some may even think it’s reasonable to leave lanes for newer riders.

Some may even resent the lanes as it puts them further into the traffic - BUT it won’t be 73%!

Posted 3 years ago #
miak
Member

Ive used queensferry road (nightmare with parked buses, vans and potholes) Lanark road at longstone westwards is a really nasty surface, not used eastwards, fairmilehead north to morningside, parked cars, broken bollards but i have tried to use them. I use them when they are smooth, unencumbered by cars and/or slower moving cyclists, but as im doing 20 in 20 limits i'll use the road if its safer and smoother.

Posted 3 years ago #
ejstubbs
Member

The Comiston Road lanes were regularly parked in when they first went in but I can't recall finding illegally parked cars blocking a lane since the SfP folks went back and put DYLs all over the place. Maybe I've just been lucky.

Tell a lie: I believe I do vaguely remember once seeing a van parked in the other cycle lane to the way I was going. They'd contrived to park in one of the marked parking bays, but up against the kerb thus blocking the cycle lane. At the time I put it down to either wanting to passively-aggressively make some kind of point about how much they despised cycle lanes without actually risking a ticket, or else just being clinically stupid.

Apart from that incident, though, my experience is that the Comiston Road lanes aren't infested with parked vehicles. I certainly don't recall having to detour round any in the past few months.

Posted 3 years ago #
miak
Member

I was coming north on comiston and someone had parked to unload next to their driveway...another pulled in front of me into the cycle lane as soon as the bollards stopped.... my back wheel left rubber on the tarmac ... i did swear a little. At the top of the lane at the fairmilehead crossroads there is a bollard missing which leaves the black (nearly invisible) base. To be fair the north bound surface is nice but in my three trips in three weeks ive had a few close calls on that stretch.

Posted 3 years ago #

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