Space For Pootling

Destinations vs. Thoroughfares, Closures vs. Filters

2015-10-28T18:30:00+00:00

There's been a lot of good coverage of Dutch cycling infrastructure in British media lately, which I find encouraging! The most recent article I enjoyed was The Guardian's history of Groningen's revolutionary re-engineering in the 1970s. While it characterises the move as "anti-car", perhaps suggesting erroneously that the benefits for cycling were accidental, the picture it paints contains a key element for how we need to think about roads.

Cars Were Not Banned

The image above is from a Swedish paper about the Van den Berg plan. In it they say (emphasis mine):

The major aim of this plan was to make the downtown area and especially the old town more livable and accessible for traffic participators both users of public transportation and private cars.

The map gives a hint to the original 1977 plan: arrows describe a new system of one-way roads, and dotted lines show "sector boundaries" which automobiles were not allowed to cross. But note that this does not mean automobiles were not allowed into those sectors! Motorcar drivers were permitted to head out to the higher-capacity ring road to travel from one sector to another.

On foot or by bicycle, this circuitous path would be a hardship. But a motorcar doesn't tire out for having to take a slight detour, and in fact the ride is more comfortable on the higher-capacity road where greater speed is possible. So it would seem that instead of being some kind of ideological anti-car revolution, this was just sensible road design, no?

Sharing the wrong Space

London has recently begun to feel the pressure from its citizens to provide the kind of infrastructure that is commonplace in the Netherlands. As can be expected, the first few attempts were token projects that were all decoration with no material improvement. The poster child for this problem is the Exhibition Road "Shared Space" resurfacing in South Kensington. As Mark Treasure explains, this was entirely the wrong sort of road to receive this treatment!

One can forgive the inexperienced planning contractors who worked on this for saying "Well, there's pedestrians who want to get between the museums here, and cars that want to go through here, so why don't we try this fancy surface to hint to everyone that pedestrians have the right to use this space?" It appealed to me, when I first saw it on a weekend; after all, I'd regularly seen families looking furtively around and pushing buggies across the middle of the road to get to the V&A from the Science Museum!

Destinations vs. Thoroughfares

But the key problem is that for the pedestrians this road is a destination, while for the motorcars it is a thoroughfare. We ignore this distinction at our peril!

What London has done is to apply methods used on Dutch access roads to a through road. It's as if they couldn't tell the difference between a car park and a motorway, and from what I've seen of road policy in this country even that distinction may have little weight.

"Why do you hate business?"

Whenever a public hearing is held about a new scheme to reduce the speed of a road or add cycle infrastructure, invariably someone claims that the shopkeepers hate it because the reduction in traffic will result in a loss of business. It's been debunked time and again in country after country: cars speeding past your shop do not spend their money with you, but people on foot, mobility scooters, bicycles and tricycles do.

What these shopkeepers may be worried about is that some nefarious "anti-car" policy will hurt their status as a destination for motorists. That they can't see the harm that being on a smooth thoroughfare does to them is a sign of how badly we talk about roads. Shopping areas in the Groningen plan are still motoring destinations, and if anything the shopkeepers can be more confident that the motorists in the area are actually spending money!

Open Roads and Flowerpot Junctions

But as we've seen with the Waltham Forest Mini Holland scheme, the bikelash can be vicious. Outside agitators will drive their Chelsea Tractors in from miles away to protest the loss of a single sneaky rat-run.

The anti #MiniHolland brigade. No wonder they're against it. Lots of 'em didn't even know why they were there. pic.twitter.com/SriMwEGkcW
— Mousey (@MouseyRussell) October 22, 2015

There are two big confusions the bikelash brigade seem to have. The first is the matter of which part of Berlin was surrounded by the Berlin Wall:

Bike paths are just like the Berlin Wall say pro-car-parking protesters at today's Walthamstow #miniholland launch. pic.twitter.com/cUK69fwyIL
— Carlton Reid (@carltonreid) September 14, 2015

The second is that they actually think these roads have been closed! And who can blame them, given maps like these:

They've put some flowerpots on specific parts of a few junctions, but the legend calls it a "Road closure with feature".

Take a look at those roads. Trace your finger along them, and try to find a space on any road shown that cannot be driven to or from.

Do you see the problem? They're telling the public that roads will be closed, but the clear and obvious fact is that these roads will remain open. And this isn't some equivocating cycling-first agenda here: automobiles and ambulances and fire engines and delivery vans will still be able to drive to and from the buildings on those roads.

Language is Important

We need to act quickly on this, and get all the local authorities on the same page with us. When we ask them to plant filters at specific paths through some junctions, it hurts everyone when they turn around and tell the public that roads are being closed. It's factually incorrect, and plays into the hands of the outside agitators with their confused Berlin Wall placards.

.@FumeFreeStreets "Flowerpot filtering" beautiful turn of words! beats "filtered permeability" hands down.
— Natalie Gould (@nataliexgould) October 28, 2015

So please join Natalie Gould and me me in this move to clarify our language:

Old and Busted: "road closure"

New Hotness: "flowerpotted junction"

If we stop getting this wrong, we may find the benefits of Groningen come sooner than we expected.

Do you have Opinions about Cycling?

2015-09-27T12:15:57+01:00

If you have opinions about bicycles, then I'd like to interview you!

I'm starting a podcast project with a friend of mine who is something of a Vehicular Cyclist. As I'm a Confirmed Pootler, I feel like the two of us can cover more of the topical spectrum than either of us could alone.

Interviews

But first, we need to build up a body of recorded interviews to use as source material and illustration. We'll be approaching professionals and experts as well, but first we'd like to get a collection of personal experiences.

We're looking for the seeds of good stories, so your own tales and reminiscences will be the most helpful. We won't be debating you at all during recording, but we may raise a common question or ask for clarification.

We're happy to credit you via whatever name or handle you prefer to go by, and we won't publish anything you ask us not to.

How do I Sign Up?

If you're interested in participating, contact me by e-mail or catch me on twitter. I'm happy to arrange a meeting in person in Greater London, or we can do this on-line via my private Mumble voice-chat server (there are free client apps for every OS and phone platform).

As of this writing I've already conducted on-line interviews with correspondents in the US and Canada, and they've tended to run about two hours. These were people who had a lot to say, and it may be easier for you if we schedule a shorter session with an option to cover a topic again later. I'm happy with whatever works best for you!

When will this come out?

It will take us some time to collect enough interviews. My hope is that we collect enough to be able to make a show at the beginning of the new year, but pride goes before the fall and all that.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Dividends of the Tour de France

2015-07-30T09:59:23+01:00

One of the nicest surprises from the Tour de France was this excellent Chris Boardman video essay on Dutch cycling infrastructure:

By and large it was a study in the style of Mark Wagenbuur's videos, complete with one of Wagenbuur's own clips of a "rush hour" Dutch cycling junction.

Well I've spent a couple of days, now, riding around the streets of Utrecht and I've seen tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of bikes, but I haven't seen a single cyclist. I've just seen normal people in normal clothes doing normal things: dressed for the destination, not the journey.

Three cheers to Chris Boardman, the Olympic Cyclist who rejects Cyclism!

RT @CTC_Cyclists: Bradford's junction V same in Denmark. 600miles from here. One prioritises cars, the other people. pic.twitter.com/HFTk1xaKOb
— Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman) May 18, 2015

Holland's Flat, Mate!

2015-07-29T23:48:05+01:00

It's bound to come up eventually in any conversation about Dutch cycling infrastructure: someone tries to wave away all successes in the Netherlands either by claiming it's an Ineffable Aspect of Dutch Culture, or just say "But it's flat over there. We've got hills!"

And it's true that the Dutch cycling infrastructure works hard to ensure that inclines don't make cycling harder. Most notably, cyclists tend to pass under motorways in carefully-engineered underpasses that allow them to get a speed boost on the way down that carries them most of the way back up. There's definitely something to be said for not having to climb Telegraph Hill just to get to work!

Oh yes, that's right...Telegraph Hill is in San Francisco, not London! So, let's say the counterbalance on Queen Anne hill, then.

What's that? That's in Seattle? With a name like that? Fine, fine! I guess I've lived in far hillier places than London before. Certainly the majority of it is a fairly gentle river basin, and it doesn't take much imagination to plan level routes through most of it.

But it's true to an extent: there are hills, however gentle. And those things are an immense boon to cyclists.

You see, aside from simply making it a bit harder on the up ride and easier on the down ride, living in a valley protects us from a problem that plagues cycling in the Netherlands: wind.

Wind in Delft

The video above is from an era back when the university at Delft still allowed cars on its campus. How quaint! But at least the cycling infrastructure of the era was separated enough to allow people to get off their bikes with only a near miss or two, instead of the certain death that would have happened if someone had fallen over like that outside (say) University College London.

The Dutch coastline takes quite a battering from North Sea winds, and as the prevailing winds flow inland and quite a few crucial routes follow the coastline, you can get blown in a very difficult direction. A headwind would be easier to deal with: you would get a tailwind on the way back. But a cross-wind makes balancing more difficult, and you pay the penalty on both legs of your journey.

Rock Paper Scissors Wind Hills

And I can personally attest that wind can make more of a difference than hills! I've found myself pedaling not too fast in my lowest gear downhill, and finding resistance in the pedals. This experience was due to the fact that I was cycling into a headwind that more than cancelled out the rather steep downhill slope.

So yes, the Netherlands is flatter than London. But cycling thrives there despite this, not because of it!

But here's some hills in the Netherlands

Stop Vrouwmoord

2015-07-07T11:56:04+01:00

@Chris_Boardman 2nd iconic pic of #stopkillingcyclists Die-In by @electricpedals echoing great 70's Amsterdam Die-In pic.twitter.com/s5ZX75URF7
— Donnachadh McCarthy (@DonnachadhMc) June 30, 2015

Londoners will look back on the Summer of 2015 as either the moment things really got changing, or a peak we wish we could reproduce.

Requiescat in Pace, Ying Tao

The inspiration that finally moved me to set up this blog and start writing about my philosophy of Pootlism came from the events of the past two weeks. Other news sources covered it better than I could, but just as work on the East-West superhighway was begun, London's roads struck down the eighth person on a bicycle this year. It was the sixth woman, all of whom died when hit by a lorry.

The Most Vulnerable of Vulnerable Road Users

The demographics are striking, and Rosamund Urwin did an excellent job researching the forces behind this trend:

Women are concerned with being road-ready — three quarters of those attending TfL cycling safety classes are female. But a common claim is that women’s unwillingness to break the rules could actually be putting them in greater danger from HGVs. Jumping red lights — which introduces other risks, of course — can at least put you ahead of HGVs. A leaked TfL report from 2007 had this blunt conclusion: “Women may be over-represented in (collisions with goods vehicles) because they are less likely than men to disobey red lights.”

As a Pootler, this definitely catches my attention. Jack-rabbiting through junctions is entirely too high-strung and aggressive to appeal to me. It comes from the world of Cyclism, and the suggestion that this disregard for the Highway Code may actually be safer just shows how perverse the incentives are on London's roads.

Don't Mourn: Organise!

The reaction from the people of London was dramatic. First there was the morning vigil, where people commuting through central London by bicycle all stopped in the seven-way Bank junction to offer a shared moment of silence.

Protest held at Bank junction after London’s eighth cycling death in 2015 | http://t.co/9WGIby4vrk pic.twitter.com/gIddyYBnwO
— Cycling Weekly (@cyclingweekly) June 24, 2015

.@annkenrick speaking at #space4cycling protest at Bank this am. No more deaths - join @london_cycling pic.twitter.com/n69Ou8YH3N
— Anne Fairweather (@AnneFairweather) June 24, 2015

The following photo reminded me of the #notacyclist campaign, which was a seed well planted:

Action is needed to make cycling safer for everyone in London #space4cycling @london_cycling pic.twitter.com/BotSe8er6l
— Ann Kenrick (@annkenrick) June 24, 2015

Critical Mass

That Friday was Critical Mass London. I was living in San Francisco in the late 1990s when the local police famously clashed with the more violent contingent of the monthly ride. While I'm a fan of group rides, I'm still a bit wary of CM and the potential for another allergic reaction to Authority. That said, June 2015's ride held its own occupation of Bank junction, this time in a "mad as Hell, and not going to take it any more" spirit:

Die-In

At the LCC award ceremony, Ying Tao's death was clearly on everyone's mind. Jeremy Vine even mentioned that he would likely be at the junction that killed her, were it not for the conflict with the LCC event:

So it was that Bank junction would be filled with people on bicycles a for a third time one week after Ying Tao's death. This time it was a more traditional protest falling somewhere between the two previous events. People lay down to "play dead" on the roadbed with their bicycles flat beside them to symbolise the fate of those who ride on London's poorly-designed roads.

It was a tactic that worked once before in a country that had built for cars to the exclusion of all other road users: The Netherlands.

How the Dutch got their Cycle Paths

People often refer to cycling in the Netherlands as traditional, and write the current trend off as some unique and enduring element of their National Character. But as Mark Wagenbuur explains, the Dutch were working as hard as the British to make cycling dangerous:

The "die-in" protests are one of the enduring images of the struggle in the 1970s to fix Amsterdam's roads. Use of the tactic in London is an attempt to copy that success, while also symbolically pointing to The Netherlands as a model for future progress.

Even the #stopkillingcyclists campaign is meant to evoke the Dutch Stop de Kindermoord slogans of the 1970s. That generation of activist appealed to voters to save children cycling to school. But what if London is saved by concern for (as Jeremy Vine put it), the "smart, professional woman in her mid-20s killed by a tipper truck turning left"?

We can hope, because either we stop the killing or we stop caring, and I couldn't bear to face the latter outcome.

So here's hoping for real change in London and in cities around the world.

I am not a Cyclist

2015-07-07T11:56:04+01:00

I have a bicycle, which I ride regularly, but I am not a "Cyclist". I have deliberately never learned to drive a motorcar, and yet I am still not a "Cyclist". I am an active member of the LCC, and even so I am not a "Cyclist"!

What am I? Well, that depends a lot on who's asking and why, but in the context of the above the answer is simple: I'm just a person with a bicycle. I'm someone who does not drive a car, and has firm reasons for never doing so. I'm someone who cares about the structure of our built environment, and who has ideas for how roads can be improved in London.

What is a Cyclist?

Of course, by declaring myself not a Cyclist, I'm defining it far less broadly than most. After all, nearly everyone uses the term "cyclist" to refer to everyone on a bicycle. But the term has become evocative of a particular type of person. To sort this out, I take you now to the Wikipedia entry for Cycling, which has this as its first image:

Almost everyone I know finds this image fairly representative of the word "cyclist" to them. It features fit twentysomething men in spandex and plastic hats: a uniform of specialised sportswear. They lean forward to squeeze every ounce of performance out of their spiderweb-light bicycles, showing dedication to their expensive hobby. If these are Cyclists, then it follows that they exhibit these patterns to signal to observers that they are devotees of Cyclism.

But let us now scroll past the off-road sport bicycling and the London cycle police to the fourth image on that Wikipedia page:

Do you imagine this woman identifies herself as a Cyclist? She has almost nothing in common with the men in the previous image, other than that she's riding some sort of bicycle. The demographics, equipment, posture, goals, and setting are so different that I find it absurd to use the same word to describe these two sets of people.

So let the sporty dudebros keep "cyclist". We can let that term die off in association with "lycra louts" as a signifier for obsessed white men with expensive toys. We can say these images all show people on bikes, but beyond that they're almost on separate planets.

What word, then?

To fill in the gap, I take a term from my adopted British homeland: Pootler. The OED defines "pootle" as:

Move or travel in a leisurely manner: 'they were pootling down a canal in their new boat'

The term is often associated with lazy cycling, indicating someone who is trying not to become sweaty. For Cyclists, a good shower is a given after a "tour" by bicycle. But Pootlers are just trying to get to work or go shopping or ferry the kids home or maybe just take in the sights. Pootlers aren't interested in breaking any speed records or beating a taxi to the next stoplight, but in completing a trip safely.

Where does that leave us?

We have this misperception that Cyclism defines the role that the bicycle should take on our roads: it's either a recreational toy, or an opportunity for someone to prove athletic prowess and best the motorcar on its own turf. This poisons the discourse, ignoring the needs of the woman cycling from one village to another as part of her daily business.

Marc Caswell reported on StreetsBlog that plans for surprisingly good protected cycle lanes were drawn up in the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s (one example is pictured at the top of this essay). But when the time came to build them, they were destroyed--not by some Big Oil motoring lobby, but by Cyclists:

Just as the bikeways movement was gaining steam and formalization was taking shape, physically separated bikeways were challenged by a new movement of vehicular cycling advocates — many of whom still challenge bikeways today. Throughout the 1970s, these fit men who self-identified as “cyclists” attended meeting after meeting to decry the designs that engineers were supposedly building for them. Quibbles in the wording of laws or details of a design became arguments and headaches for city staff. Anyone who was not already riding a bicycle on busy car-dominated streets was drowned out by the vehicular cyclists who claimed to speak for all bicycle riders.

If we'd let the same contingent of motorcar drivers define the motoring infrastructure, the result would be absurd: "We could build residential roads with driveways leading up to home garages, but Formula 1 drivers have been shown to prefer pit stop lanes instead."

Design for eight year-old girls, not thirty year-old men.

My Pootler's mantra is "Ride Like a Child!" Even my fellow LCC members have commuted by bike for so long that they have come to accept routes that are only "good enough" because they have a wealth of skill and experience riding alongside London's automotive traffic. While these people are fighting the good fight, they also stop and ask themselves "Would I let my child ride here right now?" and the answer is often a dismayed "Absolutely not!"

To this end I have resisted riding on routes favoured by motorcar traffic. I pootle on calm residential streets, where speeds are low and nobody expects to make it through without a little courteous letting-pass. I am capable of signaling a turn and checking behind me, but any road faster than 20mph without safe protection for me is something to be avoided.

Do you suppose this kid was allowed to cycle along here before the segregation? More of this please. pic.twitter.com/81N5vDbqLp
— aviewoflondon (@sw19cam) July 2, 2015

When I "Ride Like a Child", I imagine an eight year-old. This is partly due to inspiration from people I know, but also because eight years old was when I started riding the bus on my own. Think of it not as a particular personality, but as a particular balance of independence and lack of experience. When you advocate some piece of infrastructure for people on bicycles, I ask you to think "would this be safe for eight year-olds to ride?"

While I support the Space for Cycling campaign, I'm hoping for something better. I'm hoping for...