Are You Segregationist Or Integrationist?
Here are the two sides of the coin on this one:
- Mixing motorised vehicles and people on bikes makes no sense. The former weighs 20-50 times as much as the latter, and the driver is protected from the consequences of their actions by a steel exoskeleton. We need to keep these away from people on bikes to make it safe for riders. Dedicated cycle routes are the answer.
- There are bike routes everywhere - they’re called "roads". If we push for bike paths that are segregated, we’ll end up in a cycling ghetto - unable to get from A to B because we’ll have ceded the road space to the cars. Bah.
Hmmm . . . This via Amsterdamize’s twitter feed - a video by Markenlei that seems to make the point that’s missing from the above opposing views:
So if there are faults with both the segregationist and integrationist frames of thinking, how about being a pragmatist?
The video says it all, right? There are places where we need segregation and places where we need integration. Our road infrastructure is critical to our economy. We need trucks moving stuff around, and our major roads are ateries for business. But, much as I enjoy my cycling, and I do often choose to cycle on the road, I don’t like sharing roads with lorries!
What’s amazing in that video is how slowly the cars are going in the residential areas. They’ve long straight roads but seem to be driving very respectfully.
Oh for some joined up thinking like that in Britain! The benefits are many and great.
“What’s amazing in that video is how slowly the cars are going in the residential areas. They’ve long straight roads but seem to be driving very respectfully.”
And there’s the key. A lot of drivers in Britain simply don’t see their speeding & inattention as dangerous. (And lets face it, to them it isn’t - the physical consequnces are minimal, the legal ones are too, unless they happen to be drunk). Our polity and society enables that by calling avoidable collisions “accidents” and portraying any attempt to get drivers to actually obey the law as cynical revenue making schemes.
Where motor traffic is quick (limits above 30, I’d say) segregation makes a lot of sense - it should be high quality & properly maintained). At urban speeds (30 and below) it makes less and less sense, as average bike speed is close to that of the traffic anyway.
What is missed by the video is the nature of the roads on which you are expected to cycle. Generally you won’t find cyclists sharing roads with cars in the Netherlands where the speed limit is higher than 30. That’s 30 km/h, i.e. 18 mph. Also, those roads are almost always not through roads for drivers, so very very few cars are on them. It’s not really very similar to the situation in the UK. You can see a description of what is typical here.
As soon as you have higher speed limits. i.e. 50 km/h or 30 mph, or it’s a through road for cars, then you have segregation, just as is shown in the video. You find cycle paths of that quality all across the country. Direct, wide, smooth, with priority over side-roads etc.
Thanks for showing my video here. I tried to make the point indeed that it isn’t one or the other, but a question of where it is logical to have separated cycle paths.
It is logical for safety reasons and it also makes cycling more pleasant when you as a cyclist are separated from motorised traffic where the speed difference between the two is highest. It became policy in the Netherlands to have separated cycle facilities if the speed limit for cars is over 30 km/h (18 mph)* and that is what you can see very clearly on the streets and now in this video.
Actually, my comment is a bit rude to Mark. He does actually say all these things, but perhaps not with enough emphasis for a UK audience. These small roads are not like you’re used to. It’s striking how few cars you come across in residential areas in the NL vs. the UK. Immediately that there are any noticeable number of cars to not want to be cycling with, there is a cycle path.
David - the fact that you notice this before the rest of us probably speaks volumes about what a gent you are!