Drugs, Spiders & Cycle Infrastructure
Every dozen or so years, studies on the effects of various drugs on spiders’ web-weaving abilities re-surface. There’s probably some serious science behind this, but I can’t help feeling that it’s a bunch of scientists doing the grant-funded equivalent of getting your dog drunk. Except probably without the resultant doggy incontinence & vomiting problems. I have never got a dog drunk - it was Robbie’s brother-in-law who did that. I have on occasion been as sick as a dog due to the effects of drink. Not sure if that counts though.
So anyway, what has this to do with us? OK, well let’s imagine an idealised spider web, representing the idealised city cycling map (all these images are from trinity.edu):
Houten in the Netherlands - two combined spider webs?
Now let’s give our city planners / spiders some drugs! First up, mescaline:
Amsterdam - OK, so the cycle routes follow the canals, but it looks like they were designed under the influence of mescaline...
Next, let’s try some LSD. What’s the worse that could happen when we open the doors of perception?
London cycling superhighways - currently a bit of a bad trip?
Maybe you’d prefer a little amphetamine instead?
Blyth & Bedlington - Sustrans Connect2 Project. Actually, its quite a good project, undoing some of the speed-obsessed craziness from before (like National Cycle Network Route 1 - shown in purple)
Or perhaps for the ultimate everyday recreational drug, you just couldn’t go without a nice cup of coffee / mug of builder’s tea / Redbull - caffeine:
North Tyneside - the effects of consuming too much caffeine and trying to draw a bike
So either our local highways people need to drink less coffee . . . or maybe they’re all big Pedersen fans:
Ah! Newcastle town hall is on caffeine. A sobering realisation.
[...] smoothing” and “cycle networks” which look like they have been designed by a spider on caffeine. This is something we need to turn around. The one piece of news Cllr Hinds gave the meeting, that [...]