Petitions and psychle farcilities

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <[email protected]>,
Mark Goodge <[email protected]> writes:
|> On 10 Jul 2007 11:53:53 +0100 (BST), Diana Galletly put finger to
|> keyboard and typed:
|>
|> >>The problem with this is that any rational person will choose position
|> >>(b), as you've described them - your wording makes both (a) and (c)
|> >>simply absurd.
|> >
|> >Thanks for caricaturing me as irrational, as I find (a) a perfectly
|> >reasonable position for any halfway competent cyclist to hold.
|>
|> (a) isn't reasonable, as worded by the OP, because it makes the
|> entirely unjustifiable claim that all cycle facilities are
|> "intrinsically undesirable". It may be the case that many (or even
|> most) of those which run alongside roads are inherently poor, but not
|> all of them do - and those which don't are often very useful indeed,
|> especially if they provide a shortcut or an alternative route to the
|> increasingly restricted roads. ...

Sometimes I wonder whether anyone can read English any longer. I did
not say that they were all bad, useless or dangerous; I said that it
is rational to classify them all as undesirable because they lead both
cyclists and motorists into harmful practices and ways of thinking.
Whether you regard that as right or wrong, it is a perfectly rational
and justifiable viewpoint.

Exactly the same argument applies (for example) to paying a very few
selected people tens of millions of pounds a year with no penalty
clauses for non-delivery; whether or not that is a good investment,
there is a case that it is harmful to the the community (whether that
is the area or society as a whole) and is therefore undesirable.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 

[Ian Smith]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:
> in message <[email protected]>, Ian Smith
> ('[email protected]') wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:01:35 +0100, Simon Brooke <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Any facility which removes one cyclist from the correct position
> >> on the road is by definition reducing the number of cyclists on
> >> the road
> >
> > But no facility necessarily removes any cyclists from the road.
>
> A single cyclist can't be in two places at the same time. If he's
> on a cycle path, he isn't on the road. If you can't understand
> that, rational discussion is impossible.

Try again. Try thinking about this:

The cyclist on the path at this location may be choosing between being
a cyclist on the path or a motorist on the road. If he chooses the
former, it is almost certain that elsewhere on the journey he is a
cyclist on the road.

Thus, if the facility causes him to choose bike rather than car for
the journey in question, the facility results in MORE cyclists on the
ROADS than if the facility did not exist. If the facility were not
there, he isn't going to ride a bike on any roads.


Put it another way. You are assuming the available options are 1:
cyclist on path or 2: cyclist on road, and that the person in question
is constrained to just these options. This is bollocks. You're
ignoring 3: motorist on road, 4: pedestrian on pavement, 5: passenger
in a bus, 6: not making the journey at all and various other options.
If the facility causes more 3s to be 1s, it is very possible that the
facility overall increases the number of cyclist-road-miles.


I gave you a real world example where this can be observed.

This is very simple. It does not require you saying damn stupid
condescending things or suggest I'm proposing a cyclist in two places
at once. Frankly, I didn't expect that sort of tripe from you. I
also didn't expect you to make snide comments about my rationality
when what I am proposing is not only rational and possible but is
actually observable in the real world. That's the sort of **** I'd
expect from TrollB, not someone that's actually thinking about what
they write.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

 

[Ian Smith]

["Followup-To:" header set to uk.rec.cycling.]
On 10 Jul 2007 20:23:54 GMT, Nick Maclaren <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Sometimes I wonder whether anyone can read English any longer. I
> did not say that they were all bad, useless or dangerous; I said
> that it is rational to classify them all as undesirable because
> they lead both cyclists and motorists into harmful practices and
> ways of thinking.

You said "They are intrinsically undesirable, as even the best are
less safe than the roads". If the best is less safe, then it's clear
that all are less safe.

It may be reasonable to so classify them because most are less safe,
and therefore in combination with the other reasons they are overall
undesirable, but that's NOT what you said. If you HAD said that,
there may well not have been the original observation that what you
DID say was not a rational viewpoint.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

 

[Mark Goodge]

On 10 Jul 2007 20:23:54 GMT, Nick Maclaren put finger to keyboard and
typed:

>
>In article <[email protected]>,
>Mark Goodge <[email protected]> writes:
>|> On 10 Jul 2007 11:53:53 +0100 (BST), Diana Galletly put finger to
>|> keyboard and typed:
>|>
>|> >>The problem with this is that any rational person will choose position
>|> >>(b), as you've described them - your wording makes both (a) and (c)
>|> >>simply absurd.
>|> >
>|> >Thanks for caricaturing me as irrational, as I find (a) a perfectly
>|> >reasonable position for any halfway competent cyclist to hold.
>|>
>|> (a) isn't reasonable, as worded by the OP, because it makes the
>|> entirely unjustifiable claim that all cycle facilities are
>|> "intrinsically undesirable". It may be the case that many (or even
>|> most) of those which run alongside roads are inherently poor, but not
>|> all of them do - and those which don't are often very useful indeed,
>|> especially if they provide a shortcut or an alternative route to the
>|> increasingly restricted roads. ...
>
>Sometimes I wonder whether anyone can read English any longer. I did
>not say that they were all bad, useless or dangerous; I said that it
>is rational to classify them all as undesirable because they lead both
>cyclists and motorists into harmful practices and ways of thinking.
>Whether you regard that as right or wrong, it is a perfectly rational
>and justifiable viewpoint.

You didn't say that it was rational to classify them all as
undesirable. You posited a position which classifies them all as
undesirable, and illustrated that with some specific reasons which are
clearly wrong (such as suggesting that even the best are less safe
than roads, or that they are unsuitable for more than short
distances). If you intended to posit this as a rational position to
take then you would have been more careful to qualify some of these
statements, especially in the light of the examples I used in my reply
to Diana - unless you really think that it's rational to want to
exclude cyclists from the Milton bridge, for example, or close the
cycle paths across Parker's Piece, then it's not rational to hold
position (a) as you described it.

Mark
--
http://www.BritishSurnames.co.uk - What does your surname say about you?
"Time is tickin' and we can't go back"

 

[Alan Braggins]

In article <[email protected]>, Ian Smith wrote:
>On 10 Jul 2007 15:05:47 GMT, Nick Maclaren <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Please reread what I said. (a) did not say that they were
>> necessarily bad, but that they were undesirable, and explained why.
>> That is a rational position, whether or not you regard it as right.
>
>You said "even the best are less safe than the roads". That is not a
>rational claim - it requires either that it is not physically possible
>to design and construct a cycle facility that is as safe as a road, or
>that you have accurately surveyed every cycle facility in the world.

Or that he can extrapolate from cycle facilities he has seen combined
with communicating with people who have seen a wide range of other
cycle facilities.
I haven't seen every cow in the world, but I can still confidently
state that none of them are naturally purple.

 

[Matt B]

Ian Smith wrote:
>
> There you go again - your taking as a given something that isn't
> necesarily so.

:O)

( Ian will understand my mirth! )

--
Matt B

 

[Alan Braggins]

In article <[email protected]>, Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>It would, yes. But if the increase is on the cycle path, it isn't on the
>road. Therefore, it's not helping. If you move those cyclists from the
>cycle path to the road, they would help. So however much cycling increases
>(or decreases) it doesn't alter the fact that if some cyclists sometimes
>use cyclepaths, it makes all cyclists less safe than they otherwise would
>be.

You are still relying on a false assumption, that the amount of cycling
is constant so any use of a cyclepath decreases use of roads.

It is possible for an off-road facility to increase the number of
_road_ cyclist miles done, for example if it encourages people who
would not otherwise cycle at all to use a route which is partially on
road but with an off-road facility bypassing a section percieved (rightly
or wrongly) as more dangerous than other parts of the route.

 

[Jeremy Parker]

"Ian Smith" <[email protected]> wrote

>
> It is clearly (in my opinion) irrational to say that every cycle
> facility ever built must be bad.

"The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but
that's the way to bet." - Damon Runyon?

Jeremy Parker

 

[Jeremy Parker]

"Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote

[snip]
>
> However, (a) looks like the only remotely sensible position to me.
> Any
> solution which gets cyclists off the road reduces the critical mass
> of
> cyclists on the road, and it is precisely that critical mass that
> makes
> cycling safer.

Personally, I don't worry about this safety-of-critical-mass
business. Even if was the lone cyclist, I would be quite happy.
Cycling is safer than walking, after all, and that's with about 80%
of bike accidents essentially self induced

#Facilities also give credence to the motorists belief that
> cyclists somehow shouldn't be on the road.

Now that is the real problem. Those motorists might campaign to get
the laws changed to ban cyclists, but a more immediate danger is that
motorists might choose to make their disapproval known directly.
Shouting by motorists is annoying, even though it is usally too
incoherant to be understood. The mode of driving a car can also be
a communication device, even more annoying, perhaps frightening. As a
communication device driving is crude, and prone to the drivers'
misjudging things, but nevertheless it can make the drivers' points
known

Jeremy Parker

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, Mark
Goodge ('[email protected]') wrote:

> On 10 Jul 2007 11:53:53 +0100 (BST), Diana Galletly put finger to
> keyboard and typed:
>
>>In article <[email protected]>,
>>Mark Goodge <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>The problem with this is that any rational person will choose position
>>>(b), as you've described them - your wording makes both (a) and (c)
>>>simply absurd.
>>
>>Thanks for caricaturing me as irrational, as I find (a) a perfectly
>>reasonable position for any halfway competent cyclist to hold.
>
> (a) isn't reasonable, as worded by the OP, because it makes the
> entirely unjustifiable claim that all cycle facilities are
> "intrinsically undesirable".

The claim isn't unjustifiable. I have justified it, in posts passim. You
may disagree with my justification (although I'd like to see your
reasoning), but you can't say it's unjustifiable.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; ... exposing the violence incoherent in the system...

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, Alan Braggins
('[email protected]') wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>, Simon
> Brooke wrote:
>>
>>It would, yes. But if the increase is on the cycle path, it isn't on the
>>road. Therefore, it's not helping. If you move those cyclists from the
>>cycle path to the road, they would help. So however much cycling
>>increases (or decreases) it doesn't alter the fact that if some cyclists
>>sometimes use cyclepaths, it makes all cyclists less safe than they
>>otherwise would be.
>
> You are still relying on a false assumption, that the amount of cycling
> is constant so any use of a cyclepath decreases use of roads.
>
> It is possible for an off-road facility to increase the number of
> _road_ cyclist miles done, for example if it encourages people who
> would not otherwise cycle at all to use a route which is partially on
> road but with an off-road facility bypassing a section percieved (rightly
> or wrongly) as more dangerous than other parts of the route.

That's possible, yes. I'm unconvinced that it's likely. Mind you, having
taken a beautifully absolutist position, I will agree that there are
places where it is not undesirable from a public policy point of view to
permit bicycles, but where it would be undesirable to permit cars -
residential streets and urban centres being cases in point. But these
should not be seen as 'alternative provision for cyclists' so much
as 'places where cars are excluded'.

'Alternative provision for cyclists' should, in my opinion, be avoided at
all costs.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; MS Windows: A thirty-two bit extension ... to a sixteen bit
;; patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a
;; four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that
;; can't stand one bit of competition -- anonymous

 

[Mark]

> If there's even one existing facility that is NOt less safe than the
> roads, your statement, regardless of your many possible meanings, is
> not valid. I'm assuming the least onerous credible meaning of your
> imprecise statement.

It's not valid: Chorlton to Fallowfield along the Fallowfield loop. The
loop gives you one junction with the road at each end of the journey. The
roads you'll take have er, <counts> lots more junctions.

I take the loop.

 

[Alistair Gunn]

Alan Braggins twisted the electrons to say:
> It is possible for an off-road facility to increase the number of
> _road_ cyclist miles done, for example if it encourages people who
> would not otherwise cycle at all to use a route which is partially on
> road but with an off-road facility bypassing a section percieved (rightly
> or wrongly) as more dangerous than other parts of the route.

Alternatively, said facility might result in a shorter route for the
cyclist compared to car driver (or the cyclist, if the facility wasn't
present). eg: cyclist access at what would otherwise be dead-ends, the
following can hardly be accused of removing cyclists from the roads (or
at least, not for very long and it's doubtful anyone cycles on it and
nowhere else!) http://palmersperry.fotopic.net/p43080019.html
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...

 

[Daniel Barlow]

Simon Brooke wrote:
> That's possible, yes. I'm unconvinced that it's likely. Mind you, having
> taken a beautifully absolutist position, I will agree that there are
> places where it is not undesirable from a public policy point of view to
> permit bicycles, but where it would be undesirable to permit cars -
> residential streets and urban centres being cases in point. But these
> should not be seen as 'alternative provision for cyclists' so much
> as 'places where cars are excluded'.

This is possibly the nearest any post on the thread so far has come to
admitting that bus lanes exist. Or are the supporters of position (a)
also against bus lanes?


-dan

 

[Ian Smith]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:05:22 +0100, Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:
> in message <[email protected]>, Alan Braggins
> ('[email protected]') wrote:
> >
> > It is possible for an off-road facility to increase the number of
> > _road_ cyclist miles done, for example if it encourages people who
> > would not otherwise cycle at all to use a route which is partially
> > on road but with an off-road facility bypassing a section
> > percieved (rightly or wrongly) as more dangerous than other parts
> > of the route.
>
> That's possible, yes. I'm unconvinced that it's likely.

Despite the several real-world examples provided in the thread so far?

And the original statement was that every facility is less safe than
the roads.

> should not be seen as 'alternative provision for cyclists' so much
> as 'places where cars are excluded'.

Your goalposts are on the move. You're now saying that "Every cycle
facility is bad" should be read with "cycle facility" defined as
meaning a provision that is bad. Of course every bad cycle facility
is bad.

> 'Alternative provision for cyclists' should, in my opinion, be
> avoided at all costs.

Quite possibly, but that was not the position set out in the statement
you claimed to support. That position was that all cycle facilities
were bad. That includes such things as additional provision for
cyclists (eg where restrictions have been applied only to motor
vehicles), which you now seem to be edging towards agreeing could be
beneficial.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

 

[Martin Dann]

Daniel Barlow wrote:
> Simon Brooke wrote:
>> That's possible, yes. I'm unconvinced that it's likely. Mind you, having
>> taken a beautifully absolutist position, I will agree that there are
>> places where it is not undesirable from a public policy point of view to
>> permit bicycles, but where it would be undesirable to permit cars -
>> residential streets and urban centres being cases in point. But these
>> should not be seen as 'alternative provision for cyclists' so much
>> as 'places where cars are excluded'.
>
> This is possibly the nearest any post on the thread so far has come to
> admitting that bus lanes exist. Or are the supporters of position (a)
> also against bus lanes?

IMHO bus lanes are absolutely wonderful. They are the
width that cycle lanes should be. They tend to be far
better designed than cycle facilities.
(has anyone ever seen one with a phone box in?)

The only problem with bus lanes is sometimes other users
don't like it if cyclists are in them. This seems more
common when it is questionable whether the other vehicle
should also be in the lane (e.g. private minibuses).

Martin.

 

[Geraint Jones]

Martin Dann <[email protected]> wrote:
| The only problem with bus lanes is sometimes other users
| don't like it if cyclists are in them. This seems more
| common when it is questionable whether the other vehicle
| should also be in the lane (e.g. private minibuses).

There is another problem with bus lanes: the surface. Since bus lanes
are essentially just wide enough for a bus, and buses (almost) all have
wheels in exactly the same place and stop in the same places at the
same bus stops, you get to study the automatic landing nose wheel
problem at close quarters. Add to that that the left hand wheels are
always tracking the weak bit over the storm drains and you're obliged
to ride exactly in the middle of the lane where the oil drips from the
cracked sump.

Apart from that (and the taxis) they're fine.

 

[Alan Braggins]

In article <[email protected]>, Alistair Gunn wrote:
>Alan Braggins twisted the electrons to say:
>> It is possible for an off-road facility to increase the number of
>> _road_ cyclist miles done, for example if it encourages people who
>> would not otherwise cycle at all to use a route which is partially on
>> road but with an off-road facility bypassing a section perceived (rightly
>> or wrongly) as more dangerous than other parts of the route.
>
>Alternatively, said facility might result in a shorter route for the
>cyclist compared to car driver (or the cyclist, if the facility wasn't
>present). eg: cyclist access at what would otherwise be dead-ends, the
>following can hardly be accused of removing cyclists from the roads (or
>at least, not for very long and it's doubtful anyone cycles on it and
>nowhere else!) http://palmersperry.fotopic.net/p43080019.html

Similarly http://www.camcycle.org.uk/map/location/5646/ or the bridge
at http://www.camcycle.org.uk/map/location/8526/. But those could
fall under Simon's (later) "But these should not be seen as 'alternative
provision for cyclists' so much as 'places where cars are excluded'."
(In other words, because they can hardly be accused of removing cyclists
from the roads, they aren't what he meant to claim was always bad.)

The tunnel here: http://www.camcycle.org.uk/map/location/8978/
on the other hand is (unless you happen to be going to the hotel
down the end of the track) not so much a short cut for cyclists
as a way of removing cyclists from the nearby A14/A1303 roundabout.
But it is entirely plausible that more cyclists use the A1303 and the
B1102 to the north of the A14 than would if that tunnel wasn't there,
so the end effect of the facility is to increase on-road cycling.

 

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <[email protected]>,
"Jeremy Parker" <[email protected]> writes:
|>
|> Personally, I don't worry about this safety-of-critical-mass
|> business. Even if was the lone cyclist, I would be quite happy.
|> Cycling is safer than walking, after all, and that's with about 80%
|> of bike accidents essentially self induced

Not around here, it isn't :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <[email protected]>,
"Jeremy Parker" <[email protected]> writes:
|>
|> The key battleground isn't Cambridge; it's London. London is
|> pissing away £17M a year on bicycle facilities, but that just helps
|> to strengthen the case against them. Cycling is growing in London,
|> enough to get the mass media's attention and the media is [media is?
|> sorry classicists] beginning to write articles, and so on, which are
|> quite sensible, and those articles get read by the whole country,
|> even by a few people abroad..

Well, maybe. But, when I looked at the statistics, cycling is no
longer growing in London - it had two years of growth following the
introduction of the congestion charge, and is not static at a more
or less insignificant level.

I failed to find the references again on a quick search - can you
provide any solid evidence for the growth of cycling?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.