The Great Big Phantom Menace Bike Blog Roundup

It might seem strange for a bike blog roundup to start with a pedestrian story, but they suffer from the same sort of victim blaming that cyclists do - the drip feed of articles that add up to a toxic atmosphere over time - although that might be because the messages around 'Vision Zero' have concentrated too heavily on enforcement rather than on design. Certainly, when a single road is responsible for one-third of a city's pedestrian deaths, asking what the latest victim was wearing is irrelevant, while in Chicago, one of the latest pedestrian deaths is of a Slow Roll volunteer. Even the Dutch may not be immune to victim blaming - in the wake of news that bike lanes are suffering congestion and crashes as numbers rise, some are quick to point the finger at smart-phone using cyclists; at least in Copenhagen yawning is considered a sign of safe cycling, rather than a sign of dangerously sleepy cyclists. Meanwhile, if you are on a crowded bike path, you might want to avoid anyone wearing a helmet and steer cleer of any travelling kung-fu bike nuns.

The real menace

Back in the UK, the real menace cyclists face is drivers who don't look - particularly terrifying when you're cycling with your 17-month-old daughter on board - and those that look and drive at you anyway (not to mention Australian police officers who push cyclists off their bikes). As the CTC wonders how serious a case has to be before judges will hand down a custodial sentence, Hush Legs argues that promoting hi-vis actually makes things less safe for cyclist - and it's no better in Canada. Meanwhile, crumbling roads and postponed roadworks can prove equally fatal to cyclists.

Battling backlash: A user's guide

One thing the drip feed of anti cyclist articles does is make it harder to overcome backlash against the few schemes with real ambition - while making it easier for politicians like Davide Burrowes to jump on the anti bandwagon even if his so called referendum doesn't mean what he's claiming it means. In Scotland (where the countdown has begun for the next election, and the next Pedal on Parliament) Walk, Cycle Vote looks at how people can engage with their politicians who seem to be about to pull a similar trick. Meanwhile London's taxi drivers are still pursuing the Cycle Superhighways through the courts even as some of them are complete enough for people to drive on them (there are reasons why barriers get put in bike routes although that doesn't mean they have to be quite so excluding as they usually are). And even in bike-friendly Seattle, it can be a battle to get a mile of protected cycleway along a busy commuter route - but then again, humans can be a bit irrational about how decisions are made. Perhaps part of campaigning is just confounding expectations about cycling - like someone who's not a big bike enthusiast supporting a cycling campaign (or just explaining why bikes are like shoes..)

Dream cycleways...

Campaigning can feel like hard work, so it's worth remembering what we're working towards - and if you need a little inspiration, Hackney Cyclist has four pieces about cycling between cities in the Netherlands: Hook of Holland to Rotterdam shows (among other things) that when the Dutch upgrad a road they make sure they improve it for everyone, Rotterdam to Gouda includes huge motorway-like cycle tracks complete with cycle slip roads, Gouda to Utrecht includes some of the 'worst' cycle tracks encountered but they could still be an inspiration for any UK A road, and Utrecht to Amsterdam includes stretches so straightforward (and straight) they were almost boring. Meanwhile Ljublana shows it's a worthy European Green Capital by freeing its already delightful historic centre from cars to make it even nicer. In Minneapolis a North-South route including 'street to park conversions' sounds wonderful but there are no plans to make it actually happen. As Dublin delays a roundabout redesign as it struggles with the abrupt transition between pro-car and pro-cycling and walking policies, a bit of tweaking could make the planned Liffey cycle route work, while a councillor proposes a hovenring to tackle one enormous junction while the Cambridge Cycle Campaign works out that a fully separated junction would actually move more traffic than the current half-hearted proposals

... Or conflict by design?

As Bicycle Dutch explains how conflict can be minimised when cycle track cross business entrances, elswhere this week the main activity seems to be engineering conflict in, with Bath's planned traffic calming likely to discourage cycling and in Ireland buses and lorries encouraged to veer into the cycle lane in the interests of traffic flow. Dublin's plans to institute a 'green wave' turn out to be a way of making bikes and buses share instead of the cycle track that was originally planned but it's better than Manchester, which tries a spot of sign make it better to avoid clashes with tram tracks. Portland installs filtered permeability on a cycle route but it seems designed to confuse both cyclists and drivers. In Christchurch, there are plans to stop its new segregated cycle tracks from becoming bin lanes while a junction in Washington gets a ... well it's a thing anyway, and it might be better than what went before; no wonder really that cyclists don't always use the infrastructure they are given.


(Sorry, but I had to get at least one Bowie reference in this week...). Meanwhile the consultations march on with plans in Glasgow for Sauchiehall at least have their heart in the right place, albeit details are scant on the actual cycling infrastructure (here's one suggestion). In Gosforth, responses to the Broadway to Brunton consultation reveal an appetite for safer cycling facilities, but in Cambridge what's the point of a consultation if those most affected aren't even aware of it. Birmingham is consulting on more Greenway routes that are broadly welcome but somewhat marred by potential conflicts with pedestrians, while in Sutton, nice as paths through parks may be, they don't really add up to a cycling network. Getting beyond the consultation stage at last, work begins at Bow Roundabout and although pedestrians will see some benefits eventually to, first they have to put up with six months of disruption.

Politics as unusual

As the internet clubs together to get Jeremy Corbyn the bike of his dreams (dream bigger, Jeremy...), he decides he will buy his own bike and donate the money to charity - Bikeworks suggests an all-ability cycling club might appreciate the boost. Meanwhile, the All-Party Parliamentary Group urge the minister to do more for cycling as forty schemes get underway in England around trunk roads and motorways. New Cycling would still like to take their council exectuive out for a little bike ride - while in Atlanta, the new bike officer has her work cut out for her

Legal news

Before we get onto the serious legal matters, we just have to get the whole fifteen-foot bike flag out of the way - in reality an attempt to ban bikes from Missouri's roads - the local bike campaign asks its members to try and be polite if they contact the politician responsible. In California, hoverboards are banished off pavements onto bike lanes - although given the amount of obstructions in the average bike lane, your might need a real hoverboard to negotiate it. More seriously, the Active Travel Act in Wales is starting to have a real impact on the ground - it appears the law does actually have teeth. In Scotland, the much celebrated planned pavement parking ban might actually end up formalising pavement parking instead - while Kim Harding explains why Scotland should lead the way at least in the UK and introduce presumed liability

What winter tells us

As the winter properly sets in in the UK, a council's priorities are clearly laid out by where it prioritises snow clearance - and gritting the Taff Trail might actually be required under the Active Travel act. In Chicago, those not clearing sidewalks of snow might face bigger fines but it's no help if there's no enforcement. Still, gritted and cleared or not, at least those cycling through the snow will never get caught up in the inevitable related gridlock

The research shows...

As studies finally prove that sharrows are as pointless as they look, others show that there might be something in the claim that bike lanes bring gentrification (although correlation is not causation). Streets.MN asks if Americans really are falling out of love with their cars while the latest Strava data shows the average (Strava-using) cycle commuter rides almost 10 miles to work. And if you want to get on board and do your own research you can build your own near-miss-ometer with a Raspberry Pi.

Bikeshare rolls on...

Expect more of these stories as the proposed Bikeshare Transit Act will make it easier for US cities to get federal funding for bikeshare schmes. Meanwhile in Chicago, the planned Divvy expansion will reach more minority neighbourhoods but with fewer bikes - but Portland's scheme aims to build in equity from the start

Training news

In a story that we confidently expect will lay a thousand twitter spats to rest, Bikeability trainers agree that training is no substitute for infrastructure. More interestingly, there were two stories that delved back into the cycling training of the past, with the Scouts apparently seeing no contradiction on learning how to pass their cycling badge from cigarette cards - while the Victorian Cyclist examined the perils of women learning to ride a bike - complete with criticisms of their appearance and over-confident male instructors - how fortunate we've left all that behind us in the past.

But is it art?

And finally, as a council takes up surrealism with its bike racks that are not bike racks, a great public art installation, Seattle's 'smurf turds' bites the dust, a victim of careless parking


CEoGB you only quoted half the statement from TABS and changed a couple of words. This changes the intention of the statement. It's only a line, but here is the original statement in full: Training is not an alternative to good infrastructure, but one of many measures that encourage cycling.

Your use of no substitute implies that infrastructure is better. The original statement does not say that at all, as you can see.

Please amend your site accordingly.

Kind regards