
19th century cyclists paved the way for modern motorists' roads (2011) - Tomte
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads
======
awjr
It's an interesting idea that roads are what they are due to a vehicle that
most drivers despise being in their way.

What is more interesting it that designing 'out' the bicycle from the road is
a relatively recent thing. In the 1930s if you wanted to build a major road in
the UK you had to provide separate cycle tracks
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-
blog/2017/may/0...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-
blog/2017/may/09/how-80-forgotten-1930s-cycleways-could-transform-uk-cycling)

More interesting is that the attitude of motorists had developed to be anti-
cyclist by the 1950s
[https://twitter.com/MartinPorter6/status/912717455503642624](https://twitter.com/MartinPorter6/status/912717455503642624)

Yet one western country currently sits at 10% obesity and is estimated to go
down to 8.5% by 2030. The Netherlands. Given the UK will be at 35% obesity by
2030, 27.5% now, the implication is that the UK's transport policies are going
to be responsible for 75% of obesity by 2030.

I recently did some analysis of travel methods from the 2011 Census looking at
112 cities and towns in the UK. 6M drive to work, 2.5M live within 5km of work
(20 minute bike ride), 1M live within 2km of work, a 20 minute walk.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nDCkK0LvkxqHLeYfd6wS...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nDCkK0LvkxqHLeYfd6wSwaoHLY2eO_49Rf7TDWmUQG0/edit#gid=2077029085)

Now we could berate these commuters, but those people honestly feel they may
have no choice and also include some with disabilities. We can talk about
'forcing' people out of cars, but unless we redesign our road space to provide
good cycle networks, what do we expect people to do?

The canary in the mine is how many kids cycle to school in your area. There is
a school in Oxford, UK, where 60% of kids cycle to school. They have traffic
free routes into their communities.

More interestingly is that Highways England has now recognised you cannot
share space safely between vehicles with very different speed profiles and
developed design standards for delivering better road networks that support
walking, cycling, and driving.
[http://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/ha/standards/ians/pdfs...](http://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/ha/standards/ians/pdfs/ian195.pdf)

If you want people to not drive, you have to give them really good active
travel choices that enable people to make that choice of their own volition.
If an 8 year old kid can cycle to school on their own and the parent can see
that the kid will be safe all the way, you have yourself a great area to live.

~~~
nickbauman
I live in Minneapolis, which regularly wins awards for US bike infra. I used
to cycle to work. It was great in some ways, but I never felt safe because
even with the supposedly great bike infra we have, drivers were a problem. In
fact I felt safer on my motorcycle, which shouldn't be the case.

"Car culture" generally brings out the same primate programming you see in the
"comments section". There's a level of pseudo-anonymity that brings out the
aggressive asshole in all of us and make it unsafe for the most vulnerable.

I believe only dedicated bike infra is the way to solve this in the US.
Dedicated bike infra is a fraction of the cost of car infra.

~~~
Chardok
_" Car culture" generally brings out the same primate programming you see in
the "comments section". There's a level of pseudo-anonymity that brings out
the aggressive asshole in all of us and make it unsafe for the most
vulnerable._

Its night and day when you are on a bicycle versus a car. I get conversations
and interactions with people while biking that makes the experience so much
more "human" (for lack of a better word).

I have been preaching car-free downtowns for years, and continue to believe it
is the correct next step for healthy city and town life.

~~~
rconti
One article I read suggested that the helmet de-humanizes the cyclist in the
same way a car de-humanizes drivers. This is one reason pedestrians are
treated better than cyclists. This is not a suggestion to not wear a helmet,
although there is ample evidence that you're better off without one.

That said, I'll take my chances and wear a helmet :)

~~~
kazinator
> _there is ample evidence that you 're better off without one._

Not anything that can be called rational evidence.

I've suffered several falls in which I heard a very loud crack: that of helmet
hitting pavement, hard. That would have been my head, each time.

~~~
rconti
[http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-
helmets](http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets)

It's not enough for me; I wear a helmet each and every time I ride (well,
except on recent bike-shares in Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, and Munich, where
none were available). But I've crashed bicycles a number of times in my life,
even once crashing into a car as a teenager (flipped, bounced off the car, hit
the ground) and still never hit my head.

Anyway, it's just interesting to read about what causes head injuries and what
makes a cyclist prone (or not) to them.

------
Theodores
Glad to see Carlton Reid is getting an article posted here. When bikes were
not so popular he was getting on with the UK trade journal BikeBiz:

[http://www.bikebiz.com](http://www.bikebiz.com)

This should appeal to a few folk here.

An aside, note the trade adverts blinking away for maximum 'banner blindness'.
Curiously the bike business is still stuck doing these old fashioned ads.

