At the value of £160,000

On 9 October 2013, I attended yet another gathering under the banner of "Policy Cabinet" meeting; this time it was about the hot potato... transport. I hear these meetings are for the decision-makers to listen and "have a conversation" (your words). I was again shocked at your lack of comprehension and compassion.

Transport, in particular, has been a one-way cul-de-sac for a long time, with a sturdy ancient ivory tower at the end of it: totally (over)ruled by the Highway Department (who say they can't do this, can't do that for "reasons"of time, space and money, excuses we all know so well). Hello, decision-makers you have to drag 'Highways and Roads' into the 21st Century and make them 'Streets and People' engineers. Make them relevant. You have to get your hands dirty in doing so. Yes, difficult decisions are to be made. Start by 'comprising car user amenity' as a former Cabinet Councillor put it and allocating road space to cycling (Cycle City Ambition Fund). There is an added complication in Newcastle, as regional capital, that car trips stem from surrounding areas... sprawly land-use planning of surrounding areas and lack of joined-up "integrated" transport. Be assertive as a capital. Look after your people first - it's our city we live in. Newcastle is not a car city.

So a second policy meeting passed by, where your people screamed for better public transport and safer convenient cycleways, more convenient linked urban mobility (all quite in accordance with your policies). I saw it again, Newcastle people care about short trips and urban mobility. Deeply.

I was particular disappointed at £160,000 worth of Chief Executive, Pat Ritchie. The only time she spoke was to announce A1 pinchpoint funding (or suchlike) had been received. There was very little understanding she demonstrated on the Spatial and Economic plan (1Plan) or transport policies such as LTP and the Cycling Strategy. You say, you were there to listen and have a conversation. Yet, I am still baffled what path you are going to take. But I presume, Pat, you 'depend' on the car. You 'need' the car. So you promote business as usual. The car. And driving. Out of self-interest and fear of change, and reluctance to take on the Highways Department and make them relevant to your city transport policies. Dear Pat, we are at a cross-roads. Get immersed in the policies, and crack on towards a liveable Newcastle with urban mobility, transport fairness and access for all at its heart. Crack the whip with the Highways folks too. What's the saying? Ah, yes. On yer bike, you £160k girl! The invite still stands.

So listen to this.

And a word of caution (repeated from the meeting): if you don't get the cycleways physically set up in parallel with the rising and rising cycling modal share... KSI figures will disproportionately increase - that's what London is telling us. Newcastle City Council, it's your responsibility now. You have encouraged and promoted and you continue to do so... now you need to build too. We are at the cusp: you must care for cycling safety or you become negligent.

Graphic(!) illustration of cycling motorists

You often hear the argument that motorists are cyclists too. The quantification and truth of that argument depends on what kind of cycling you are referring to. 

As the argument is often used to defuse conflicts between motoring and cycling folks (and then quickly starts pointing towards the failed "let's simply share" tactics - a motoring argument btw) I'd suppose regular on-road cycling experience is what we ought to talk about.

I reported previously about the AA study 'Cycling Motorists' and here is the accompanying graphics (see upper right). 

To describe it. It's one in five motorists who sport this regular on-road cycling experience so vital to compassion and sympathy towards that cyclist "holding you up" or "not paying road tax" or whatever other myths you can come up with *insert here*. 

The figure of non-cycling motorists is in fact is 80%.

So, next time when someone says "motorists are cyclists too" - stop and think. Motorists are very much more likely to NOT do this regular on-road commuter-style cycling (the type of cycling where the conflict, aggression, anger and hurt happens). 

Vote of no-confidence

This tweet reminded me about something.



The annual CTC / Cyclenation conference takes place this weekend. My memory was re-activated... I attended the 2010 conference in Edinburgh. Newcycling had just been formed a couple of months before, and we were let into Cyclenation without a fee as our membership was still low. (For the record: I don't think there should be a membership fee at all, funding for this sort of collaboration should be obtained from other sources.) I also think Cyclenation had identified the Norf as a blackspot for cycle campaigns and they were chuffed it got moving (again). All good.

And so in the coming months I helped Cyclenation pull together some letter-writing action on Stricter Liability; and Newcycling carried out a survey of local cycle campaigns. When cracks started to appear as I also continued to pose 'challenging' questions on the Cyclenation email group about their organisation, their vision, focus and their view on infrastructure as well as interaction with local campaign groups. I talked about the necessity of gaining campaigning confidence, visibility, openness and honesty. A lot. So much so that someone blew his patience, and one fine day in August 2011 expelled Newcycling from Cyclenation with the silly excuse that we had never joined.

"Your opportunities to influence our policies would be greater if your group affiliated with Cyclenation and behaved in a properly constituted and democratic manner - your group is not a member of cyclenation [sic.], had I been aware of that I would not have suggested that you apply for a seat on the Board this year.  At present the only affiliated group in your area is Newcastle BUG. We would like to see a properly constituted campaign group operating in Newcastle, and indeed every town in the UK with more than 50,000 (& those with less than that number if we can find people to run them)."

Simon Geller, 2 August 2011

Newcycling? Constituted? Tick. Democratic? Tick. Hm, also important: open and honest campaigning? Tick. Well, the palpitating heartbeat of the story is this: Cyclenation's online joining department were so disorganised at the time that Newcycling despite the automated confirmation email we received from Cyclenation, they'd nonetheless failed to register us. (Same goes for my workplace BUG.) And that was that. So in other words Cyclenation expelled us because of their own disorganisation and arrogance. Point in proof. Snap. Circular reference snapping off their own tail. There is every possibility that they are still chasing it now.

If you need to see email proof of the above statements, get in touch. And please yourself by calling me a splitter if you will. As far as I am concerned, there never was unity, clarity or collaboration. We are still busy talking to ourselves, wrestling our own demons. The masses still don't care. And it is that, that cycling has to break out and into mainstream, that's important. So, I agree with Shaun - there is no difference to made there.

So what do I want? I want effective coordination of national and local cycle campaigning. And I'll go out on a limb... we need a new body for that.

And I wonder whether Kaya Burgess has heard of Cyclenation?

Who killed Road Safety?

 
It's being an engineer I suppose. I just love data and data analysis. And I really do not like to see its misuse or misrepresentation. Or, on the other end of the scale, I also dislike the problem of over-reliance on data getting in the way of doing things. In February I wrote about cycle track safety research and today I'd like to talk about a speed survey.

There is a suspect rat run on my commute (a popular cycle commuter and school route) - it's called Highbury (just south of Ilford Road) and Newcastle City Council after some arm-twisting carried out a speed survey. Obtaining the data was fine (a few little glitches aside), but I could not have been prepared for the way the analysis was carried out or the way data was 'explained away'.

Quick scene check: Highbury is a 20mph residential street in Jesmond. Residents have long been arguing that their street is misused as a short cut in the southwards direction - drivers bypassing Blue House Roundabout from Jesmond Dene Road to Great North Road. Schools are nearby.

Granted, it's not a busy road for its traffic volume. Looking at the data however, more drivers are in excess of the speed limit than in observance on every single day when data was recorded (1 week survey). And even when we disregard the drivers in the 21 to 26mph bracket, the proportion of drivers exceeding 26mph was still over 20% in both directions and on every day. The 85%ile cut-off (widely accepted as a measure for 'the feel of the road' - as opposed to its speed limit) was about 28mph with every 1mph increment, as you can imagine, killing the street's atmosphere and livability. 

If that's not a speeding problem than what is? 

Using their 'standard approach' for analysing the speed data, Newcastle City Council concluded there is no real problem on Highbury. And continued, road safety on Highbury is fine as no-one had been killed: "Highbury has a good road safety history with no personal injury accidents recorded in the last 13 years." And it is this that determines, apparently, what action is taken (hello, Newcastle City Council we are still waiting for a pinchpoint review, prompted by Rev Malleson's tragic death on Heaton Road).

Newcastle City Council again: "the main factor we use to determine whether remedial measures are required is not vehicle speeds, but the road safety history and the number of personal injury accidents that have been recorded by Northumbria Police." Accidents, don't get me started. And it felt like they were re-rewriting the story board.

And yes, regardless of everyone still being alive (and we are abundantly grateful), it was also abundantly clear after all this... that... a lot of drivers exceed the speed limit. And, to comment about the short-cut, the survey showed that there were more drivers going southwards than northwards, proving Highbury to suffer from short-circuiting.  

And putting both together: we now know that Highbury is suffering from rat-running.

Newcastle City Council states with usual kindness, wisdom and care: "Regrettably, because of the limited funding we have available to introduce remedial measures, we cannot treat every street that we and residents would wish, and therefore we must identify the worst streets and prioritise these on a worst first basis. This is achieved using three basic criteria, firstly personal injury accidents, secondly speed of vehicles, and thirdly volume of vehicles. As Highbury has no personal injury accidents, it is low priority and therefore unlikely to have remedial measures introduced in the foreseeable future."

Yet it would cost next-to-nothing to physically close down Highbury to the southward rat-runners. There may be other associated costs, and I asked them to explain but haven't heard from them since. There is apparently a works programme. But, again, I have yet to see it to believe it.

People first? Not currently so. Road safety is dead. It died the day rat-runners were prioritised over locals.

Eyetest: Collaboration beyond a 20/20 vision

A tweet by Kaya Burgess, cycle campaigner, made me think. Here's what Kaya said when asked if he would have got involved in cycle campaigning without of a colleague getting hurt.



As for myself? Exactly that too. Me, regular cycle commuter. Me, back in 2010: "CTC? You mean C2C right? What's CTC?" Talking about the C2C, part of the NCN. My relationship with Sustrans back then? "Yea, they are good, they campaign for cycling provision and better streets." I even used to give them my money to speak on my behalf. I was somewhat cheated in my thoughts and expectations I later found out.

Yes. I wish all of us could speak with one voice.

But for that to happen we would have to do something quite un-British... we'd have to bang our heads together and bash it out. Openly (online), honestly, transparently. We? The cycling organisations that make up the hilly lobbying landscape.

Key players are (in case you, like Kaya, like me, did not know): Sustrans, CTC and their CycleNation branch (not really sure about the relationship between those two), Cycling Embassy of Great Britain and local campaigns - most notably the London Cycling Campaign but also Spokes (Edinburgh) and Cambridge. No to forget that there are new and different types of campaigns springing up such as Pedal on Parliament, Space4Cycling. Cycle campaigning. It truly is a moving feast.

In 2010 and new to cycle campaigning (and campaigning in general I do not hasten to add) and just after having attended a CTC/CycleNation bash in Edinburgh, I contacted CTC policy and campaign's department to inquire about
1) how they'd wish to work together with the recently formed Newcastle Cycling Campaign
2) more generally, how they collaborate with other local campaigns groups

Then there was a kind of stunned silence. I thought this was odd. I neither got much joy from CycleNation. Foggy vision, direction and planning. Something felt a little bit stuck and rusty.

So what do these national campaigns do? Sustrans is busy talking people onto their bikes (Bike It etc). Laudable but I have it on reasonable authority that they do come up against the inevitable "but the roads aren't save enough" more often than not. And they then struggle, as their hand are bound. They cannot turn against their government paymasters to effect changes to our often hostile roads. And CTC are onto tackling road justice and the legal system (previously Stop Smidsy). Laudable aims. Laudable. Both, in a moment of madness or blindness, supported the not-so-nicewaycode. There are other groups. Some groups pick up strict(er) liability or speed reduction. CycleNation asked local groups to tackle contraflow cycling.

Laudable. Very laudable.

All laudable. But the major part of the jigsaw is still missing.

Why are people not cycling? I do talk to people. And they tell me the answer, day in day out - the road conditions are too hostile and there are no cycleways for you to keep a safe distance to that hostility and aggression.

And so the really big thing is left untouched by the big national campaign groups. Infrastructure. Re-arranging our cities and towns. Downsizing the scale to suit human use. This is what is largely left unaddressed by Sustrans and CTC. Looking at design codes - here and abroad. Why are these codes guidelines not standards in the UK? Identifying the gaps in the codes and procedures. What we have versus what we need. What changes are required. What is it that DfT will have to do and lobbying DfT for these changes. What engineers of the future should look like. Assessing universities' courses... and... breathe...

These kind of debates happen, since 2011 and almost exclusively at that, at the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain (and that's why I joined them). And not to forget, although local, the London Cycling Campaign's 'Go Dutch' Mayors election initiative has carried on the flame of that vital debate too. How to create conditions that everyone can cycle? What does the provision look like?

But it's not Sustrans in the lead in this debate. Not CTC. As cycle campaigners, where are our priorities, inter-dependencies, pressures, limitations, conflicts of interest with wider parties? I fell that Sustrans and CTC will have to relinquish some seats on some tables and let the new folks in.

We gotta get this out there, and we got to get this sorted. Have Sustrans and CTC become establishment? Furniture in the creaky corridors of the DfT ? Part of the window dressing for councils? Gathering dust? I don't care if they had. If so, I just want  Sustrans and CTC to say it. Say why they aren't more intricately involved in cycle infrastructure design debate on a national level.

Therefore addressing the public's concerns. And breaking out.

Going rats

Cycling hasn't much increased in the UK since 2011, surveys suggests. Conservationists say that habitat loss, predation by heavy car users, and changeable weather are to blame. The research was carried out by DfT who say they are working to create more cycle-friendly ways. Earlier reports had suggested that cyclists were making a comeback. Conservationists say more needs to be done to save this species.

DfT said: "This creature is part of our transport systems. People love cycling along a canal and hearing the bells of bike users. They are part of the modal chain... part of the ecosystem. It would be a real shame to let that go."

#BloodyCyclists

Cyclists, immortalised by Bradley, Chris and Chris, were once a common sight in the UK's roads. But since the 1960s, numbers are thought to have declined rapidly and drastically. Mr Driver said: "There is no doubt this was a combination of two factors. First of all the loss of habitat and the breaking up of habitat, and then the escape of the car into the countryside."

Car use was brought to the UK for its convenience, but after some were overused, or were released without proper controls, they established and spread, preying on cyclists. It has been a problem that has also been seen in other parts of the world, particularly English-speaking countries. Surveys across the UK have now shown another steep fall.

"Initially, we started to see an increase in numbers because of projects which were controlling car use and improving the habitat," said Mr Driver. "But now we have seen a drop." A contributing factor was last year's weather. Falling levels of space, exposed, silly and unprotected cycle lanes, leaving cyclists vulnerable to predators.

Last chance salon

Experts say that these creature can be brought back from the brink. Cyclists are doing well in some areas. Schemes to conserve the habitat and to rid roads of cars have provided safe havens for the creatures. They are still thriving in strongholds in Cambridge and Oxfords. And some London burrows (haha), too, numbers have been on the rise.

Pedella Pink-Dutch, cycle conservationist, said: "Here you've got networks of roads, good supply, lots of cycle space, which is good for safety and provision.

"Where you have large areas of habitat that are quite complex areas, they are doing rather well because the main predator, the car, cannot get into the networks to hunt them all out."

She said they were working to create new habitats for cyclists. DfT is also aiming to create many hectares of cycle space on roads in a bid to boost cycling numbers.

Yes, here's the real article about voles and minks http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23975749 - haha, the Vole O'Speed will approve I'd think.

Oops just an accident

From nce magazine, 5 September 2013

I stumbled across this article in the nce, the Institution of Civil Engineers weekly magazine, casually using the word accident. I smudged it by accident, see picture. What's in a word? Bear with me, and walk in her shoes.

One paragraph of the article reads like this

"But cycle safety campaigner Kate Cairns, whose sister died in a  cycling accident, said that taking away council spending, central government's contribution of £94M amounted tlittle over £1 per person per year."

I completely agree with Kate Cairns words that follow, and her general line of  argument and sentiment. What I do not agree with is the way the reporter makes assumptions. Eilidh Cairns' death was not an "accident" as the reporter quite insensitively puts it. Eilidh Cairns was a victim of a horrific road crash.

Using the word accident implies that a certain randomness took place that day, which then wrongly attributes blame. Instead, what happened was avoidable. It's a failure of our society that the driver was allowed back on the road, and so his second killing, a pedestrian, weighs heavily on our common conscience.

Justice was suspended on both those tragic days.

The truth is that what happens on our roads is rarely accidental. The majority of crashes are through driver error or fault. We then let cyclists and pedestrians, or their families on heir behalf, carry the large chunk of societal blame, afterwards, through the police and court system. That has to stop. One aspect you could help with is that reporting must be proportionate and fair.

Not a civil engineer's problem? Think again.

If any THING was to blame, it is the infrastructure, which is typically inadequate for, and counterproductive to, safe cycling. And engineers can help fix that. I entirely agree with Kate Cairns of SeeMeSaveMe calling for more space to be set aside, and with urgency. And it is what the recent House of Commons entitled 'Get Britain Cycling' resolved to do. I wonder whether the ice will see fit to join this movement towards fair protected cycle space separated from vehicles to enable a "cycle revolution" (to only use the latest buzz phrase) to take place, discuss this urgent matter with Norman Baker MP, and to report back to their members about the outcome? Whilst not perfect, but elevating LTN2/08 from guidance to standard status would be a start.

There are problems. But there are solutions too. Some big, some small. Words count.

As Roadpeace state "We urge the media, the police, the emergency services, health professionals and all others to adopt a neutral, constructive terminology when referring to collisions on the roads such as crash, collision or incident." Read this for further information  http://www.roadpeace.org/campaigns/crash/

Please forward this to any journalists you may know.