Beauty and the bike

For some time now I've been aware of the Darlington Media Group's production Beauty and the Bike, which is to have its premier on the 9th of December in Darlington in the UK.

In this project, investigating why it is that British teenage girls don't cycle in the same way as their German counterparts do, a group of British girls from Darlington were taken to Bremen in Germany.

The British girls ride bikes infrequently. The German girls ride a lot. Even from this short from the film you can see why this is. The infrastructure in Germany supports and encourages cycling as a means of transport, while the infrastructure in the UK does not.

From the Darlington Cycling Campaign Blog:

"Why do British girls stop cycling? By simply asking this basic question, the film reveals the damage that has been done by 50 years of car-centric transport policies. Whilst we fill our lives with debates about risk assessment, cycle helmets, cycle training and marketing strategies to try to persuade people to cycle more, the basic barriers to cycling remain untouched - generous urban planning towards the car, and the resultant poor motorist behaviour towards cyclists. Is it any wonder that most people find cycling unattractive in the UK, but attractive in cycling-friendly towns and cities? It's the infrastructure, stupid!"

In other words: it's all about subjective safety

Darlington is one of the "Cycling Demonstration Towns" in Britain. They have recently produced a report on the effectiveness of what has been achieved so far.

After the cycling demonstration town initiative, 2.9% of Darlington pupils have cycling as their usual mode of travel to school. Just under 23% of the adult population of the town have used a bicycle in a typical week in the previous year.

Temporary cycle parking

Back in the summer we visited the Delfsail event, at Delfzijl in the North of the Netherlands. It's a wonderful event, with sailing ships from all around the world. It wasn't a cycling event, and we travelled by train, so I didn't bother mentioning it on here.

However, there was one thing which was particularly worthy of mention on this blog.

Temporary guarded cycle parking !

The photo at the top shows the yellow van from where people were administering the parking while the other photo shows a wider view so you can get an idea of how many bikes were being fitted into the car park they'd taken over.

Note also the number of bikes outside the park. As ever, there were thousands of bikes everywhere, and most were not parked inside the organised area.

Paying to use cars, not to own them

The Netherlands is soon to be the first place in Europe to tax people's use of cars rather than ownership. The expectation is that six to ten percent fewer car journeys will mean that traffic deaths will fall by about the same percentage, saving twenty to forty lives a year in the country which already has the world's safest roads.

The scheme, called the "kilometerheffing" (simply "kilometer charge"), boils down to a GPS system in cars which will record how much they are driven, where and when. The intention is that driving on busy roads in the rush hour will cost more than driving on less busy roads at other times. It is intended to be a revenue neutral change to the tax on motorists, so that 60% of drivers will see their costs drop. Of course, if people drive less, the overall amount of tax paid to the government by drivers will drop. The proposal is nevertheless a bit controversial with some drivers, especially those who drive long distances at present.

There are also advantages in reduction of traffic jams and CO2 emissions.

Car ownership in the Netherlands is already lower than it might have been due to policies which make alternatives more attractive. It's difficult to know whether this will result in more or fewer people owning cars, but it should certainly help to increase the cycling rate in what is already the world's top cycling nation.

The Fietsberaad expect cycle usage to grow by 10% due to the kilometerheffing.

It's also covered here and here

Stopping ban by schools

Groningen has recently implemented a stopping ban by many of its primary schools. This is to spread to cover all schools in the city within a two and half years and will be rolled out as the safety of home-school routes is enhanced.

This means it is now illegal to stop with a car adjacent to the schools between 8 am and 4 pm on week days. i.e. No children may be taken to school by car.

By British or American standards, the rate of children being taken to school by car is already extremely low. Just try to spot any children being taken to school by car in this video shot at a local primary school.

Of course, a good idea like this won't just stay in one place. It's also spreading to other towns within the Netherlands. Perhaps it can also spread outside this country ?

Britain could do with trying this. Here's a typical scene from outside the primary school that my children attended in Britain. Virtually all the cars in the picture have brought a child to school. Even the car in the middle of this road junction is parked, as is the one in front of it which is obstructing the dropped kerb.

When "everyone else is doing it", there is no legal enforcement against illegal parking, and there are generally no really safe ways of getting to the schools by bike, is it such a surprise that parents see driving their children as the only safe option ?

There are more posts about school travel, including videos and photos of schools and children on bikes.

What separation of cycle routes really means

This video shows a location very near our home. Cyclists completely separated from motor traffic. It's not an aberration, but something quite common. It is possible to cycle here and barely see cars. Cars are mostly elsewhere.

The cycle routes you see in this video have few cars for several reasons. Some are cycle paths along which cars are not allowed. Others are roads open to all, but along which there is no destination for drivers, so they are not at all useful as a through road by car. No road sign will tell a driver that these small roads are route. They are directed onto the main road that you also see in the video. What's more, rat-running doesn't work here. Those roads which have been prioritised for cyclists really don't make a useful alternative for drivers.

This location looked quite different three years ago. The motivation for this transformation was to make sure that there was a direct and easy route to the city centre from a new housing estate on the western side of the city. The blue bridge carrying the cars over the cycle path was built to give cyclists a direct route without any stops and with maximum social safety.

This change was amongst those which helped the city to raise its cycling rate from around 37% to the new figure of 41% of all journeys by bike.

If you imagine going under the blue bridge in this video, you can get all the way into the city centre on the bicycle road, and the last bit looks like this

The video was shot from an artificial hill which stands where the red spot is in this photo:
The photo is from Microsoft Bing Maps birds eye view. I would have embedded it if I could work out how (it's much easier with Google Maps...).

A view of the bicycle road between this spot and the centre of the city is on youtube.

"Motorbikes" on the cycle path

Here in the Netherlands, low powered motorbikes called bromfietsen are allowed to use rural cycle paths. These include many of the cycle paths on which I commute. In the middle of the countryside they're allowed, while at each village along the way they are sent back onto the road.

These things can be a minor irritation, but it's actually quite advantageous to faster cyclists that these bikes also use the cycle paths. It means that the cycle paths have to be designed to be suitable for speeds of 45 km/h - the legal limit for these bikes.

They also provide a bit of sport. On a good day, I overtake them

Autumn cycling in the Netherlands

Another of Mark Wagenbuur's lovely videos, showing typical scenes as in every Dutch city at this time of year.

He says: "The Dutch keep on cycling in fall. Even in rain, wind and early darkness they just keep on doing what they do all year long. Roads are swept clear of slippery leaves and umbrellas and special rain-suits keep the cyclists dry."