BBC Newsnight excellent reporting on cycling in Holland + #cyclesafe + #space4cycling; a few crucial points they missed.

For those that missed it, a couple of days ago BBC Newsnight did a rather excellent report on cycling in Holland. Here's a copy of it on YouTube; very well worth a watch:


However, there were a few crucial points that the programme either skimmed over, or missed entirely, and deserve far more substantial coverage.

1. Massive NHS saving potential from cycling, due to obesity etc. (~£7Bn/yr) [we're the fattest country in Western Europe]
2. Saving to individuals from cycling, due to high cost of transport in London (£,000's/yr)
3. Studies have shown that 'one mile on a bike is a $.42 economic gain to society, one mile driving is a $.20 loss.'
4. Putting in cycling lanes instead of car-parking significantly increases the amount spent in local shops, thus boosting the local economy. This has been proved in New York where there was a 49% increase in retail sales following the installation of a properly segregated cycle lane.
5. As Danny Williams writing in the Cyclists in the City blog has pointed out, humans cannot adapt the roads they are forced to use to how they want to cycle, but they can adapt how they cycle to the road that they are forced to use . It's all very well for Boris Johnson to say that the Dutch cycle culture is far less aggressive and more inclusive than London currently is. But this culture is simply a reflection of the roads that Londoners and Hollanders find themselves on. An advertisement campaign is going to have no effect on this. People cycle aggressively in London because Boris Johnson himself is forcing them to navigate four-lane gyratories (mostly TfL owned) like the one in Holborn that killed Alan Neve. Dutch people have a much more relaxed 'mentality about cycling' (to quote Boris Johnson) because they have a system of segregated cycle lanes and are not being forced to have to gamble their lives at impossibly dangerous junctions like Bow Roundabout where both Brian Dorling and Svitlana Tereschenko were killed by motor traffic in 2011.
6. Andrew Gilligan is wrong. There is plenty of road-space in London for Amsterdam-level cycling facilities. It's simply that at the moment we're choosing to use that road space for the aforementioned multi-lane killer-gyratories such as Holborn, Swiss Cottage, Elephant and Castle, Victoria (where Dr Katherine Giles was killed in 2013), Aldgate (where Philippine De Gerin-Ricard was killed in 2013), and Archway (where Dr Clive Richards was killed in 2013). Or we're choosing to use that road space on super-scary roundabouts such as Parliament Square (which Ken Livingstone was going to pedestrianise before Boris Johnson came to power in 2008 and crassly cancelled the scheme), Hyde Park Corner, Elephant and Castle, Old Street, Marble Arch, Charing Cross, and Shepherds Bush. Or we're choosing to use that road space on urban motorways like Euston Road, Park Lane, the Westway, and Vauxhall Bridge Road. Or we're choosing to use that road space on idiotic road-narrowing schemes such as Cheapside, Pall Mall and the new Aldgate and Haymarket plans. [these lists are in no way comprehensive]
7. A key part of 'Going Dutch' is having 19 mph (30 kph) limits as default. This isn't just the case in Holland. You also find 19 mph limits as default in Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Bern, Basel, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and Munich. 20 mph limits in London are currently seen as abnormal, aberrant, and sometimes abhorrent. They need to become default, as Boris Johnson's own Roads Task Force recommended. These means 20 mph becoming the standard speed-limit in London which can be lowered and adjusted as circumstances warrant (e.g. the Euston Road might be retained at 30 mph if a completely segregated Cycle Superhighway was built alongside the motor-traffic lanes). It should be intuitive to anyone with half a brain that if you lower the speed limits to 19 mph, Londoners will feel much less threatened by motor traffic close-passing them at 30 mph and adjust their cycling habits accordingly.
8. 'Presumed Liability', as proposed recently by the Lib Dems, would also be a good idea. This puts the puts the burden of proof on the insurance company of the driver in all civil claims involving a cyclist or a pedestrian. While not affecting criminal law's 'innocent until proven guilty', it would provide a financial incentive to drivers and insurance companies to reduce the appallingly high number of Brits on bikes killed or seriously maimed by motorists on our roads every year (3,222 in 2012). The UK is one of only 5 countries in the EU – along with the notably bike-friendly countries of Romania, Cyprus, Ireland and Malta –  not to have some form of this law already. Appalling.

Long Term changes in public opinion towards motor traffic in London, and the death of Dr Katherine Giles due to collision with a lorry while cycling in Victoria

The tragic death of a brilliant young scientist in Central London a few days ago, killed by a lorry driving into her as she cycled through Victoria, reminded me how important it is that cycle infrastructure in our capital changes for the better (and how appallingly dangerous Victoria is to cycle around). The fact that this death warranted in-depth coverage from the BBC, ITV, The Times, and Sky News, as well as an immediate political response from Boris Johnson (viewable in this ITV video), also had me thinking slightly positively about the future of cycling in London.

I read Ian McEwan's novel Saturday (2005) recently and was struck by how unconsciously car-centric it was. If you haven't read the novel, it's basically a day in the life of a neurosurgeon whose lives a financially confortable life in Central London. On the day in question this main character, whom we are repeatedly led to admire by McEwan, chooses to drive to his local sports club in a large Mercedes in order to play a game of squash. His squash partner, an anaesthetist, drives too.

This is despite that the day in question is 15 February 2003, the day 2 million people entered London to protest against the Iraq War, blocking many major roads. This is despite the fact that the neurosurgeon in question runs the London marathon every year and is highly concerned with keeping his fitness up. This is despite the fact that his squash partner, an anaesthetist colleague, goes to the gym every day. This is despite the fact that both men live in Central London, where their squash club is also located, meaning they could easily walk, jog, cycle, take the tube, or even a bus.

Yet despite all of these 'push' factors our admirable neurosurgeon rejects any form of remotely active travel and chooses to navigate the various road blocks around London instead, returning after a gruelling squash game to park his car right outside his house in order to avoid any walk to his front door.

Later in the novel McEwan describes in an overwhelmingly positive way what would I would imagine to be in fact an extremely tedious drive through traffic from Warren Street out along the Westway to Perivale. He notes the joy his 'man-of-our-times' protagonist feels at moving around London in his car with the noxious fumes (to which the neurosurgeon is himself significantly contributing) locked safely outside.

Finally towards the end of the novel McEwan's protagonist contemplates both the extremely high volume traffic of the Euston Road and the incessant buzz of planes flying over London into Heathrow as if both were completely unalterable facts of our urban existence, and more strikingly, things to be savoured and enjoyed by a 'Good Londoner'.

The Euston Road. Not something to be savoured or admired. Something to be changed.

Obviously this all says a lot about McEwan, but I would argue it also says a lot about public opinion in 2005, and in the previous decades. In 2013 I would be surprised to find an equally successful novel that employs a similarly car-centric protagonist.

Because, in fact, both the Euston Road and Heathrow are negative aspects of our urban lives, and both are alterable. The revolutionary new designs for Parliament Square and Blackfriars by the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) show that change is possible all over our city. The current storm over potentially expanding capacity Heathrow also demonstrates that urban dwellers are becoming less and less accepting of the harmful effects of local airports. 

Moreover, the implementation of large scale infrastructure projects such as The Tube upgrade, Crossrail, London Cycle Hire, and Boris Johnson + Andrew Gilligan's Vision for Cycling in London (all implemented after 2005), show that politicians are now willing to invest huge amounts of money and political credibility into financing incredibly ambitious non-motorised methods of transport  at least in urban areas.

Crossrail is costing the government billions of pounds and will increase London's entire  non-motor transport capacity by 10%.

City-changing improvements in cycle infrastructure cannot happen without large scale public support behind them, and the ideologies that they embody. This public support didn't exist in the second half of the twentieth century which is one reason we have so many horrible gyratories in London. However, there are hopeful signs that car-centric thinking is becoming less popular and we will have the political power to implement big changes in London in the early twenty-first century.

After all, all these gyratories were all installed in the last 50 years, so they can surely be taken out again in the next 50 years?

It's important for all of us to realise, unlike McEwan's protagonist from 2005, that urban motorways like the Euston Road are not enjoyable, nor immutable facts of London-life. Neither is having the luxury of on-street parking right outside your house (unless, of course, you are mobility impaired). In fact, luxuries such as this can easily accumulate and kill you through obesity.

The parking restrictions in large amounts of Central London next Wednesday for Margaret Thatcher's funeral (organised with barely a week's notice) will be implemented with no trouble at all. So why do we accept the lie that such high levels of inner-city car parking are 'necessary' the rest of the time?

Similarly, many major roads will be closed for much of the day for Thatcher's ceremonial funeral next Wednesday. Will business grind to a halt? Will money as we know it cease to exist? No. London will be fine. If you closed the inner-city tube lines on a weekday... then you'd have problems.

Thatcher's funeral will see all motor traffic removed from a large swathe of Central London on a weekday with barely a week's notice. Any problems? No. So why do we 'need' this motor traffic capacity the rest of the time?

We should remember that, like on-street car parking, the high level of motor traffic in Central London that we have at present isn't a 'necessity' either.

Ironically, the passing of Thatcher marks the point where we are going to see a similar decline in her incredibly flawed policy of promoting motor-traffic at the expense of all other forms of transport in our cities.

Thanks in part to pressure from cycling bloggers, as the BBC's Tom Edwards has highlighted, change is coming (an overwhelming show of hands at a recent London Cycling Campaign Policy Forum reflects the newly positive outlook of cycle campaigners).

Warren Street, a street which Ian McEwan's protagonist drives down in Saturday (2005) is now closed for traffic 'Except Cycles'. If McEwan wrote the same novel today his lead character would probably cycle or take the tube instead of driving in order to travel around London. Photo courtesy of Cyclists in the City.

Saturday proves it. Camden proves it. Hackney (where more people now cycle than drive to work!) proves it.

Disgustingly cycle-toxic politicians like Kate Hoey, Richard Tracey, and Mark Field need to watch out or they may not be in office come 2015...

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Dr Rachel Aldred, Chair of the LCC's Policy Forum, discusses the same phenomenon in a very interesting post on her blog, as do both City A.M.'s Alexander Jan and The Guardian's Oliver Burkeman in recent articles.

There is also a fantastic recording of Andrew Gilligan's talk and Q&A at the first London Cycling Campaign Policy Forum (8/4/2013) which you can listen to or download (right click on the link and then click 'Save Link As...') here.

Finally, here is a link to Boris Johnson speaking extremely intelligently and cogently about his new cycling policies on The Daily Mail (no less!)... who'd have thought it...

Why the BBC's 'War on Britain's Roads' was complete rubbish

Many people have criticised the BBC's recent 'War on Britain's Roads' programme so I know I'm hardly the first person to be saying these things. Yet, the programme was so infuriatingly banal that say them I must.

While being an hour of reasonably well-produced television, 'War on Britain's Roads' was brutally misinformed as to the real reasons that cyclists and motorists come into conflict on our streets. The programme went for the 'human-angle', interviewing both cyclists and motorists involved in incidents and eventually implicitly concluding that we should all get along better and perhaps lorries should have more mirrors and sensors on them.

A taxi driver very dangerously cuts up a cyclist. Rather than this just being condoned out-of-hand so we can all move on, we are interested treated by the BBC to 'both sides of the story'. This is bullshit. The taxi driver was at fault. He shouldn't have passed the cyclist so close. He could have killed the cyclist. Why can't this just be accepted as a fact?
If the cyclist can knock his frame to tell him he's too close, then he's too close. There shouldn't be any debate over this.

This is all 'true'. But it's also the sort of trite rubbish that a child could come up with simply by imagining a road that's being used by a cyclist, a motorist, and an HGV.

There is no pathological, eugenic difference between Britons and Hollanders.

The reason Dutch people do not have a 'War' on their roads is that Dutch roads are designed so that cyclists and motorists can both use the roads safely.

This is done in many ways. One of these is putting in cycle lanes on most roads where cars are doing 30mph or more which prevents motorists becoming angry about cyclists slowing them down when they want to drive at 30mph or above.

Do the BBC recommend implementing more and better cycle lanes, even implicitly? 

No. They seem to imply instead that motorists should perhaps maybe calm down a bit if they don't have space to overtake, and cyclists should maybe just bite the bullet if they get hit because they're 'taking control of the road'. (and on that note, can you think of a more idiotic and unnecessarily inflammatory way to describe cycling in the primary position?)

Similarly, after focusing on the tragic story of a young woman who was killed by a left-turning lorry, did the narrator draw the conclusion that enforcing a London-wide ban on HGVs that lack industry-standard mirrors and motion sensors would be a good idea?

No. It was simply left to the woman's bereaved mother to pursue her solo-campaign with the lorry companies that still fill our streets with dangerously ill-equipped vehicles. But why should this be one woman's responsibility? Anyone can get killed by a left-turning lorry. It's everyone's responsibility. Yet the BBC's opinion seems to be that people who (idiotically?) choose to cycle are some 'other tribe' that need to fend for themselves and don't come in for the basic rights of government-led safety that any normal citizen is entitled to.

How many of these cyclists have a head-cam? None. The BBC failed to mention that the agressive head-cam footage used for the programme was completely unrepresentative of both the cycling style and experience of the majority of Britain's cyclists who rather surprisingly don't choose to cycle on road-bikes at 30mph.

I could go on all day about the problems with the programme, but I'll end with a final thought:

Throughout we were treated to a fair range of clips of motorists behaving badly, then cyclists behaving badly, in what I presume was an attempt to give a 'balanced view' of the situation. Yet, did the narrator mention that in the case of motorists behaving badly cyclists die (119 so far in 2012; a five-year high). And did the narrator mention how many motorists have been killed by cyclists jumping red lights? I confess I don't know the exact figure off the top of my head but I imagine it's somewhere around zero.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not condoning red-light-jumpers for a second. But there is, at least for my money, a complete difference both in degree and consequence between the crimes of bad driving and bad cycling.

I would have preferred it if BBC's 'War on Britain's Roads' could have pointed this fact out. Or if one of the cyclists interviewed had had the presence of mind to do so when confronted with the extreme footage of a messenger race at the end of the programme, instead of blithely suggesting that a "punch in the face" was the solution to the 'everyday' problem of a bicycle courier competition held for a cash-prize 6 years ago.

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If you'd like to make a complaint about the programme you can do so in about 2 minutes here. (The BBC do at least have a very quick and easy online complaint-making system in place...)

For two much more thorough and better researched pieces on the same subject please also see:

- As Easy As Riding A Bike's excellent recent article: That 'war' on Britain's roads - the statistics
- Peter Walker's latest piece in The Guardian: BBC's War on Britain's Roads: even more fake than we feared