I know that’s not Sustrans fault but if\when they get asked to adopt it they say no it’s pointless and not good enough then maybe next time they might think (but probably not )

Doesn’t work sadly.

Newcastle council have happily routed and signed Route 725 with nice red Sustrans-style NCN signs.

It’s a crap route with all kinds of wiggly crapness and dangerous bits. Sustrans weren’t consulted till after it was done!

I used to take the default position that Sustrans were pro-cycling and therefore must be a ‘good thing’ but the more of their work I see the more I’m convinced that they’re part of the problem.

I can’t help but agree with the Cycling Embassy and David Hembrow that “The Sustrans’ handbook effectively endorses and legitimises much of the substandard provision that many councils are will be tempted to employ, when things get difficult.”

It’s not good enough, it won’t bring about mass cycling and it will lock in bad infrastructure for decades more.

The sad thing is that the “substandard provision” that the handbook “endorses” is actually a pretty big step up from much of what is already out there.

As I said earlier, I think the purpose of that handbook is to record genuine examples of real better-than-average UK infrastucture.

If it helps drag all local authorities up to the same level of mediocrity then that would be a big step forward.

Then (hopefully) in the next revision of the handbook you can raise the bar a little more by doing the same thing again.

It’s a typical Sustrans softly, softly, catchy monkey approach. So people hate it. But while folk are screaming for complete revolution, Sustrans are quietly doing their thing and getting more people cycling to add to the pressure.

This. TBH most of what Sustrans is doing does nothing at all to advance the cause of proper infrastructure which will bring about mass cycling. If anything they provide endorsement of the status quo of rubbish.

Surely we* all agree that the target is proper infrastructure which will encourage mass cycling, in which case I’m less than convinced that the Sustrans pragmatic compromise route is the best way to get there.

* well apart from time triallists

I’d recommend everyone reading the link that waswaswas put up from the Cycling Embassy. It’s a pretty good summary of why the Sustrans guidance isn’t very good.

This. TBH most of what Sustrans is doing does nothing at all to advance the cause of proper infrastructure which will bring about mass cycling.

I commute by bike because I have a nice safe Sustrans route that lets me do it safely and stress-free in nice surroundings.

I probably wouldn’t commute by bike if I had to do it all on road.

I take my wife and young children out for nice pootles along that route. I wouldn’t do that on the road.

The same route is used by a lot of families, commuters, accessibility riders and tourers (it’s part of the C2C). It regularly features on the social rides organised by the local bike cafe and featured in The Guardian’s “Britain’s Best Bike Rides” series.

How is that NOT helping bring about mass cycling?

And reading David Hembrow’s critique for a more in depth view

TBH most of what Sustrans is doing does nothing at all to advance the cause of proper infrastructure

But who does?

And of those, who are actually big enough, int eh public eye enough and have the ear of local councils enough to actually be listened to?

I don’t think any of use (even Graham as is obvious) think Sustrans are perfect, but they ARE trying, and we can’t get the overnight revolution we would all love so in the man time small changes are an improvement, perhaps what Sustran’s need if anything is more support from people that can help to improve what they do?

They are already in a reasonably privileged and unique position of having some influence, especially with local councils, I think it could be more productive to support Sustrans and slowly help them improve what they do, rather than hope for some other body/group/person to get it 100% right straight away from a relatively unknown position.

It’s already been touched on but Sustrans routes do vary massively, there are some fantastic examples, and some very poor ones, and of course our views are tainted by our experiences, but then there are very few other groups with as much widespread activity going on, and some more joined up co-operative work would help Sustrans, CTC, TFL and all the individual and local campaign groups*

One good thing that does come from this is we are talking about it, and so are other people, and anything that gets it on the radar is potential progress.

*I say all this as a Sustrans, CTC, and British Cycling supporter as well as being a volunteer with local inclusive cycling charity.

But who does?
And of those, who are actually big enough, int eh public eye enough and have the ear of local councils enough to actually be listened to?[/quote]

Which is no excuse at all for Sustrans doing such a poor job from their position of influence. Some of the advice in that manual is downright wrong.

TBH the majority (if not all) of the good Sustrans routes are more a matter of luck than judgement, and some of those could and should be a lot better. For example the “flagship” Bristol/Bath path which only exists because it kind of already existed and had/has the potential to be so much better than it is.

Surely we* all agree that the target is proper infrastructure which will encourage mass cycling, in which case I’m less than convinced that the Sustrans pragmatic compromise route is the best way to get there.

Of course I agree with that.

But I’m not going to stand and shout “Give me a comprehensive network of proper Dutch-style infrastructure with fully-segregated cycle paths otherwise I’ll jolly well give up cycling and take the car” because I just don’t think that is effective.

Likewise I’m not going to say “Right then, if you won’t provide proper safe routes then I’ll just get crushed by this HGV instead. See how you like that.” because that is likewise ineffective.

Instead I’m going to keep riding my bike and encourage others to do so, in the hope that more people cycling means more votes, so the politicians start listening. (Which seems to be working at the moment)

I don’t think many of us think Sustrans is all bad by any means.

I just wish they’d do what they can do with the resources they have really well. Get the Advice right! and only accept routes which are actually any good.

I don’t see how publishing a document eding in the right direction but not there or adopting a thoroughly substandard route and telling everybody it’s part of your national cycle network helps anything. btw it’s been part of the national route for years and hasn’t improved in anyway shape or form to my knowledge.

If your going to do it, do it well! or not at all! I would see value for money then even if that meant the scale and reach was reduced at least what was there would be good.

How is that NOT helping bring about mass cycling?

That’s an example of where they’ve done something well – and there are some – but there are also a great many that are poor or downright dangerous. They’re very proud of the ‘National Cycle Network’ but it’s an inconsistent mess and there is no way of knowing what the quality will be like until you get to it. I can see a point in it being there for ‘cycle touring’ which would also meet the needs of commuters in many places.

The ‘old railway’ routes are good but most of the rest is crap. The section through the Surrey Hills is partly on muddy bridleway, partly on rutted sand, some dirt track and then throws you unprotected onto the A25 when they run out of other ideas. You’d not want to ride it on a touring bike with panniers nor use it for your daily commute (it’s not direct either). The Taff Trail in Wales takes you over “the Gap” south of Brecon. That’s a fine mountain biking route but the couple I saw pushing hybrids with panniers looked far from happy. GrahamS – your daughter wouldn’t be happy on much of that.

When Andrew Gilligan started as Cycle Czar he said things would be ‘done properly or not at all’ (far from clear he’ll deliver on that) but that’s the approach we should be taking and that Sustrans document is a long way from properly. They shouldn’t be highlighting ‘good examples’ which are poor by international standards and in places downright dangerous – they should be setting out world class best practice .

But as I pointed out above, still not up to the standards of Dutch infrastructure. Not even as good as old Dutch infrastructure which is being replaced as sub-standard.

For example the “flagship” Bristol/Bath path which only exists because it kind of already existed and had/has the potential to be so much better than it is.

Okay so let’s take that as an example. I’m assuming that, as I outlined earlier, Sustrans don’t own that land or the route, so they just do monitoring, signage and maintenance, and are reliant on the local authority for things like route surface, drainage, lighting, etc?

If that route isn’t perfect and Sustrans refused to adopt it then how would that actually improve the situation?

Do you think the local authority would be terribly ashamed and immediately start improving the route to try and get Sustrans blessing? Or do you think they’d just say “F** em then” and ignore it?

Without Sustrans monitoring and maintaining the route it would be up to other route users to do this themselves independently, reporting issues and pushing the local authority for improvements. Reckon that’d happen?

And if it did do you reckon they’d have more impact than Sustrans?

Which is no excuse at all for Sustrans doing such a poor job from their position of influence

I totally agree with you there aracer, what I don’t want to happen is for us to pour scorn and damnation on Sustrans and risk discrediting them in the public eye and with councils.

I think that there need to be improvements in what they do, and this latest publication has plenty of evidence of that, but what needs to happen is more support, and more co-operation between groups to make those improvements.

It often feels like in-fighting between cycling groups when what they need is to learn from each other, as whether they get it right or not they all want to improve cycling.

One of DH’s common frustrations is that there is great knowledge out there of how to do it right, but not enough willingness to learn from it, it’s almost as if we (in the UK) are hell-bent on making our own mistakes and will (hopefully) get there in the end when we could easily use the knowledge and skip a lot of the mistakes, but I think this resistance stems from the fact, as Graham pointed out, there’s too much resistance from establishment for us to make big changes quickly, so what we are left with is small, and often substandard solutions or nothing at all.

You can argue the toss about do it right or don’t do it at all, but arguably something is better than nothing, we can all support and improve on something, but it’s next to impossible to go from nothing to perfect.

We need to turn this energy into positive change (yes that means improvements in Sustrans too), and not let it turn into negative slagging off of groups that ultimately do want to improve cycling, even if they’re not getting it quite right all the time.

New Sustrans blog post about the handbook and comparing/contrasting it to the “Making Space for Cycling” and Cambridge Cycling Campaign guidance.

Reading between the lines I think this suggests they are more than aware of the criticism.

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/blog/space-different-cycling-design-guides

but arguably something is better than nothing, we can all support and improve on something, but it’s next to impossible to go from nothing to perfect.

I’m not sure that’s right. The cost of doing infrastructure badly is often not far off the cost of doing it properly (overheads/consultation/etc etc) and there are very limited budgets available. Poor, discontinous infrastructure doesn’t get used and is then used as an argument for not doing more (“we spent £x on **Sustrans approved** infrastructure and no-one used it – there’s obviously just no demand in the UK for cycle facilities”).

I’d take 10 miles of current Dutch standard infrastruture each year over 20 miles of crap any day. In 10 years time we’d have 100mile of good.

But currently in those 10 years we’d have done Xhundred miles of good, Y hundred of bad, and Zthousand of mediocre

Which I think is better than your 100miles of perfect a decade, if your 100 even got done, as really, why would they bother if there’s nothing already out there?

The pragmatic approach is:

Do something, and improve it.

Vs

The ideal approach:

Do nothing until you can get it all perfect (and paid for).

Which in reality won’t happen, but that doesn’t mean we don’t keep striving for getting it right, and getting the ideal that we want, and should be pushing for which is:

try to do it all right and keep going and fix the mistakes and mediocrity, but not the somewhat harder do it all right or don’t bother.

Because we all know the reality of that is that you’ll get nothing.

It’s the try bit we are failing at really, we need more joined up action and more willingness to learn and use the available knowledge of how to do it right.

Personally I don’t think the lack of willingness to use that knowledge comes from Sustrans, I think it’s the resistance of the establishment (governemnt and local council) to do so that forces the compromise upon them, and only with more support can organisations have a stronger voice and reduce the compromise.

I think this is the key bit from the blog post above and this is the context within which the handbook should be judged:

Cycle campaigners are right to be aspirational in their ambition and Making Space for Cycling will be a useful tool in negotiating high quality provision in new developments. Whilst being of similar scale, these are two distinct documents aimed at different audiences.

Of course, the vast majority of cycling takes place on existing, often very constrained, urban infrastructure, and Sustrans’ Handbook aims to address the immediate need for realistic and accessible technical guidance for scheme designers in local authorities and consultancies dealing with the practicalities of implementing improvements for cyclists in the existing UK environment.

ie: they know it’s not perfect, they know we need to do better, but for the right now, they’re trying to improve what they can.

Some might see this as complicit in encouraging poor infrastructure, some might see this as a pragmatic approach.

As in all areas of life the reality is probably many shades of grey and far less binary than the opposing views would have you believe.

It’s the try bit we are failing at really, we need more joined up action and more willingness to learn and use the available knowledge of how to do it right.

Fully agree. So we return to my original point – why are Sustrans putting out a guidance manual full of stuff that’s patently not how to do it right?

The Dutch have worked out the best solutions, the knowledge is there, but this Sustrans guide is not it. New stuff in the existing environment doesn’t need to be as bad as what’s gone before – their statement doesn’t make any sense.

The Dutch have worked out the best solutions, the knowledge is there, but this Sustrans guide is not it.

Agreed, that is what is so frustrating in general, the knowledge is there but nobody will use it!

But I think this guide is their attempt at a bridge between the reality and the ideal, they know that if they go straight for the ideal, with the current state of affairs then they will be even more ignored than they already are.

the knowledge is there but nobody will use it!

No, the knowledge isn’t there – where are our transport engineers meant to get it from? There isn’t a UK cycle infrastructure manual the implements dutch quality infrastructure in the UK environment – that’s what the Sustrans manual *should* have been.

Someone puts it far more succinctly than me in the comments on that Sustrans blog post –

The existing infrastructure is only that way because it’s been designed like that. A few jack hammers and diggers and it can look like the best infrastructure the Netherlands has to offer. Don’t allow people in my profession (civil engineers) a get out clause of a bit of paint painted in the gutter… Just allow them to say ‘the budget isn’t there, you will have to wait until it is’, because clients aren’t so bothered about anything other than budget.

You need to post a comment on there, Graham – the 6 so far all appear to have come from people who agree with me.

I accept we can’t have it all now and something is better then nothing.

But! there has to be a minimum standard where they can so “no [council] that’s just awful and not suitable for bikes” ime the part of the national route near me should fall into that category.

GrahamS’s example photo above would be a delight to cycle on compared to some of the carp I commute on. Yes it’s not Dutch but that’d be good enough in my book. I don’t agree with the bad advice though. I doubt the proper advice would cost any more to produce.

You need to post a comment on there, Graham – the 6 so far all appear to have come from people who agree with me.

Nah, they are capable of defending themselves there if they want and I do think it is important that they realise people are upset at this.

I don’t think they’ve handled it well so far.

But! there has to be a minimum standard where they can so “no [council] that’s just awful and not suitable for bikes” ime the part of the national route near me should fall into that category.

If the result was that the council then couldn’t legally sign it as a bike route or claim the mileage on their “alternative transport” target – then yes, an agreed minimum standard approved by Sustrans, CTC, DutchEmbassy, space4cycling etc etc would be great.

But the reality is if Sustrans say it isn’t up to standard then the council will just sign it anyway. 🙁

No, the knowledge isn’t there

I mean in the wider sense, the knowledge exists (outside the UK) but it is not being used by the UK, and there seems to be an unwillingness to accept that we can learn from it.

Goes back to my earlier point, we (the UK) seem to be hell bent on making our own mistakes, and refusing to believe that we can skip them by learning from others who have already made them.

Don’t know whether this is deliberate, or a legacy of ‘we know best’ or what but it’s a real thing, we could learn from the Dutch, but something is stopping us, either an unwillingness to believe that they are right, or a belief that we have to go through the motions or something, but there is massive resistance somewhere…

we could learn from the Dutch, but something is stopping us

See that weird looking roundabout on page 1:

That is a Dutch-style roundabout being tested by Transport for London at the Transport Research Laboratory in Bracknell.

That knowledge is filtering through. There are some people in transport that understand it well.

But the public and political will just isn’t there. Yet.

But the reality is if Sustrans say it isn’t up to standard then the council will just sign it anyway.

True, but imo Sustrans shouldn’t rubber stamp it and put it on their map, which to me says “This is an acceptable cycle route for people to use every day\touring etc” when it isn’t.

FTFY

and let’s be honest, it would actually be preferable for a start to do X hundred miles of mediocre, 0 of complete rubbish, and Z thousand of bad (you could probably make a good case that you’re better off only doing the X hundred of mediocre). Given the amount which is spent on complete rubbish and bad, if that money was instead diverted to doing it properly then you might actually get X hundred of good.

The point you’re missing here – despite it being spelled out in the post you replied to – is that it’s not actually that much harder or more expensive to do the job properly than to do it badly. It’s just the knowledge and the will which is lacking – the former will be a problem so long as poor design is put forwards by organisations such as Sustrans as “UK best practice” (sic).

Which is strange, and I’m a bit confused, as in your other posts you seem to be on my side of this debate!

Sorry – I should have put a smiley on the end of that. Though I;m sure you don’t think we have completely differing opinions on this!

is that it’s not actually that much harder or more expensive to do the job properly than to do it badly.

Didn’t the 1973 Dutch “”Stop de Kindermoord” revolution involve things like very high oil prices (thanks to the oil crisis), car-free Sundays, and then banning all motor vehicles from city centres?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o[/video]

A lot of that sounds hard, expensive and even scary to most people in this country.

Though I;m sure you don’t think we have completely differing opinions on this!

That’s the terrible thing. I think we all want the same thing* – but in-fighting about how best to get it completely sabotages any hope we have.

.

* Except time trialers. I have no idea what they want. 😀

aracer I think we may be talking at cross purposes slightly and to be clear I am a Sustrans supporter who does not support everything in this handbook.

– I agree that the advice in the latest publication is not as good as it should be
– I agree that we should be doing it right

– I think that the reality is somewhat more complicated that ‘do it right or dontt do it at all’

– I think there is a lot of political and bureaucratic nonsense that gets in the way of doing it right and makes this:

it’s not actually that much harder or more expensive to do the job properly than to do it badly

a bit misleading, as although it is not much harder physically and financially to do it properly, politically it is, and I think that this has driven Sustran’s approach towards one of pragmatism and compromise, more so than it perhaps should have.

– I also think that the way forward is more co-operation between cycling organisations and more support for people like Sustrans because of what they could do (with more support and guidance and co-op), and not poo-poohing them for what they are not getting right now, because I think what they do do is better than nothing, which realistically is what we would have had without them.

But the public and political will just isn’t there

I guess my thoughts on this bit is that I think this is why Sustrans compromise.

Argue about whether they should or not, but I think this is why, they know the will isn’t there yet and won’t accept more radical changes, so they push for what they know they can do.

Given that there is no real alternative body with as much influence and entrenched history in the UK I think we should be supporting them while pushing for them to improve rather than saying they are rubbish and putting forward the message that they are harmful to cycling and totally wrong.

I guess it comes down to this:

Sustrans are not perfect, and certainly not above criticism, but we are better off with them than without, and I support their goals if not always their methods.

but in-fighting about how best to get it completely sabotages any hope we have

This! so much this!

Cycling groups of the UK, unite! 🙂

Sustrans are not perfect, and certainly not above criticism, but we are better off with them than without, and I support their goals if not always their methods.

Agreed

I tried a bit of sustrans national cycle network once, the experience was so bad, I’ve never tried it again!

Perhaps you should futon, it’s not ALL bad.

(My local route again 🙂 )

aracer: okay, I did post a comment on the Sustrans blog 😀

Final thought (possibly)

One thing that would be more effective than ALL these guide and handbooks would be to force every local and government transport official to watch this video.

I am Dutch and go back home a lot. More cycle routes/paths/bridges are being added all the time. I’d say the uk is about 30 years behind when it comes to cycle infrastructure. My kids love being out on my mums bikes over there.

They also don’t seem to get pot holes….so I suppose it can’t really be the weather’s fault like they claim here. The roads over there are great.

All comes down to money in the end, my sister does pay about 100 euros per MONTH road tax for a 2006 C4.

Round my way (back home) all they did was take my old road training loop (as did one of the bike mags), and stick up blue route number 18 signs.
It’s on opencyclemap as national route 179.
Maybe if someone’s in North Kent, they can confirm if Google Streetview and Opencyclemap are consistent.

They did re-route NCN1 along a country lane and past a firing range instead of alongside (aka gutterstripe c/o dulux) 40mph road.