Video: Chris Boardman on the Dutch love affair with cycling

Has this been done yet?

http://www.itv.com/tourdefrance/features/video-chris-boardman-on-the-dutch-love-affair-with-cycling

I saw that as part of the TdF show (I presume it’s the same thing) and it was ace. CB really has got into this as a crusade, and I’m hoping his high profile might actually result in something changing.

I noticed that he wasn’t wearing anything more than all the other cyclists in that video either 😈

We need an oil crisis!

I went to a talk by Chris Boardman about the Olympics, and it was clear from the Q&A at the end that he is really passionate about utility cycling more than anything.

I think there’s a bit of a conflict here though, because the Olympics and TDF got everyone interested in the sport side of cycling, which is at odds with asking for cycle segregation (even in the STW forum) which may require you to go a bit slower in towns/cities.

It’ll be interesting to see how Embankment turns out because they are building segregated cycle lanes at the most popular spot for mamil commuter racing.

It was a very good bit of reporting – real shame it was hidden in the depths of ITV4 and will only be seen by an already pro-cycling audience.

There are some good videos about Utrecht – they basically redesigned the road system to stop cars directly crossing the centre. Driving anywhere is possible but has to be done out, round and back in, which makes bikes and public transport the fastest option for short hops.

It’s not at all at odds with segregation done properly http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/speed

fantastic – I was going to message them and ask them to make that feature in monday’s TdF program a standalone film so it could be shared on facebook etc. – really needs to be seen by non cyclists.

Been working a hell of a lot in Amsterdam this year, mix of public transport and taxis to get about, the things that strike me.

Road design to slow motor vehicles down on urban/city roads, but fast on dual carriageways/motorways where there are no bikes
Drivers just give way by default to cyclists
You see cyclists in their best, for example women in dresses n heels on bikes
The obvious cycle facilities including multi storey bike parks

We need to get everybody in the UK to watch this film, seriously!

Returned a couple of weeks ago from 3 weeks working my way along the SW coast of France with the camper & bikes. We were blown away by the difference in attitude to cyclists. Every campsite we stopped at were able to give us cycling maps of the area & most of the roads had designated cycle lanes – even the small ones – or a shared cycle / pedestrian path adjacent to the roads.

Drivers were also much more curtious – giving was readily & eating patiently behind & passing with plenty of room – what a difference!

We actually stopped at a Dutch RCN campsite, in France, & the Dutch even used their bikes to go to the on-site shop & the amenities block…… It just looked strange – but good.

One striking bit of info from that piece was the number of children killed on Dutch roads: down from 400 or so per annum in the 1970s to a handful today.

I liked the idea of “car free Sundays” 😆

As for the “it could never work here” argument, here’s a report on the pedestrianisation of part of Hebden Bridge http://www.jtp.co.uk/public/uploads/pdfs/hebden_bridge.pdf which if you knew it before and after has been a definite success.

and in other news: record numbers of the uk population are having their feet amputated, due to diabetes.

never mind a ‘nanny state’ the uk government is criminally negligent.

That video makes me a little sad. That’s the sort of place I’d like my kids to grow up. Won’t see it in the UK in mine or their lifetimes probably,

We live in the United Car Kingdom. Cars and petrol raise revenue but bikes and new infrastructure costs. Sadly the unfettered capitalism preferred by our democratically elected leaders makes the European pro-cycling attitude a mere dream. Sad coz me and Mrs Hound are dedicated cycle commuters/sporty types.

But some infrastructure doesn’t have to cost huge amounts of money. Putting in bike stands(the metal hoops cemented in to the ground) would cost, allowing for council overpricing, a couple of hundred quid per stand. But they need to be in locations that are of use not stuck in some dingy back alley where the bike is likely to be tampered with.

Once people see that they can nip in to town and leave their bike securely close to the shops then they’ll start to use them.

From where we’re stuck in the UK, I’m afraid that film is depressing rather than aspirational.

From where we’re stuck in the UK, I’m afraid that film is depressing rather than aspirational.

It’s that attitude that will keep us in this mess

Bollocks! I’m pro cycling but I’m also a realist. The problem is bigger than me having no faith in the powers that be.

It just so happens that I’ve worked in local authority trying to improve cycling infrastructure, so I do have some first hand experience of what’s actually gone on (or more to the point, not going on).

Just back from cycle camping in NL with young kids. The Dutch cycling infrastructure is quite simply superb. Safe, convenient, well maintained and used by everyone as part of their ordinary daily life. There are direct cycle routes or safe cycling roads everywhere.
Because everyone cycles, drivers look out for cyclists, instead of just driving at them.

We’re light years from this, and I don’t think we will ever spend the money or do the hard work to get there. I think driverless cars are likely to be a better bet for delivering a more sane transport solution in the UK.

Putting in a few bike stands? We cycled into the centre of a medium sized Dutch town. There was an underground cycle park in the main square with free secure, ticketed parking for hundreds of bikes. You didn’t even need to take a lock.

The thing you have to remember is that it’s not impossible, the Dutch situation arose out of a public and political will to change, it was not always the way it is now, change is possible but it needs the driving force behind it, and that’s what we are missing, not he money, but the will to do it.

Whether or not we can change that is another matter, but things have been improving in recent years, it’s slow going but at least heading in the right direction, one baby step at a time…

I have to echo johnhighfield’s post. Just come back from the Vendee after towing my Caravan there. Superb tracks/cycleways provided linking towns & beaches so even the most nervous rider feels safe, cars give way to bikes at junctions and just a very joined-up attitude to cycling. They say the French are aggressive drivers but I was met with nothing but courtesy by drivers, there is no tailgating & swerving out from your bumper to peer at the road ahead, just a sensible attitude of keeping a good distance behind, keeping patient & overtaking when safe- this applied whether towing or solo. contrast that with good old blighty-I had been cut up 3 times before I got to the M25 and drivers just seemed to be in a furious hurry. Perhaps it’s our overcrowded island compared to France that makes the difference, I don’t know.

@kcr It’s not so much the facilities themselves but the cost that is the impediment to local councils and even the traders and shopkeepers. Last year one of the car parks in our local town had to be dug up to repair/replace an underground water tank – the traders were up in arms about the loss of trade, etc. Yet if the water had become contaminated you can be sure they’d complain about that!

On occasions I’ve had to go to Ghent in Belgium for work – there are bike stands on just about every street corner and outside many shops. The city centre has a 20kph limit and is used by pedestrians, bikes, trams, buses and cars with no problems.

Boris Johnson was interviewed on the Monday night TdF show and stated that London boroughs were turning down money to install bike schemes. Not only is there the lack of will but there’s also the fear of change. Yet when such change is implemented the result is invariably positive for everyone. It’s just a case of convincing those who decide on such matters.

Knock some one off a bike in most European countries and you’re in deep doo-doo! Whereas in the United Car Kingdom it’s more a case of oh well, bikes shouldn’t be in the way …

The problem is this needed doing or at least starting 30 years ago, whilst the car was still pretty crap really. People would be used to it by now as they are in other countries. The whole attitude towards cycling is different in the UK at the moment.
The government and councils need to just force it on people and in a few years it will be different. But if even 1% of what the dutch have is going to happen here it is going to take years. The best thing WE can do as cyclists is ride our bike on the road, the more cyclists there are, the more drivers will be used to them being there.
Schools need to educate kids more and driving lessons/tests need to change to include more about cycle safety.

I don’t want to be a doom monger but I just can’t see much happening in most of the UK, I hope i’m wrong and i’ll still be commuting by bike in the mean time but………….

I’m just about to write to my MP about this video apparently he too commutes by bike when he can… still didn’t get me to vote for him…

I really want to see a ‘car free sunday’ tried in a city center perhaps off set by free public transport on that one day… worth an email.

We spend a few weeks a year in belguim/holland and once we get to the destination the car is forgotten about and hardly used. My kids love being able to bike everywhere and the fact that there are so many barriers to doing it in the UK is tragic.

What is the general town planning liek in NL? In addition to the car centric road planning i nthe uk we also seem to pla our towns very car centric with sprwaling estates of poorly designed houses and out of town retail parks and business park with a car park per store / business rather than one car park for the entire lot making pbulic transport and cycling more advantagouse.

from what (little) i’ve seen, new-build estates don’t look massively differently from similar in the uk. But because the estate is linked into the cycle network, there were lots of people on bikes.

the thing that struck me most of all was how many old people were on their bikes, plenty of people clearly 80+ still hooning around on 2 wheels.

including 1 amazing old lady in Maassluis, taking on the cobbles like a pro!

This is a timely blog from a Dutch person who was told by ‘the internet’ that London had a high quality cycle network: http://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/11985/city-cycling-in-london-is-a-joke

Some of it is based on differences in law and signage, so not the cycle facility designer’s fault, but it’s interesting to see the opinion of someone used to good infrastructure.

I can’t link to it at work but there was another good article online recently called somethign like “we get the cyclists we deserve” which stated the importance of getting 60+old people riding biek for utility and also people taking kids to school / day care e.t.c. I think it was in the Gardian.

You know what, whenever these threads pop up I normally trot out the “it’ll never happen here” or “Modern British (Clarksonite) culture just won’t allow that sort of change” type lines, but actually I’m getting a bit tired of calling myself a “Realist” when Really I’m just being a Defeatist, what is so wrong about aiming a little higher than you think you’ll actually manage?

I think we should push for these sort of infrastructure changes that would make urban-utility cycling safer, I think “Car free Sundays” in major towns and cities would be utterly fantastic…

The real trick is not to get dragged into ”Debates” with dickheads, and try to make reasoned, sensible cases for amending our shoddy infrastructure to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, and that seems to be what CB is doing now…
Avoid engaging in heavily biased argumentative wastes of time and simply present some sensible ideas in, not too hard to follow, short segments…

That blog was excellent

“This essentially means that the deadliness order becomes the de factor pecking order, which is exactly the wrong way around. In a well-designed traffic situation, pedestrians are gods, cyclists/minor motor vehicles have second dibs and large motorized traffic just has to wait for the rest. In London, motor traffic rules and even within motor traffic the biggest cars win out. Which is buses. Who drive like lunatics”

I love cycling in London and I recognise some of his comments as accurate however my ride in from Molesey is 3/4’s well marked and fairly safe feeling cycle lanes so it seems to be getting better. A couple of years ago a large part of the city and was closed to motor traffic, it was lovely to see hundreds if not thousands of cyclists out with their kids safely having fun that day so maybe a once a month city traffic free day is possible?

Nah, we’ll just wait for people to get middle-aged and a bit overweight. then we’ll chop their feet off.

it’s the British way.

Nah, we’ll just wait for people to get middle-aged and a bit overweight. then we’ll chop their feet off.

it’s the British way.

Not if the smog gets them first:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nearly-9500-people-die-early-in-a-single-year-in-london-as-a-result-of-air-pollution-study-finds-10390729.html

I’ve been riding for 38 years and whilst the current harassment and general animosity towards cycling is worse than it’s ever been, the profile of cycling and the participation and the sheer racket in the media about the need for change and proper facilities are also far higher than they’ve ever been.

For my money, the hatred and nastiness is a sign of progress – it’s coming from a minority of people who’re scared of change. They’re particularly scared right now because a lot (across life in general) is changing. They focus on cycling as it’s grown in participation and stature particularly fast.

So fast and significant progress is happening and that’s good. Some people can’t cope with that and it upsets them so they make childish passive-aggressive protests. As time passes, they’ll calm down and get used to it. Or die of fatness…

It’s going to take time to get Dutch but we’re moving more quickly in the right direction than we have ever before in my lifetime

Except the general population actually subsidises car use once you properly factor in all costs, so it’s pretty rubbish capitalism to encourage the use of cars. The cost of new bike infrastructure is a tiny fraction of the amount spent even on maintaining roads for cars, let alone building new ones and widening existing ones. It would be good for our economy to decrease the reliance on the car and increase cycle usage.

bikes and new infrastructure costs

Except that it doesn’t, if you actually take into account the reduced healthcare costs and increased productivity as a result of having a healthier population.

the thing we really need is the presumed liability, but the HoC muppets all think it’s a law for cyclists – but we should be selling it to the UK as the ultimate protection for pedestrians (cos everyone uses a pavement, not everyone cycles..)

I’m all in support of that and it would be useful, but it’s way down there in the list of things we really need.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/09/women-cycling-infrastructure-cyclists-killed-female

This is the acrtical I wanted to link to.