Forum topic: Cycling on Enfield's streets and roads
Cycling on Enfield's streets and roads
David Hughes
28 Nov 2013 21:10 #149
- David Hughes
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Major projects are planned for Enfield Town/around Enfield Town station, in Edmonton, and elsewhere. But for Palmers Green the key project seems to be a cycle lane extending from north of Enfield Town along the length of Green Lanes to south of the North Circular Road. The hope is that overall the policy will achieve a 10% reduction in traffic, an improvement in air quality, and encourage people to make healthier travel choices.
The projects on the streets will be supported by even more comprehensive promotional support than now: cycle training, safety advice, bike repair, that sort of thing, and, crucially, more and better cycle storage. Around key rail stations there will be secure bike storage; in socially important places like town centres, high streets, other ‘social areas’, there will be defined space and physical support for bikes; in residential streets an idea that I’d not come across before: covered, locked, storage erected on the carriageway (by request and subject to local residents’ agreement). The storage the council has in mind for this innovation is the ‘Lambeth Bikehanger’ which can be viewed at: www.cyclehoop.com/product/bike-lockers/bike-hangar/ . It takes up about the same space as half a car, and the idea is that the council would fund and erect the storage, residents would rent space within it. For people like me this would be a godsend because I don’t have anywhere to store a bike.
To speed up the process of implementing the new policy from years to months a bid has been made to obtain finance from Boris Johnson’s £100M ‘Mini-Holland’ fund, which is aimed at increasing cycling in the outer-London boroughs. The bid has already passed the first hurdle, and the hope is that the council will be successful in obtaining funds in the order of £25M.
After 100+ years of driving cyclists off the road with rules and organisational principles which favour cars, I sense a breakthrough. But persuading people to make a leap of faith and mount a bike is likely to be hard work, in particular persuading women who currently bike much less than men. However the council is keen to redress this imbalance, not least because women are influential in whether children cycle or not.
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Cycling on Enfield's streets and roads
Karl Brown
05 Dec 2013 15:05 #151
- Karl Brown
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The idea is to protect the more vulnerable by putting the (legal) responsibility of care onto the more powerful. As the author points out, it works in the workplace, so why not on our roads?
I seem to recall Mr Hughes once raising something not too dissimilar in his local press weekly slot.
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Cycling on Enfield's streets and roads
Basil Clarke
06 Dec 2013 14:42 #152
- Basil Clarke
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Cycling on Enfield's streets and roads
David Hughes
10 Dec 2013 16:04 #156
- David Hughes
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Of course there may be occasions where the default is overridden by the situation, perhaps by this sort of answer: “It was on a motorway, the parents’ car had broken down, they didn’t supervise the child and I was entitled to drive fast.”
But on an urban residential street lined with vehicles no-one should be driving so fast and close to the parked cars that they can’t stop if a child pops out from between them. Arguments such as it was a dark winter’s morning and the child wasn’t wearing bright clothing just wouldn’t wash because, as Karl Brown points out: the driver has the power – and is the danger. No child behaving as children do ever wins a battle with a car.
To bring this issue into the thread of this topic: “Cycling on Enfield’s streets and roads”, no cyclist ever kills a driver by riding three abreast with his/her mates.
Among a plethora of things which need improving on British streets the attribution of default responsibility to the person who has the power to kill or maim ranks high.
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Cycling on Enfield's streets and roads
Basil Clarke
15 Dec 2013 01:02 #158
- Basil Clarke
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Cycling on Enfield's streets and roads
David Hughes
15 Dec 2013 14:15 #159
- David Hughes
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