From The Londonist "Things to do in London today" http://tinyurl.com/lzrsey7

"This peaceful protest is asking for:

The Mayor and Boroughs to spend at least the same per person on cycling provision as The Netherlands (the UK spends about £1.25 per person – The Netherlands spends about £33 per person);
A ban on vehicles whose drivers cannot see adjacent road-users; and,
A full London-wide segregated network to be built urgently."

I'd go if in the neighborhood. The I find the sight of bicycles sharing lanes with buses alarming. Not there's a lot of room to widen the streets.

You are asking far too much. The Dutch system was developed over several decades, in fact it is still being developed.
How about driver education? Both the cyclist and the motorised vehicle this forms a big part of the Dutch culture.
Not all of the Dutch cycle lanes are segregated.
This statement made me chuckle "A ban on vehicles whose drivers cannot see adjacent road-users" I know it is serious matter but how the hell do you want to implement this? That is everything except cars and even they, alias, cannot see recumbents.
Good luck with your quest.

Most Dutch towns and cities do not have segregated bike tracks. Sharing the road, or a lane marked by white lines is more normal. Narrow roads have bike lanes suggested (strips of red tarmac and dashed white lines), and the speed limit reduced. Cars can drive in those lanes if necessary.

Lorries and buses here have extra mirrors to help them see cyclists, but even here cyclists get killed when vehicles turn right and fail to see a bike has come up the inside of them.
Cyclists here are probably not as aggressive as London cyclists and many have learned to wait back from lorries at junctions rather than trying to push on ahead.
Most people here are cyclists as well as drivers, which leads to more allowances on both sides.
Until drivers and cyclists are educated, and make allowances for one another no number of special cycle lanes or Boris routes will make life more pleasant or safer in the UK for those on two or four or more wheels.


It also doesn't help that when the TRRL trials Dutch style roundabouts the cyclists refuse to go around them the right way, because it is quicker to go the wrong way to get to their turning, (something I have actually seen on a roundabout on the A2 without a bike lane!!!!) nor that the likes of the Daily Mail call the design of such roundabouts a monstrosity.

Oh and bikes wouldn't be allowed on a road of the standard and speed of the a@ in the first place in the Netherlands. It is always a shock to me to see cyclists on dual carriageways where the bulk of the traffic is travelling at 70 mph.

@hetismij:you're right that the Dutch system has been developed over decades and is still in development. However, it took citizen action in the early 70s to get there. (stop de kindermoord)

I think about 70% of bike paths are segregated, or bikes share parallel roads (ventweg) And where there is shared space, further development and redesign changes most these stretches to segregate bike paths.

All this is a result of conscious design, but that design had to be forced upon the decision makers by citizen action.

This ia a great discussion

"The Mayor and Boroughs to spend at least the same per person on cycling provision as The Netherlands (the UK spends about £1.25 per person – The Netherlands spends about £33 per person);" these figures are of course annual. On top of this studies have shown that due to the Dutch having developed their solutions for a number of years the cost of implementation, signage, planning is far lower than in the UK. Hence, you get more bang for your bucks in the Netherlands.

The idea of allowing bikes on dual carriageways in the UK is down to there being very little option, if that is where you want to go that is the road. On the other hand that is the reason I dislike riding in the UK.

Fundamentally I feel the major barrier to improvement is that the following people do not see bicycling as the main way of getting to work
1) Politicians
2) Senior business people
3) planners

Certainly the terrible designs in Leeds, and the occasional good ones are demonstrations of a genuine lack of understanding how a bicycle works. Still the government has just put up the money to put in improved routes between Leeds and Bradford. It will be very expensive and very badly designed.

My bike-safety-course-teaching friends here in the US think dedicated bike lanes alongside streets are less safe then riding with traffic. I'm not quite convinced.

I have the impression that the Die-In was to raise consciousness, mainly, and stimulate dialogue and change.

According to recent NYTimes article, 14 cyclists have died this year in London, 8 soldiers in Afghanistan. And no bike fatalities last year in Paris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/wo...mits.html?_r=0

Fundamentally I feel the major barrier to improvement is that the following people do not see bicycling as the main way of getting to work:

1. The overwhelming majority of the population, who use public transport.
2. The rest of us, who walk.

British cyclists' preening self-absorption, refusal to consider other road and footpath users, and flagrant contempt for traffic laws are the real reason they're ill served.

>>British cyclists' preening self-absorption, refusal to consider other road and footpath users, and flagrant contempt for traffic laws are the real reason they're ill served.<<

We can all trade stories of individual misbehaviour. Much the same attitudes among drivers haven't stopped government at all levels and planners consistently assuming cars and lorries are the default priority in the bulk of policy decisions. Those of us who cycle within the law and with the insight of having driven still get the blame when some of us are squashed.

Stokebailey, so you are in the US So why post this? If you are from the UK I can understand some interest.
The development of Dutch bike infrastructure watch this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o
and as you are from the US maybe you find this of interest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2THe_10dYs

Hi, ribeirasacra. Call me nosy. Call it typical American Imperialism.
also:
I've ridden Vélib in Paris and NiceRide in Minneapolis, I ride all over my city, and I'd like to live long enough to have the nerve to tool around a little bit of London on a BorisBike. This spring I hope to try it in Hyde Park.

Thanks for the YouTube. 30 times more likely to die here; I believe it, and yikes. I belong to a bike advocacy group that's trying to change the situation, and I've seen improvement over the past several years. Getting government cooperation and improving cyclists' behavior would both help.

Not sure how to detect preening self-absorption, but it sounds like a fun thing to have.

I also found a video about a fact finding trip held in NL and taken by some US city representatives. It made for some interesting viewing. Having lived in NL I can assure you I was quite nervous of bikes when driving my car.
In video 2 I posted I feel that maybe this relaxed cycling attitude together with the fact everyone who drives also cycles means that in the UK or Us it is going to be an up hill struggle to make it happen the same as NL.
BTW I believe the Danish have the same attitude towards cycling too.
Still in 30 years time we shall see?

From the the same YT video channel as link one I found this about London:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LcADYelq6c

Thanks, ribeirasacra.

I haven't seen it so much myself, but my husband who commutes 30 min each way by bike often reports aggressive anti-bike driving. The stakes are much higher for the cyclist, of course: annoyance and nervous driving vs. one's precious hide.

I notice the Dutch narrator's dislike for helmets. It's very hilly in my town -- unlike in the Netherlands -- so momentum and gravity are bigger dangers. I've known people whose helmets saved their skulls after downhill crashes involving a stick and a charging dog.

>>in the UK or Us it is going to be an up hill struggle to make it happen the same as NL. <<

It has been pointed out that thirty or forty years ago, the Netherlands wasn't that much different from the UK in this respect, and that what the Dutch have achieved since has been a matter of consistent commitment over the years. The problem for us is to get people to stop seeing this is as an either-or war.

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com...%20kindermoord

This is how we roll in the US:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcQibDNxHjI

Excellent post, menachem.

Parents let their children ride bikes up and down our block, but not the ~ mile to school. For that they sit on the school bus.