Barclays Cycle Superhighways - Transport for London

This is a good video of the Cycle superhighways.



Barclays Cycle Superhighways - Transport for London



I like the comment about being a quasi 'dedicated' routes.

I also like the blind spot - mirrors.



You do wonder if they had any before/after data ( for cycle usage )  - you would presume they would have some kind of effect increasing cycle usage.

Paper on use of traffic free routes

The role of traffic-free routes in encouraging
cycling among excluded groups [ here ] 

More evidance that you need traffic free routes to appeal to normal people.

"We can therefore concludethat the groups traditionally regarded as
excluded or disadvantaged, namely women, BME groups, the old, the young, and people from more deprived areas, make different use of traffic-free routes."

"traffic-free route data highlights particular positives in terms of higher
than expected representation of female cyclists, elderly cyclists and BME group cyclists on
shopping trips, females and younger age groups on trips to educational establishments, and BME groups and younger age groups making commuting trips. Leisure trips are commonly undertaken by cyclists in older age groups and from areas with higher IMD values." 


This reinforces Prof. Jo Woods work on Transport for London data where more women cycle in parks ( i.e traffic free routes). 

The logic of cycling

Some lovely facts on the benefits of cycling from a top cycle coach.
Skip to minute 6:30

• Those cycle to work are 40% less likely to die to prematurely regardless of how much activity they got outside of commuting.http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=485349
• 
  
• Independent of leisure time physical activity, commuting physical activity is associated with the lower cardiovascular risk profile
• Reducing emissions to active transport even compare to your three years reduces to mature deaths from 541 to 17 per million.
• Driving an hour each day corresponds to a 6% increase in the likely good of being obese.
• A person driving a car breathe 60% more carbon monoxide in their car than a cyclist in traffic. 
• 50% of trips by car of 3 miles or less. 
• 25% of driving time is spent on 14 mile average US commute. 
• Oregon residents save more than 2 billion dollars per year because they ride more. 
• The annual cost of being obese is $5000 for women and $3000 for men. 
• Every pound increase in the average weight of the American car means it increases fuel consumption by 40 million gallons. 
• And now I can spend 18% of their income on Transportation. The annual cost of a car is $8000. 
• Annual cost of a bike is $300. 

"May be prevention is cheaper than chronic illness" 

Nice Brompton demo at the end. Nice to see a high end cyclist using one. 

( by the way 14 miles is about 50 minutes by bike OR the 9 minutes over the average commute time of 41 minutes. 

More evidence for weather protection.

This is another paper showing that people don't go cycling in the rain or when it's freezing in Canada



Utilitarian Bicycling - American Journal of Preventive Medicine:





"The proportion of the urban population reporting bicycling in a typical week was 7.9%, with students cycling more than nonstudents (17.2% vs 6.0%). In the general population, older age, female gender, lower education, and higher income were associated with lower likelihood of cycling. More days of precipitation per year and more days of freezing temperatures per year were both associated with lower levels of utilitarian cycling (odds ratios [ORs] for every 30-day increase in precipitation=0.84, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.74–0.94, and for every 30-day increase in freezing temperatures OR=0.91, 95% CI=0.86–0.97). "



Clearly this tells us if we want to appeal to non students you need some kind of shelter.

Shelterd cycle

Using an electric assist - does make sense on as a sheltered bike, as Rob Cotter says most trips are 2 miles or less.

Stop forcing people to wear bike helmets - Vox

Stop forcing people to wear bike helmets - Vox



This is another interesting and well researched article arguing that the health benefits of wearing helmets are cycling are no bigger than helmets for pedestrians and car drivers. 



Naturally the elevator cycling argument is that if you have segregated cycle lanes for the majority of your trip then the necessity of helmets is actually reduced. 



Its nice to see something so well argued on the data.

Boris to build bike lanes in London, to " de-Lycrafy the bicycle" : TreeHugger

Transport or London is talking about Quitelanes. The acual link is here but the idea is to build something really non-pro cyclist friendly. They are spending £54 million on this.

Boris to build bike lanes in London, to " de-Lycrafy the bicycle" : TreeHugger

Progress on new cycle analysis system.

Red dot represents traffic lights. White lines 'cycleable' routes.

Cycling

From the guy who brought you 'Cycle Chic'
One way of thinking about this is an argument for better mathematical models of cycling.
I like the notion of following desire lines.
I'm with the kids wanting roofs for bikes

▶ London Moves, visualising 16 million cycle journeys across the UK capital: Jo Wood at TEDxEastEnd - YouTube

▶ London Moves, visualising 16 million cycle journeys across the UK capital: Jo Wood at TEDxEastEnd - YouTube:



One of the elements I took from this is

• That Hyde Park (i.e. a car free) is a very popular area for cycling.
• Tourists prefer car free places to commuters 
• Women use bikes considerably less than men (but not in the Netherlands) 
• Women much prefer the car free areas to men 
• Women tend to be more evenly distributed compared to men who cluster more.

Quote "In the Netherlands 25-30% of all journeys are made by bicycle." (wow) if we could do that to London it would make a considerable difference to congestion, energy consumption, pollution and health.



 The problem of studying bike hire is that the bike parking locations aren't randomly distributed - still it's informative.