ACTUAL HOLLAND

Very interesting piece by Nick from Bethnal Streets for All reproduced here with his permission.

"The council keeps telling us they are modelling the LTNs on the likes of Amsterdam. Here’s why the LTNs are ill conceived, badly implemented, disruptive and a cheap excuse for a cycling network taken from the reject pile of the Dutch cycling urban planners. THE KEY POINT BEING THAT NETHERLANDS BEGAN WITH SIMILAR STRATEGIES TO THE LTNs BUT MOSTLY REJECTED THEM AS INEFFECTIVE BECAUSE IT RESULTED IN NO NOTABLE INCREASE IN CYCLING. THEY INSTEAD OPTED FOR DEDICATED CYCLE PATHS AS THEIR PRIMARY URBAN STRATEGY. After years of cycling activism the Dutch authorities came around to the idea that cycling made sense and for good reasons. They had a history of building dedicated cycle paths since the 1890s. The Netherlands is a relatively densely populated and very flat country, which means that journey distances tend to be short and the climate of the Netherlands neither too warm or cold meaning that one can cycle short distances without breaking into a sweat. In the 1970s things came to a head with motor transport posing such a health and safety hazard that people began protesting en masse.

SO WHAT ARENT LONDON COUNCILS LEARNING FROM HOLLAND? To begin with the Dutch did a similar thing to the LTNs, reducing traffic and painting the roads with red cycle paths. This certainly didn’t hurt and people did change their cycle routes to fit these reasonably coherent cycle ways but in the end it turned out that one single bicycle route did not lead to an overall increase in cycling. (note, the London LTNs do not resemble coherent commuter cycle routes).Subsequently, the city of Delft constructed a whole network of cycle paths and it turned out that this did encourage more people to get on their bikes. One by one, other cities followed suit.

SO WHY ARE LONDON COUNCILS FAST-TRACKING URBAN PLANNING STRATEGIES THAT WERE ABANDONED 40 YEARS AGO BY THE COUNTRY THEY QUOTE AS THEIR INSPIRATION FOR CYCLING INFRASTRUCTURE?

Here’s other stuff that the Dutch do, that doesn’t require closing key connecting roads all over London. – The Netherlands employs a standards-based approach to road design, where conflicts between different modes of transport are eliminated wherever possible and reduced in severity as much as possible where elimination is not possible. They have put an emphasis on prioritising cycling when implementing urban planing, limiting access and parking for cars, BUT THE KEY THING BEING, IS TO INSTITUTE THESE CHANGES “OVER TIME”, so as to make the change more manageable and acceptable for the general public. – A form of strict liability has been law in the Netherlands since the early 1990s for bicycle-motor vehicle accidents.[12] In a nutshell this means that, in a collision between a car and a cyclist, the driver's insurer is deemed to be liable to pay damages, so providing the cyclist did not deliberately ride their bike into a vehicle, their care is covered even if the cyclist made an unintentional error. – The Dutch train their children to ride so they can confidently ride in the roads when they are around 12 years of age, just before they start secondary school.[18] Only if they pass their traffic exam are they awarded their Verkeersdiploma (traffic certificate). – Dutch motorists are also trained for interaction with cyclists as part of their driver training when going for their driving licence. For example, trainee motorists are trained to check and re-check their right-hand side for cyclists before making a turn to the right. – Many roads have one or two separate cycleways alongside them, or cycle lanes marked on the road. On roads where adjacent bike paths or cycle tracks exist, the use of these facilities is compulsory, and cycling on the main carriageway is not permitted. The Netherlands have 35,000 km of cycle-track has been physically segregated from motor traffic (quarter the total of all their road network). – When enough space is available, larger roads are fitted with a parallel fietspad (bike path) that is physically separated — for example by means of a verge, hedge, or parking lane — from the roadway. In most cases, these bike paths are also physically separated from an adjacent footpath. – Where protected bike paths exist, their use is in most cases obligatory for cyclists. Mopeds, mofas and the like are allowed and obliged to use them when their maximum speed is no more than 25 km/h. A bicycle-only route intended for cycling longer distances for practical reasons such as commuting or for sport and exercise can either be called a snelfietsroute (fast bike route) or a fietssnelweg (cycle highway). – To protect cyclists from motorised traffic when they need to cross motorways and other busy roads, dedicated cycling bridges and tunnels for cyclists are built. – Cycleways are complete with their own system of traffic signals. These are present at junctions, one set for motorised vehicles and a visually smaller set for cyclists. – Snelfietsroutes, A bicycle-only route intended for cycling longer distances for practical reasons such as commuting or for sport and exercise can either be called a snelfietsroute (fast bike route) or a fietssnelweg (cycle highway). Cycling interest groups and national and local governments advocate such routes as being a solution for the further reduction of vehicular traffic congestion: this is because, as cyclists can achieve higher average speeds on these routes than on the usual types of cycling infrastructure, so cyclists are better able to compete with the car for longer commutes on them.

THE DUTCH DON’T TRY TO MISREPRESENT SHARED SPACE FOOTPATHS AND TOW PATHS AS PROPER CYCLING INFRASTRUCTURE.

Note: The Dutch also have fietsstraat (cyclestreets) which are road where bicycles are considered to be the primary and preferred form of transport and where cars and other motorised vehicles are allowed "as guests". There are four different types of fietsstraat but they are all required to have a speed limit of 30 km/h. Fietsstraat streets exist mostly in residential areas where low-traffic roads existed anyway. A fietsstraat was in most cases originally a road that had low-traffic volumes beforehand and was therefore easily converted. These are important safety strategies for Dutch Cyclists. HOW DO THESE DIFFER FROM THE LTNs? – the Dutch were careful to do this on very low traffic roads. Yet the council claims they have closed its LTN roads because of the prevalence of “rat runners”. This indicates that many of these roads are not largely disused residential roads but in fact important connecting roads."