FW: [apbp] LONDON: 10, 000 pedal for action in biggest bike protest | The Times
John Cock
Let’s hope we can get these kind of numbers for the Bike!Charlotte Mayor’s Ride on May 11. . . (see www.bikecharlotte.org for more info)
Tell your friends and neighbors. Hopefully, there will be other rides to the ride start like Jon Harding’s ride from South Park or the ride from Queen City Cycles in Dilworth. . .
(Note new office phone number below. . .)
John Cock, AICP
Senior Associate/Southeast Regional Manager
Alta Planning + Design
108 S. Main Street, Suite B (physical)
PO Box 2453 (mailing), Davidson NC 28036
ph: 704-255-6200 (office); 704-968-5053 (mobile)
www.altaplanning.com
transportation | recreation | innovation
"Creating active communities where bicycling and walking are safe, healthy, fun, and normal daily activities"
News:
Alta is a Platinum level Bicycle Friendly Business: http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/bicyclefriendlybusiness/
Alta and Greenways, Inc. have joined forces -- http://www.altaplanning.com/alta+greenways.aspx
From: Steve Faust [mailto:sfaus...@earthlink.net]
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 11:47 AM
To: APBP
Subject: [apbp] LONDON: 10, 000 pedal for action in biggest bike protest | The Times
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3398722.ece
Times of London - 29 Apr 2012
Cities fit for Cycling: The Times campaign
LONDON
Central London was overrun by 10,000 cyclists today, as the biggest bike protest ever seen in the capital took to the streets.
Between them, The Times’s ‘Cities fit for cycling’ campaign and the LCC’s ‘Love London, Go Dutch’ campaign have received more than 70,000 signatures, with cycling expected to be a potentially decisive issue in the mayoral elections taking place this week in London, Liverpool and Salford.
Campaigners are calling on Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who famously cycles regularly in London, to defend his pro-cycling reputation in the face of escalating casualties. One cyclist said: “At the moment, the cyclists’ vote is with Jenny Jones as first choice, and Ken Livingstone as second preference.”
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
A parallel event took place in Edinburgh, where more than 3,000 cyclists – three times the turnout expected - rode down the Royal Mile.
The organisers of the Pedal on Parliament ride in Edinburgh today are expecting more than 1,000 protesters, after the deaths of two cyclists — Andrew McNicoll, 43, and Bryan Simons, 40 — in the Scottish capital so far this year. Sixteen cyclists have been killed in the Lothian area since 2000. Sunshine is forecast for Edinburgh this afternoon.
ROME
Meanwhile a cycling campaign in Italy which is affiliated to The Times’ Cities fit for Cycling mustered thousands of riders for a demonstration in Rome.
Riding towards the Colosseum under the banner Veni, Vidi, Bici, they aimed to bring attention to the city’s lack of provision for cyclists and poor road safety record. To make their point the protesters dismounted and lay down as though dead in the Via dei Fori Imperiali. “Policy in this country is made for drivers,” said Alberto Fiorillo, one of the organisers.
Protest organisers said that more than 2,500 cyclists had been killed on Italy’s roads over the past ten years, the worst accident rates being in Rome and Milan.
Steven Faust, AICP
Brooklyn, NY
Mark Ortiz
Note the following:
· The same newspaper empire reporting these demonstrations largely organized them, as part of an international campaign promoting segregationist infrastructure.
· This is Rupert Murdoch’s empire.
· The event in London is reported as an event to sway the outcome of the upcoming mayoral election against Boris Johnson, who is reported as being a conspicuous cyclist himself. Johnson is a Conservative, and the type of politician the Murdoch papers often support, but he has fallen out with Murdoch after making an about-face last summer and turning against Murdoch in the phone hacking scandal.
· The recent increase in cyclist crashes in London has accompanied the installation of more bike lanes and side paths, including some notorious ones in roundabouts.
Mark Ortiz
John Cock
Important to note if the RATE of crashes (and not just the absolute number) has also increased in London commensurate with the increase in cyclists and cycling facilities.
In most places, RATE of crashes goes down in inverse proportion to the increase in cycling numbers. In some cases (e.g., NYC numbers of crashes also decreased with the increase in cyclists, which corresponded with the increase in bicycle specific facilities).
Mark Ortiz
I do agree that rate of crashes is ideally the thing to look at, but note:
· It should be rate per bicycle mile, not per cyclist. It’s easy to get a better rate per cyclist if you get a lot of low-mileage cyclists.
· Rate per bicycle mile is very hard to measure owing to difficulty of getting good mileage numbers. Estimation is possible, but the uncertainties in this make the process highly vulnerable to manipulation to suit the bias of those conducting or backing the research project. NCDOT’s recent NC State study of NC bicycle crashes doesn’t even attempt to estimate miles bicycled, admitting there are no reliable numbers.
But supposing that cycling in London is in fact safer due to greater numbers of cyclists, and due to the new segregationist infrastructure, and the mayor actively promotes cycling – then what’s the demonstrators’ beef?
Patrick George
Mark Ortiz
For the participants in the event, yes. And there are going to be tallies for states and “communities” (per census bureau definition). Probably there’s some correlation between participant miles in a state of locality and total miles ridden in that locality, but it could be rather loose.
You might be right that a study could be done on just the participants, if there were crash data collected just on them. I do agree that could have some merit. One thing that would muddy the waters a bit would be that the localities are large and highly varied areas, so we don’t really know just from the area what sort of roads most of the actual miles are ridden on.
Mark Ortiz
Team Captain, Riders Against Bike Lanes (RABL)