To those who point to the provision of cycle paths alongside roads with high volumes of traffic, or with high speed limits, as one of the principle ingredients of Dutch cycle policy – an ingredient that serves, partly, to explain why the Dutch cycle in such large numbers – some UK cycle campaigners opposed to such paths have a ready retort.
‘They built it in Milton Keynes, and they didn’t come.’
This is, of course, the large New Town where urban planners
segregated the roads and cycle paths into a system of Redways. These run through the grid-squares and were designed for leisure cycling.
Despite this comprehensive network of segregated cycle paths, Milton Keynes has a dismally low level of cycling. Hard data is a little hard to come by, but 2001 figures quoted here suggest that the trip share of cycling in Milton Keynes, at 3% of all trips, is barely better than the national average.
From these two facts – that Milton Keynes has a network of segregated cycle paths, and that it has no more cycling than any other typical town across the UK – some choose to draw the conclusion that there is no connection between the provision of cycle paths separated from motor traffic and the amount of cycling in a given place.
Milton Keynes, Stevenage and East Kilbride all tried the oft proposed solution. They completely segregated cars and cycles which have their own completely segregated network so you never need to go near the roads. They have some of the lowest cycling levels in the UK. So if anyone tells you what we need is segregated facilities to encourage more people to cycle, just point them to the failed experiments in those three towns
This is superficially persuasive. Milton Keynes, we are told, has fantastic cycle paths, of a similar standard to the Netherlands, and yet nobody cycles there – at least, not in any greater numbers than across the rest of the UK. So, apparently, we shouldn’t waste our time asking for cycle paths as part of a strategy to boost cycling levels, because they don’t appear to be a way of encouraging people to cycle – at least in Milton Keynes.
Unfortunately this argument – what I shall henceforth term, for brevity, the ‘Milton Keynes Argument’ – is entirely bogus; it rests on a misunderstanding of the use and purpose of cycle paths within a broader cycling strategy, and it also places far too much weight on an apparent correlation between cycle paths in Milton Keynes and the level of cycling there, while ignoring the several other variables in play.
One, initial, way of demonstrating the flawed reasoning behind the Milton Keynes Argument would be to consider whether there would be more, or less cycling in Milton Keynes if there weren’t any cycle paths at all. Are those who claim that cycle paths do not make cycling more likely really suggesting that if we were to strip out the cycle paths in Milton Keynes the amount of cycling there would stay the same, or even increase?
That seems fantastically unlikely to me, given that the cycle paths, in the main, run alongside dual carriageways, often those with 70 mph speed limits. To pretend that people are just as likely to cycle on these kinds of roads as they would be on the cycle paths that run alongside them – cycle paths that, let’s remember, are claimed to be as good as anything in the Netherlands - stretches credibility to breaking point.
Yet this is what we have to believe if we think that there is no connection between the provision of cycle paths and the willingness of people to cycle, as we do if subscribe to the Milton Keynes Argument; we would have to believe that people are just as keen to cycle on the fast dual carriageways of Milton Keynes as they are on the allegedly well-designed cycle paths that run alongside them, because we believe that cycling is just as likely (if not more so), without cycle paths, on the existing road network. This is the very argument that John Franklin makes.
From the traditional viewpoint, Milton Keynes has the ultimate ‘worst’ and ‘best’ for cyclists. On the one hand is a high-speed grid road network, designed solely around the needs of motor vehicles and with large roundabouts at all principal junctions. On the other an extensive, purpose-built cycle path network, segregated for the greater part from fast traffic and constructed with few limitations of space or finance. If this is not the most perfect scenario for demonstrating how cycle facilities can remove the deterrents to cycling and achieve big gains in safety then what is?
But the reality of Milton Keynes over two decades shows a different story, and one that could be no less valuable in achieving a better understanding of what really is needed to encourage cycling. Far from leading to a popularist renaissance for cycling, there is much to suggest that the Redway network has suppressed cycle use, and lowered the public’s expectations of cycling as a mode of transport.
I leave you to judge whether that is a sensible belief to hold. Needless to say, I think it would be more wise to suggest that without cycle paths in Milton Keynes, the levels of cycling there would be even lower than they are at present, because all journeys there by bike would then have to be made on fast, busy roads and across large multi-lane roundabouts, which would hardly be more appealing than cycle paths, however well- or poorly-designed (about which more below). Far from apparently suppressing Milton Keynes’ cycling levels below the levels seen in some other UK towns and cities without cycle paths, it could very well be the case that the cycle paths there are the only thing keeping its cycling levels above water.
Now you could reasonably say here that I am misinterpreting the Milton Keynes Argument. In more precise form, the Argument could be said to claim that cycle paths are unnecessary for increasing cycling levels. There is a reasonably large amount of cycling in Cambridge and Oxford, for instance; this has been achieved without cycle paths. Hence we only need to adopt the strategies seen in Oxford and Cambridge to achieve higher cycling levels elsewhere.
I don’t doubt that it is true that we can boost cycling levels without cycle paths; there are plenty of interventions that can be used to make cycling more likely, of which the most prominent are ‘filtered permeability’ – the blocking of cars from some routes, while still keeping them open for bicycles – and lower speed limits. I am not too familiar with Cambridge, but I do know that the very centre of Oxford has a good deal of filtered permeability that has served to create a reasonably subjectively safe environment for cycling. In a similar vein, it is claimed, with some justification, that the borough of Hackney in London has boosted cycling levels largely through a strategy of filtered permeability.
But the author of this recently-published, albeit recycled, piece about Hackney goes further than simply trumpeting the success of permeability, and proceeds to imply that segregated cycle paths are unnecessary.
Cycling is growing faster in the London Borough of Hackney than anywhere else in the UK, yet planners and transport professionals visiting this borough with a view to imitating its success on their own turf may be surprised to see little in the way of conspicuous cycle facilities. Danish style cycle tracks are nowhere to be found, and the 1000-strong local cyclists group, the London Cycling Campaign in Hackney, actively lobbies against the installation of cycle lanes….
Hackney has hardly any green painted cycle lanes and the few dedicated segregated cycle tracks that do exist tend to be there to facilitate cycle access where other motor traffic is not permitted, for example restoring permeability via a cycle contra-flow along a previously barred one-way street.
This is the message of the Milton Keynes Argument, albeit in reverse; here, Hackney, is somewhere that has achieved some success without cycle paths. Meanwhile Milton Keynes has failed to achieve success with them.
However, I am not sure, in either case, that we should conclude that cycle paths are unnecessary, because just while levels of cycling in Milton Keynes would probably be lower without cycle paths, levels of cycling in Hackney could be higher with them.
I am, lest it need saying, not making an argument for cycle paths everywhere. What I am suggesting is that cycle paths, contrary to those who subscribe to the Milton Keynes Argument, are indeed necessary along a certain category of road – one that still carries high volumes of motor traffic, and/or fast motor traffic. While filtered permeability is indeed a very important part of the Dutch strategy – especially in residential areas where it is used to keep the number of motor vehicle journeys to an absolute minimum, without the presence of cycle paths – nevertheless, on Dutch roads and streets that do have a significant number of car journeys, cycle paths are nearly ubiquitous.
To that extent, the proponents of the Milton Keynes Argument are making a category mistake. They are assuming that cycle paths and filtered permeability (or lower speed limits, or some such) are two different, interchangeable solutions to the same kind of problem, when in fact they are solutions to two different kinds of problem.
Now I am firmly of the opinion that far too many journeys in the UK are made by motor vehicle. However, I am not so naive as to believe that journeys by motor vehicle can be eliminated completely. We will still have roads and streets that will need to accommodate journeys by motor vehicles. To give a few examples, these might include the longer distance trips that would be impractical by bicycle; the necessary conveyance of things that cannot be delivered or picked up by bicycle; bus journeys. We might also include journeys made by people who just don’t want to use a bicycle, and would like to keep using a car; I don’t think it is reasonable to stop them from doing so. What is needed is a re-balancing so that the bicycle becomes a reasonable and convenient alternative to the car for those people who currently want to cycle, but don’t; the other side of the coin is that certain (short) car journeys become progressively more difficult, but not necessarily impossible.
What this means in practice is that we will still have roads that carry motor vehicles; not as many as at present, but still in significant numbers, and it is on these routes that cycle paths will be necessary, because they will serve to make bicycle trips on these roads more pleasant and safe than sharing the space with motor traffic. As Chester Cycling has written, against the background of claims about Peak Oil eventually rendering segregation unnecessary,
cycle infrastructure in the sort of places we need it now would still be needed because the entirety of our road network would never be given over almost exclusively for the use of cyclists.
Only by pretending that our entire road network will be given over for the exclusive use of cycling would one be able to state that cycle paths will be unnecessary, because there will always be some roads, carrying vehicles, which will be needlessly unpleasant to ride a bike on.
A typical Dutch residential street might look like something this.
No cycle paths, but with filtered permeability and a one-way system to keep motor vehicle journeys low.
From here we might move onto a distributor road.
Still no segregation; however there are still a limited number of motor vehicles using this road, only to gain access to residential streets.
Once we hit a through road, however, we do have a segregated cycle track.
This provides a subjective level of safety from the higher number of vehicle movements along this route. Naturally enough, out of town, on dual carriageways, where vehicle movements are even higher in number, we remain segregated.
It is only by imagining that
a) people are just as likely to cycle on the track on the left in this picture as they are on the road with the van and the lorry, or
b) in the future, there won’t be traffic – lorries and vans – like that seen in this picture
that we could believe that cycle paths are ‘unnecessary’.
The other problem with the Milton Keynes Argument, besides this specious way of attempting to demonstrate that cycle paths are unnecessary, is its apparent willingness to assume that cycle paths are the only type of method being presented to boost cycling levels. This is a particular favourite of the more than slightly absurd Amcambike website, which consistently presents advocates of Dutch-style cycle planning as claiming that
people cycle simply because there are cycle paths
and just as consistently fails to quote anyone claiming any such thing.
Conceive, if you will, of a straight, flat 10 mile strip of road with a 70 mph speed limit, with a well-designed and safe cycle path alongside it. Offer someone the choice of driving or cycling to the other end of that road, without any hindrance in either case, and it would come as no great surprise to me if the vast majority of people chose to drive.
So it would be facile to imagine that the presence of a cycle path, in and of itself, is sufficient to make people cycle, regardless of context; yet this is precisely the opinion the author of the Amcambike site chooses to attribute to his opponents – that they believe ‘cycle paths cause cycling’.
The purpose of cycle paths is being misunderstood (deliberately or accidentally, I cannot say). A cycle path alongside a fast and/or busy road is a way of making a cycle journey that happens to progress along that road for part of its length feel safe and pleasant; it is not, principally, a way of getting people to switch, in large numbers, to a bicycle from a car for a journey that runs purely along a fast and busy road, because that would be entirely unrealistic.
This is actually the lesson of Milton Keynes, because the cycle paths, and the way they fit into the geography of the town, mirror exactly this kind of hypothetical scenario I have presented. It is indeed unrealistic to have ever expected people to opt to use the cycle paths in Milton Keynes, instead of their cars, because no obstacle is put in the way of car use. Fast, flat and straight 70 mph dual carriageways whisk you in and out of the centre of town, where parking is plentiful.
The cycle paths which run alongside these roads – even if perfectly designed – would never be a particularly attractive alternative to using the car, for the obvious reason that cycling into town on them, on just as straight and flat a route, is going to take longer, much longer, than driving.
Naturally there has to be, along with cycle paths where they are necessary, some degree of competitive advantage to using a bicycle, of which the most obvious example would be a shorter route than an equivalent car journey.
Unfortunately the cycle network in Milton Keynes, as we shall see, rarely even achieves this most basic requirement. In addition, they are not – despite what proponents of the Milton Keynes Argument claim – perfectly designed. Some background from Tim Jones -
Milton Keynes (designated 1967) was unusual in that it was designed on a grid-based road system typical of road planning in the New World. A system of shared paths for pedestrians and cyclists was grafted on to the Master Plan after the basic 1km grid road layout had been fixed and development had already started. The initial assumption was that cyclists would use quieter residential streets and pedestrian underpasses (which they were not legally permitted to traverse) to bypass main roads. However, it was later realized that it was unrealistic for cyclists to take less direct routes to reach their destination and the authorities decided to allow cyclists shared use of the pedestrian paths. Work was undertaken to upgrade them into what became known as the ‘Redways’ because of the red tarmac used for their demarcation. The aim was ‘to show for the first time, on a city-wide scale, how travel for pedestrians and cyclists can be made convenient, safe and pleasant. Above all, accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists – particularly children – should be greatly reduced’ (Milton Keynes Development Corporation, 1980).
The resulting cycle network inevitably meant that the design was compromised resulting in cyclists having to endure gradients that were actually greater than on the road network (unlike the Stevenage approach). This was coupled with criticism of inadequate lighting, signing and poor sight lines because of overgrown vegetation and the need to give way where cyclists met motor traffic at side junctions. Ironically, what became one of the most extensive planned cycle networks in Britain also became one of its most criticised
The cycle paths, or ‘Redways’, as they eventually turned out to be, are doubly compromised, not just because cycling and walking were afterthoughts to the central design of Milton Keynes – a network permitting fast and smooth motor vehicle journeys across the town – but also because they themselves are a poor adaption of routes which were initially designed solely for pedestrians.
We can see a typical example of how this turned out in the photograph below.
At right is a 70 mph dual carriageway; straight, and flat, it allows fast and easy access in and out of town. I am standing on the Redway, which as you can see is far from flat. As it runs parallel to the entire length of this road, at every such junction it dips up and down, making cycling a tiring and frustrating experience, especially given the fact that the land the town itself is built on is generally very flat indeed. And, perhaps because these routes were initially designed for pedestrians, the gradients on the Redways are steep. In the photograph above you can see that the path rises from well below road level, to well above it. Needless to say, this is not convenient for riding a bike.
The Redways hardly provide a straight route, either. A journey along them on this road, Grafton Street, will involve switching from the west side, to the east side.
And then from the east side, back to the west side.
And then from the west side, back to the east side.
Annoyingly, it’s not at all clear when the Redway switches sides as you cycle along it; at one of these roundabouts, I continued straight on, only to find myself at a bus stop with no continuing off-carriageway route.
Frustrated pedestrians have evidently decided to continue on foot here, despite the absence of a pavement or Redway, leaving a muddy track. I decided to retrace my steps, double back under the roundabout, and cycle back up onto the Redway on the other side.
Even if you know your route, with all these switches from side to side a short journey along the Redways besides a straight road is, absurdly, considerably longer than a journey by car on the road itself.
The at-grade junction treatments – those junctions where you are not pedalling up and down steep gradients to get under or over a flat road – are very poor. Naturally enough you have to yield to motor traffic, which is not necessarily a problem, but considerable danger is involved.
Here we have to cycle across a sliproad into a petrol station. This is a 70 mph dual carriageway. Traffic from the right approaches unnervingly fast, and there is nothing, at all, to slow it at this crossing point. The geometry of the corner is wrong, the positioning of the cycle path is wrong, and the sightlines are wrong.
Another example, this time an entry into a housing area.
Again, we have vehicles approaching at up to 70 mph around a wide radius bend. John Franklin may have abused some statistics to attempt to make a point about the safety of off-carriageway provision in Milton Keynes, but it is undeniable that a lot of these junction treatments are needlessly dangerous.
This example is even worse.
We have to cross four lanes of traffic, each progressing in different directions, and coming from various points on the main road. A recipe for collisions. Although it looks like a pavement, it is in fact a shared use path, which starts here.
Note that you have to get up the steps with your bicycle – avoiding the shopping trolley – if you wish to use this ‘facility’ along the A421.
These junctions are needlessly dangerous.
However, unlike John Franklin, I’m not prepared to use them to condemn off-carriageway provision in general, because this is just poorly-designed rubbish that simply doesn’t merit comparison with junction treatments in the Netherlands, or infrastructure done properly. Not all cycle infrastructure is the same, nor is it designed to the same standard.
The centre of Milton Keynes, in addition, does not seem to have much off-carriageway provision, at all.
A dual carriageway.
Another dual carriageway. No off-carriageway provision here either.
Alongside most of these dual carriageways there are large car parks, through which you can cycle, although some are blocked off with barriers. At junctions with larger roads, you can progress through underpasses to the next car park, although frequently this will involve steps, and/or no path at all to get directly out of the car park. It is hardly a recipe for convenience, and does not send out a message that the bicycle is being particularly privileged compared to the fast straight routes that exist at surface level, or indeed compared to the vast expanses of tarmac being allocated to parking.
The video below gives a final illustration of the difficulties involved. Having just left the station, I am cycling along a road, and wish to turn left onto a ‘shared use’ path that runs underneath the road I start on.
I cannot do so initially because the access points are completely blocked by some thoughtlessly-placed fencing. My only way in is to double back, walk across a flower bed, and then cycle through a grotty area seemingly designed to look like a caricature of an urban dystopia.
You can also see the characteristic nature of many of these ‘paths’, which are simply underpasses designed to keep pedestrians out of the way of motor vehicles, onto which bicycles have subsequently been permitted.
It is quite clear, then, that Milton Keynes is by no means an exemplar of off-carriageway provision, either in convenience, joined-up networks, signage, or safety. Simply bolting on rubbish infrastructure to a town designed around motor vehicle journeys was never going to be a recipe for success.
Yet John Franklin has the audacity to claim that
There is a temptation to think that Milton Keynes is a ‘special case’ and that its experience is irrelevant elsewhere. But the cycling infrastructure in Milton Keynes is not inferior to that being implemented in many other places and certainly the constraints are fewer.
I’ll stop short of calling this fundamentally dishonest, because Franklin is not explicit about what these ‘many other places’ are (although the inference is surely obvious). However, if these places are indeed worse than Milton Keynes – wherever they are – they must be truly, truly awful.
I don’t know Milton Keynes well, but my one experience of driving through it was that there was no traffic. It’s easy to drive around and you can park easily. What’s unusual for a British and probably European town is not really the bike lanes, it’s the ease of driving. If you own a car, that’s the sensible and pleasant way to get around (I’m ignoring health, environment, whether all towns could be like that). A paradise has been created for cars and, lo and behold, people drive rather than ride bikes. Who would have guessed it?
PS Having seen a post below, can I make clear that I am not in any way criticising your excellent explanation of why the bike lanes aren’t inviting. And I agree that without the (uninviting) bike lanes, the proportion of bike trips would be about 0%. I just thought that there is another reason why MK is not really a good basis for argument.
I’ve been meaning to write about MK for some time. You’ve done a good job. When I cycled there, I also found a cycle-path which ended with stairs and hopeless junction design.
Remember who designed the place. Derek Walker was the first Chief Architect. He designed the city on an American style grid because he was influenced by the Californian Melvin M Webber who he called “the father of the city”. Melvin M Webber was known for pioneering “thinking about cities of the future, adapted for the age of telecommunications and mass automotive mobility” and the “Non-Place Urban Realm”. It was only later in his career that he came to regret “the car-focussed implications of his early work”.
Milton Keynes was designed for mass motoring, not to enable mass cycling. It should be no surprise to anyone that the result matches the aims of the architects.
Unfortunately, it is yet another example of the UK looking across the Atlantic for inspiration which could better have come from across the North Sea. Back in the early 1970s, the Netherlands was already experimenting with woonerven and other forms of filtered permeability . Even forty years later, when the relative success of such policies is so obvious, it is still difficult to explain these concepts to people from Britain, and even now I still read examples of British people thinking that the US is the place to look to for inspiration.
I think you nailed it at the end. Milton Keynes, despite rationale that it should be adequately structured with off road cycle paths is even more in thrall to the car than anywhere else. I’d imagine that when people move there they bring with them their own preconceptions about the place that it is somewhere where car use is facilitated and expected to get anywhere. Why would they then choose to cycle when it’s even easier to use the car than anywhere else?
Here’s David Arditti, with the position that people in the Netherlands cycle because of cycle paths. A long quote, but worth it – because he does seem to exemplify those cycle advocates in English-speaking countries, who look to the Netherlands as a model for an infrastructure-oriented cycling policy.
“I don’t quite see why some people invest so much intellectual effort in trying to show that the Dutch cycling success is due to anything but the obvious factor. The key difference between the Netherlands and the UK is not planning, it is not distances, it is not need to travel, it is not ease of motoring, it is not motorist behaviour, it is not law, it is not culture, it is not history. … It is the cycle infrastructure: the vast and comprehensive network of paths, tracks, lanes, bridges and tunnels, that makes everywhere accessible by bike, easily, smoothly and safely. Doubting this is like questioning why Venice has boats rather than cars.”
“Far from there being “no evidence” that the construction of cycle tracks ever increased cycling, it seems to me that every single video ever placed on YouTube of cycling in the Netherlands in traffic-free space is evidence of this. …
“If you still doubt all this, you need to go and experience it. Saddle up in Holland, and feel it. … Experience how safe it feels, how stress-free it feels, how relaxed and wonderful it feels, after cycling in other, less-enlightened nations, and think about how it would affect your travel choices if you lived in that environment, and how you promoted the travel choices of others – your relatives, friends, above all, your children. Think about those mothers and fathers allowing their 8-year old and even younger children to go to school by bike by themselves. Do you really believe they would do that if it were not for the cycle paths? Do you really believe they would do that if it were not for the almost total separation from threatening motor-traffic interactions that Dutch cyclists enjoy wherever they choose to go? I don’t. I think the position that the Dutch 28% cycling mode share is not very largely the result of the construction of the segregated cycle infrastructure is manifestly absurd.
Do you think David Arditti is saying that cycle paths, and segregation more generally, make cycling more likely, or do you think he is saying that cycle paths ’cause’ cycling?
It certainly sounds like the last, since he attributes the high cycling rate to the segregated infrastructure. More relevantly, he is convinced that cycle infrastructure to Dutch standards would result in ‘mass cycling’ in Britain, by which he seems to mean a comparable trip share (26% in NL).
Great post! It brings up a bunch of great points.
I would stay away from any American city models right now. We are trying our best to pull from the best European models to help fix what the car model style of development has done.
I have cycled on the Redways and as I live near MK I do visit by car for shopping, theatre & OU tutorials. The only deterent to using the car is the cost of parking in the centre and the ease with which it is possible to get lost. Everywhere looks the same! It is vital to remember which Horizinatl & Vertical roads you need.
The Redways do suffer all the problems you identify: they are shared with pedestrians, they go up and down alot, they usually mimic the grid system rather than taking direct routes and the signage is awful. Usually it only signs to close places rather than destinations such as the station or shopping centre. It is absolutely vital to have a Redway map!
Not all the Redways give way at every side road. In fact it seemed to me that it was the older ones that didn’t.
The biggest problem is that the distances you have to cover to get anywhere are much larger than for an older city that wasn’t designed with the car in mind.
I’ve never been cycling in Stevenage but its something I intend to do.
I live in Milton Keynes, and I think very differently to some of the venom spouted. One of the reasons I decided to move here was because of the segregated cyclepath network. Cycling here is not considered ‘weird’ or ‘sport’, but something that everyday people do. Throughout CMK, bicycle parking is the nearest to the building access, ahead of disabled or general-need car parking, rather than ‘hidden’ somewhere near the bins or round the back as an inconvenience. In the middle of the CBD (CMK) we have ‘Gear Change’ – storage, repairs, changing/shower facilities, route information) for a number of years.
From my home to Central Station takes 12mins, just under 2 miles, without crossing any major roads, and only giving way to two estate distributors (30mph) and one cul-de-sac (10mph) roads. There is a north-south redway through CMK (following the V6 Grafton Street), and funding will come forward before 2014 for a segregated east-west redway along Midsummer Boulevard (NCN Route 51, currently using a mix of calmed parking access roads and bus lanes). One only has to visit the Station Square, which has masses of well used open and covered cycle parking, as well as ‘fly-parking’.
Modal share for journeys to school is actually 6% (cycling) against 57% (walking). That data comes from the 2009 MKC School Census. We need to convert some of those walking into the cyclists of the future. We have a higher than national average of cycle ownership. 10% of residents walk or cycle to work, but this rises to 13% for those also working in MK.
The route featured in this article was to be upgraded as part of a failed LSTF bid into an ‘Priority Express Route’ with more visible, direct routing, surface and lighting improvements, wider and straighter paths, and priority over side roads (through revised road markings). Despite DfT turning these proposals down, MKC has benefitted from bringing forward Infrastructure Tariff receipts (due to the amount of housebuilding – highest receipts in the South East) and going ahead with these improvements earlier.
It isn’t perfect, but it is a damn sight better than elsewhere. You can even take a (self-guided) integrated bike-hotel holiday here.
“It isn’t perfect, but it is a damn sight better than elsewhere.”
I’d agree with that. But why such low numbers cycling with such facilities? Why don’t people cycle?
Thanks for commenting, Charley.
I think it’s good to get things in perspective – I suppose I have been a little harsher than I need to be on Milton Keynes, mainly because I was responding to arguments that suggest it is perfect, or at least as good as anything in the Netherlands, and that consequently it ‘proves’ that off-carriageway infrastructure does not enable (and might even discourage) cycling.
Milton Keynes is not perfect, but it is true that I was able to cycle around the town without (much) engagement with motor traffic. As I said, that could explain why the level of cycling there is higher than might be the case if the network of paths was not there at all. Other new towns, like Crawley near me, have nothing like such an extensive network, and the bicycle modal share there is substantially lower than Milton Keynes.
However, it is difficult to navigate unless you know what you are doing, many of the routes I came across were needlessly arduous or dangerous (although it is undoubtedly good that attempts are being made to improve them), and there is the added problem of ease of driving. The impression I got was that, unlike in the Netherlands, where infrastructure is designed to privilege and facilitate bicycle use, the network was fitted around car use.
Great post, getting at the real substance rather than the polarised ranting.
I agree MK is a planned disaster zone, public transport doesn’t work well with 9% travel to work share. Despite the comments above, cycling to work share is only 4%, lower than in neighbouring areas without Redways (eg. 16.6% in Central Bedfordshire). Part of the risk comes from the sharp contrast between segregated paths and a few hazardous junctions.. The mode share for car travel to work is around 73% one of the highest in the area. MK also has a poor health record with one of the highest levels of lung disease and trauma.
Stevenage is somewhat better, the segregation is more complete, except in the new areas of town. However wayfinding is difficult and confusing and the cycle network has very poor linkages to the shopping areas and station. The network is less hazardous than MK but not really useful. Driving is very easy, when I was there many people drove to work, drove home for lunch and then back again!
Going Dutch is not really about segregation. It is about planning for people to have easy, safe access to wherever they want to go. Most injuries happen at junctions so the Dutch concentrate on getting the junctions right – the opposite to standard UK cycle provision.
Dutch junctions are designed to be low speed, to separate cyclists and pedestrians from motors by signals, or lanes where the speeds cannot be kept safe enough for sharing. The main roads are faster and have great segregated cycle lanes as so often shown by Hembrow and amcambike but often the photos show few cyclists. Most of the cycling happens in the denser areas where there is a mix of provision. Filtered permeability with safe junctions is as important as the segregated lanes.
The growth in cycling in Hackney has been stunning. Filtered permeability has opened up cycling access to huge areas but it is still constrained by the failure to make many main road junctions safer. Car use for travel to work is well under 20% with 39% of residents using public transport and 44% walking or cycling.
What is truly encouraging is that the areas of the borough with good cycle access are thriving while those with good car access are as miserable as ever. Hackney’s rating on the index of multiple deprivation is second worst in the UK yet many people who cycle find that it is a great place to live.
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It’s only when people get out of bed in the morning and think “shall I cycle or drive” and the answer is an obvious “drive because it’s easier/faster/nicer” that things will change. Cycling infrastructure is an essential part of this but so is planning that reduces the ease of driving (as David Hembrow has so eloquently illustrated… (http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/03/cycling-vs-driving.html)
We have so far to go in our country. In the local paper 2 days ago – a story of a child crossing the road to catch a bus, run over by a car (fortunately only a broken leg) spawned hideous online comments (“if he runs into the road it’s his own fault”, “just be responsible for your own actions and learn how to cross a road without getting hit by a car” etc). Just up the road from me there’s a ‘Lollipop Lady’ on the main road at school time, 20 yards before there are big flashing signs pre-warning drivers (?!?) – why have we let our roads become such a dangerous place for children that even a manned crossing is a hazard?
Interesting how the debate about cycling facilities is becoming more sophisticated i.e. a toolbox of approaches from filtered permeability to total segregation.
Blimey – are you going into competition with Vole-o-speed?
Reading down the first half, I was thinking “yes, yes, but – what countervailiing factors are there to explain why the red paths don’t produce more cycling?” I was thinking about Oxford and Cambridge, both cities I used to know well, where it is fairly obvious why bicycles are popular despite relative paucity of cycling infrastructure, of the segregated variety at any rate – street plans which were not designed for cars, lack of car parking for all potential car users in the cities, and large student populations which, by and large, can’t afford to own a car.
The answer is interesting – if I understand it right – that you need also to make cycling *relatively* attractive, as well as absolutely so. Shorter distances for walkers and cyclists than for cars, easier availability of parking for bikes than for cars, car-parking charges, etc. I assume that MK is now beyond redemption, but if we assume (I hope) that the era of the Le Corbusier-inspired “new town” is firmly in the past, and that we have reached, or will soon reach “peak retail-park”, so we can start to focus again on traditional towns and suburbs, maybe there is still hope.
Hi Mark, great post, as always.
The key to safe cycling – as the CEoGB policy bash recently affirmed – is in the way that junctions are made to work. However, the bits in between are also important as well. Alongside roads with high volumes of traffic, or with high speed limits, the Dutch favour the provision of segregated cycle paths. In residential areas they apply the concept of filtered permeability – “where it is used to keep the number of motor vehicle journeys to an absolute minimum.” Done properly, this means that “certain (short) car journeys become progressively more difficult, but not necessarily impossible”.
By all accounts, in Milton Keynes they have done the first but not the second – OldGreyBeard suggested that the only deterrent to using the car in the centre is the cost of parking and the ease with which it is possible to get lost – whereas in Hackney they are doing the second but not the first.
It is significant that 50% of all car / bus / cycle journeys in London are under two miles. Where there is filtered permeability, the bicycle is by far the best and easiest way to make these sorts of journeys.
Also significant is that 30% of all car / bus / cycle journeys are between two and five miles. Reading your account and the subsequent comments, I was struck by how difficult wayfinding is in both Stevenage and Milton Keynes. TfL research has shown that “not knowing where to cycle” is as much of an obstacle as a “lack of cycle lanes”, and a bigger obstacle than a “fear of being knocked off one’s bike”.
The one thing the Dutch didn’t do when they set about removing the hegemony of the car was wave a magic wand. It takes time, money, and a lot of political will to develop the cycling environment to a standard where eight year-old children can ride to school unaccompanied, especially in a city the size of London, and for this reason doing as much as possible at least cost first has much to commend it.
Charlie Lloyd says that Going Dutch “is about planning for people to have easy, safe access to wherever they want to go.” The seminal work on the development of cycling in the urban environment, ‘Cycling: the way ahead for towns and cities’, calls this the ‘voluntarist policy’. It involves just three stages:
1. Analyse journeys—origin/destination;
2. Plan the network; and,
3. Implement the network on the basis of priority interventions and a timetable.
“The network can be introduced on the basis of an overall plan (preliminary plan). Ideally, such a plan ought to be based specifically on cycle routes that have been studied [...]. If it is not possible to systematically remodel the entire network to better meet the needs of cyclists, specific action can be taken on each occasion that works need to be done. Most of the time, the additional expenditure needed to meet the requirements of cyclists is comparatively minimal.”
I’d like to add in your example of 10mile un-interrupted journey I’d plonk for my bike – it would be like a dream TT course! Personally I think wind direction would be the big decider for me
Great post, finally got to reading it through after starting at work the other day during lunch and running out of time.
Attending The Big Ride and taking my eldest up to town via one of the feeder rides has been a real eye-openner for me in regards to cycle routes for “normal” people vs. the routes I use (predomiantly main roads and CSH’s) as an experienced rider. I think the fact that I felt a) so damn scared of taking an 11 year old out on non-CSH main roads (not that I’m sure I’d be 100% happy on the CSH’s….) and b) so much more relaxed on the back roads it’s given me a new view on cycling as a mode of transport. it doesn’t have to be about racing around, taking the lane and worrying what the car behind is doing.
I may try and get a blog post together myself to try and better explain the idea as I tried to explain to Isobel (the eldest!) on the way home how the Dutch use filtered permeability when I found some fairly good examples right on my doorstep (ironically on roads I don’t normally use as I stick to the main road!) which would serve to demonstrate how you can ease the passage for bikes whilst effectively blocking the route for cars. Instead of yelling instructions of “wait there/don’t do that” I was actually able to chat with her in relative peace and quiet.
Hi thanks for a really interesting discussion. I moved to Milton Keynes three and a half years ago from Walthamstow in East London, and I thought my own experiences might be a useful contribution to the article. I have two kids, 5 and 7, so the youngest doesn’t feature in discussions about travel to pre-school in Walthamstow, but myself or the wife used to take our eldest to pre-school in her pram walking through the back streets before crossing a very busy main road to the pre-school. The entire journey was dominated by cars themselves, the noise of passing cars and the exhaust from vans etc. Amazing how a smoky exhaust you may not have noticed before kids becomes extremely frustrating when your darling daughter is in her pram at the same height as it…anyway I wouldn’t have dreamt of riding that route, even though most of it was relatively quiet back roads because the cars could move fast along them and every single road had cars parked all the way along each side, so you were always leaning out from between two cars to see what was coming. If a car chose to be intolerant of a cyclist on these roads then the cyclist really had little room for manoeuvre.
So three and a half years later we are in Milton Keynes with both kids at the same primary school around two miles away. If the weather is ok we can cross one busy road (wheeling the bikes) and then use a mixture of footpath/redway/redundant railway route/parkland (with hard surface paths throughout it) to take us to within 30m of the school gate. In short it is an almost traffic free route and one on which the biggest danger to my kids is high speed cyclists who don’t have or use a bell to warn my wobbly kids that they are coming past them.
I agree that the redroutes are poorly signed, I’ve spent many a journey swearing even with a redroute map in my hand, and they can be frustrating the way they chop around, but with a bit of fortitude and an extra time allowance for unfamiliar routes, we’ve found that MK is quite good fun to cycle around.
For us so far the relative ease of cycling has enabled us to remain a one car family, where the norm here is two. I should also add that after living in very central London and then slightly less central London for twenty odd years MK is an ABSOLUTE delight to drive around, as many of the posts testify it is built for the car and you can commute across the entire city very quickly, not green but when in Rome I’m afraid…I am also sorry to say that roadside shrines are commonplace as well, the fast roads here are regularly lethal to pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike.
Just to finish it’s worth mentioning that in MK anyway the canal network gives even more scope for movement around the city as they’ve all got clear paths along one side at least.
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