Thursday, December 8, 2011

Danish Views in the Island Kingdom

Jan Gehl’s lecture at RIBA on Tuesday Night laid clear some of the persistent issues with the lunacy of cycling with London. While the city certainly has progressed on many fronts, there is a noticeable paucity if cycling infrastructure when compared to Copenhangen, Amsterdam or even Boulder, Colorado. Gehl’s main message, as I could see it, was that cities should be designed for people, by people. This refreshing burst of energy comes exactly at a time when the engines of economic progress and the clamor for more cars and suburbs have slowed for a variety of reasons; namely the collapse of the housing bubble, increasing awareness of climate change, and a growing impulse of people to refuse to submit to economic objectification and the vast iniquities becoming painfully obvious. Not that the numbers don’t shake out in Gehl’s model; his data collected on the use of regenerated and properly planned urban spaces show that pedestrian density is often representative of high rates of building occupancy, employment and property values. All of this is intuitive, fill space with people, and they will be productive,, fill a city with cars, and they will be congested, polluted with a sacrificial slaughter of the public realm to the god of parking.

While Gehl’s message is more holistic than addressing issues of sustainable transit, much of the discussion afterwards focused on the relative hazards of cycling in London. And understandably so, London’s skyrocketing rates of cycling use. Between the introduction of the congestion charging zone, Boris’s implementation of Ken Livingston’s ideas, growing concern over climate change, and the sheer painfulness of commuting by car in a notoriously congested city the explosion of cycling culture has been nothing short of phenomenal. However, it has become painfully obvious that the city has failed to deliver a city wide, well planned cycling infrastructure. Combined with the anachronistic and undemocratic system of pedestrian crossings, increased cycling has resulted in increased friction between cyclists, pedestrians and automobiles. In the best of times, cycling in the city is an adventure, and a survival contest that has spawned a militant hardcore cycling culture touting expensive and aerodynamic spandex kit. To remedy this situation, there were several concrete proposals that should be rolled out at once.

1) Give cycles a six second green light ahead of car traffic. This would avoid the mad scramble inherent in busy starts, with cyclists, scooters, motorbikes and cars all vying for position, reduce the amount of exhaust that cyclists have to churn through (potentially reducing overall emissions as the startline antics of car drivers will be ameliorated), making intersections safer, and reduce friction between cyclists and pedestrians; as has been shown in a wide array of commentary sections lately, many of those who do not cycle do not realize the advantage of cyclists in running red lights.

2) Carry cycle lanes through intersections, and sidewalks through side streets and driveways as has been done to some degree on Roman Road in the East End.

3) Computerize signaling for bike and pedestrian crossings to be more user friendly, displaying the time till crossing is closed and open.

4) Broaden cycle lanes and sidewalks, and protect cycle lanes with rows of parked cars rather than vice versa.

5) Make public transit more cycle friendly to facilitate long distance cycle commuting, this includes making dedicated bike racks on the underground, overground and national rail services, as well as busses. On my way home from Gehl’s lecture the chain broke on my cycle. I was under the impression that off peak one could take their cycle on the tube, or at least bits of it. At Regent Street station the woman working at the tube told me no way, though said at Baker Street I should be able to. I was rejected there as well, even though later looking up TFL’s policy, I was fully in the right; it was the attitude of TFL employees in both cases that was most frustrating, as they were openly antipathic to my cycle.

While the Danes point of view is openly antagonistic to automobiles in the city, it may be that there are ways to balance the convenience of pedestrian, bike, car and public transport for their respective purposes. Making the city more accessible to people at these different scales will form the basis of more sustainable and enjoyable places. Now if only we can get the river’s clean enough to boat and swim in.

TFL Cycling on Public Transport Policy

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/11701.aspx

No comments: