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Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Key Stakeholder — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:28:54 -0000

O Carlton. I usually have a lot of respect for your output, but I'm really upset about this.

There is (according to Sustrans' latest surveys) huge pent up demand for utility cycling, but about half of people who currently don't use bikes cite [subjective] safety as their main barrier.

There is not huge pent-up demand for baseball in the UK. FACT.

Central and local government commitment to provide dedicated, separate, continuous and integral infrastructure is the only thing which will get people using bikes in the sort of numbers which are being targeted. I know that Mrs Key Stakeholder (for instance) who does not drive, doesn't have a driving licence and has a tendency to freeze in fear when forced to share carriageway space with motor traffic would use her bike for more journeys were more safe, segregated infrastructure provided linking key destinations. Same true of oldies and kids. Duh.

I know that what you've written is intended to be nuanced and subtle, and that you're actually calling for a holistic approach, which is quite right, but the headline tone you've struck is likely to provide political ammunition to those in positions of authority who have no interest in or understanding of people who just want to use their bikes to go to the shops, or a night out in a restaurant, go to school or pop into town to meet friends.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:21:45 -0000

I agree with you: cycle infrastructure, for it to work, pretty much has to disrupt motor vehicles. However, this is not the view held by all those who campaign hard for cycle infrastructure above all else, and I find that puzzling.

It's the key endpoint of the article. If it's convenient to drive, people will drive. In Houten and Groningen etc, it was made deliberately inconvenient to drive.

Of course, once it's admitted in the UK that some cycle infrastructure could be inconvenient for motorists (a point of view not shared by certain members of CEoGB), all hell is let loose. And as we live in a democracy, a motorized democracy, change isn't going to come easy, or fast. I want that change, I will lobby for that change, but I wouldn't bet my house on it happening in the timescale that some people think it will happen. There will be some cycle infrastructure built but whole network stuff is many many years away. What do we advocate for in the meantime? No cycling until a full network is built? Or lobby for small improvements as we go along?

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Two Wheels Good — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:39:29 -0000

Sorry to comment again, but I've realised there's another gaping flaw in this article.

When you write about Stevenage and draw conclusions from it, you forget the essential fact that Stevenage was a *new town* when it was built. This means there was room for cycle infrastructure (let's leave it's quality as 'debatable') and a large motor system.

What this article fails to see is that the 'Dutch' infrastructure that many cycle campaigners want to see in the UK's cities must in and of itself necessitate a large disruption to motor travel.

E.g. London is not a *new town*, like Stevenage was. 'Going Dutch' in London will mean the removal of traffic lanes, the restriction of left hand turns, and the removal of parking bays - which all hampers the motorist.

Therefore, you're creating an argument out of nothing here. Contemporary campaigners for cycle infrastructure are, whether implicitly or explicitly, also campaigning for exactly the reduction in motor traffic that you desire when they say things like 'build it and they will come'.

In 2013, you can't build it [good cycle infrastructure] without restricting motor traffic too in the process of building.

If you look at the progress of the CS2 extension or the segregated sections of the new CS5 plans this might be something you could see for yourself?

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Two Wheels Good — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:14:28 -0000

Carlton, if you really cared about improving the safety conditions for cyclists in the UK, you would take this article down.

Above all: needlessly divisive and fuel for those that might oppose new pioneering (for the UK) infrastructure projects such as Andrew Gilligan's 'Crossrail for bikes'.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Two Wheels Good — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:51:23 -0000

I'd be more interested in hearing why baseball is an appropriate analogy to utility cycling (as opposed to sports cycling) than the ins and outs of how may different types of bike you own and ride...

May I suggest a more suitable analogy? How about train travel?

If we financially incentivised travelling by train (utility cycling is very cheap), and made it extremely safe, reliable and pleasant to do so (as 'going Dutch' aims to do), would we find a massive increase in people choosing to travel by train rather than car?

Why, yes... I think we might...

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:45:41 -0000

Hmm.

My degree is in religion, specifically the history of religion. And as I'm writing a book about, er, history, I think it's reasonable for others to label me as a historian.
Not good history? By all means go to the original sources in the archives, as I have done, and use your first in history to rebut my claims.
Why do you have to be rude - and inaccurate - about my interests in cycling? I ride a cargo bike as my everyday transport, I follow (some) cycle sport, I sometimes dress in Lycra, I have MTBs and road bikes, and unicycles and a tandem. And a BMX. My interests in cycling are catholic, probably more catholic than most people. I can see things from multiple angles.
I've been accused of being "dishonest" because of my Stevenage article. Yet - apart from a few pix of the crap infra in Stevenage (I could do the same for crap infra in NL, there's crap everywhere) - there's been no mature, thoughtful critique of my (history) article.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Two Wheels Good — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:29:26 -0000

Hello Carlton,

Many people, including myself, appreciate the work you do to promote cycling in the UK.

However, as someone who took a first in History from Cambridge I would ask that you don't call yourself a historian; even if the BBC do.

Your comparison with Stevenage isn't good history because:

A) none of the infrastructure built in Stevenage was supported centrally by the national British government, as infrastructure has been in Holland for the last 30 years or more.
B) the quality, though better than UK average, was not anything like 'Dutch'. It was not anything like *what current cycle campaigners are currently calling for*. As many people have pointed out, Stevenage's routes (among other problems) often don't go anywhere useful, aren't surfaced properly, or give way unnecessarily to motor traffic

This is third class work.

I don't disagree with you that motor traffic should be restricted. Far from it. However, this article is unnecessarily divisive (that's my biggest issue with it), especially at a time when Boris Johnson and TfL have seemingly been converted (at least partially) to the importance of good cycling infrastructure.

Finally, the analogy with baseball is wrong, since it confuses cycling as a hobby (commensurate with baseball), and cycling as a mode of transport (utterly different to baseball). Perhaps this mistake is a natural one given your sports cycling background and your continued interest in cycling as a leisure pursuit?

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Don — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:17:19 -0000

I'm afraid I don't really see the point of the analogy. You might as well compare provision of opera houses with tram tracks - the two have nothing to do with each other.

On the other hand, it is interesting that you have compared utility cycling with an organised sport, intentionally or otherwise. I would have thought that we want to avoid such comparisons. We are talking about cycling as transport, not sport.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

michael — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:10:46 -0000

On Monday I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of young teenagers cycling between Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City on their way to school.

They weren't using the A1(M) or the A1000. They weren't vehicular cyclists using the best self-defence techniques of John whatisface's Cyclecraft. They were using smooth, fairly convenient, wide cycleways that link the two towns.

Herts CC, or whoever, built it and it is serving a previously ignored or un-acknowledged need.

Do you consider this to be some kind of exception?

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 01:17:15 -0000

My piece on Stevenage is about the infrastructure built in the 60s and 70s and called a Walt Disney dreamworld for cyclists by Richard Ballantine in the 1980s. It was modelled on Dutch infrastructure and, was so good for the time, town planners from around the world came to visit (including from the Netherlands).
As I say in my piece (maybe some people aren't actually reading it?) the infrastructure is still there but faded and truncated.
My book is all about the bicycle boom in the UK in the 1890s so I am we'll aware that we used to have a bicycle culture. However, we lost it and we lost it earlier than the Dutch.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

David_Arditti — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:00:08 -0000

We need to "learn from experiences" only if those experiences have been observed correctly. Carlton's claim that the infrastructure now existing in Stevenage is similar to the infrastructure now existing in the Netherlands is so completely and obviously untrue that if we try to "learn anything" from it, we are doomed. What I have observed wherever I have looked is that if infrastructure is not used, there is something wrong with it, or its location. There is not something wrong with the population of the UK that they don't want to cycle like the Dutch do, given similar conditions.

We used not to have mass motoring, and we used not to have a mass motoring culture. But the United States did, as early as the 1930s. We copied the infrastructure that they had built, after the war, and we replicated their mass motoring culture, even though we had not had it before. Transport culture is the slave of infrastructure provision.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:34:02 -0000

I'm not anti-car. I own one. I drive one.

I'm anti using the car for every single journey including short ones. I'm anti allowing (fellow) motorists storing their private property on the public highway.

At the AGM of the GB Cycling Embassy I was surprised when the incoming chair said he - and many others - were cheesed off with the CTC because it had become so anti-car.

CTC is not anti-car. It holds lots of meetings with motoring organizations. CTC is anti bad driving.

I'm also in regular touch with motoring organizations. I help the AA with their advice for cyclists and motorists, and helped with the recent move by the AA to get driving instructors from AA Driving School and BSM to include mandatory cycling elements in their instruction for new drivers.

As I'm the executive editor of the trade mag, not a cycle advocate as such (I'm not a member of the CTC) I have absolutely no interest in what you call the status quo: for the best part of 30 years I've been pushing to grow the bicycle market. Since the 1980s I've written editorial after editorial calling for better conditions, safer roads and - yes, dedicated infrastructure - for Britain's cyclists.

Much has changed in those 30 years and cycling is now on the national agenda in a form we'd have been amazed at all those years ago. Nevertheless, we still live in a country where car travel is the norm and any call for cycling infrastructure does and will meet stiff, organized opposition. And that was what my parody piece was about: the difficulty of pushing for Dutch-style infrastructure when the motorized majority in this democracy of ours will not give up "their" space.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Gary Dawes — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:11:09 -0000

I actually think Carlton is right and correct in playing Devil's advocate to the "build it and they will come" scenario. Carlton is also right in pointing to places like Stevenage where infra was built, but barely used. We need to learn from these experiences.

I don't see Carlton as being anti-car and certainly don't think Ipayroadtax as being anti-car. It seems to be very much an education site too me. I'm also not anti-car which is just as well as I use one for practicality for my job. I try not to use it at other times though. I also want to see as many bums on saddles as possible.

I was trying (possibly/probably clumsily) to make the observation that a good percentage of the population will still drive regardless.

At the moment though, cycling is barely in the national consciousness as a transport mode, certainly up here on the edges of Tyneside.

Witness the amount of people that drive with bikes to somewhere safe to ride on a weekend.

Obvious infrastructure that can be perceived as safe and convenient is the first step to making people aware but that is only one piece of the jigsaw.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

David_Arditti — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 09:48:18 -0000

"I agree that we will may never get the masses. Even the 20% modal share that keeps getting bandied about means that 80% will not be cycling & presumably the majority of them will be driving."

Eh? you could have 20% modal share with 100% of people cycling for some journeys. I don't think any sensible advocates are arguing that cars can be totally replaced by bikes. The point is to get the journeys that are most appropriately done by bike, done by bike. If that happens to correspond to 20% modal share in the UK, on some fine day, then that will be mass cycling, and what I, at least, am campaigning for.

I think Carlton's problem, exemplified here, and in his "I pay road tax" site, etc., a problem shared by many pro-bike advocates, is that he hasn't moved on from being anti-car. I think a cycling campaign can succeed. I think a campaign against cars, without a campaign for the infrastructure needed to make the bike a viable or superior alternative to the car for the journeys for which the bike is suitable, will fail. Perhaps, however, Carlton is happy with the status quo, wishing to preserve a certain exclusivity associated with cycling. It feels like that from this piece.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Kevin Love — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 09:30:49 -0000

Although not as crappy as almost all of the rest of the UK, by Dutch standards Stevenage has crap cycle infrastructure. There are very good reasons why schoolchildren there cycle to school at rates so low they would be a scandal in any Dutch town.

Acceptable infrastructure is:

1. Safe and comfortable cycling for everyone, from 8 to 80 years of age.

2. Walking, cycling, public transit or some multi-modal combination thereof is the fastest, easiest and most convenient way of getting from A to B for ALL destinations.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Gary Dawes — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:34:51 -0000

I agree that we will may never get the masses. Even the 20% modal share that keeps getting bandied about means that 80% will not be cycling & presumably the majority of them will be driving.

I think though that as a nation we are at a tipping point both economically with the cost of driving and healthwise because of obesity, and that the time is right for a change. Over the next few years with first the nudges, and then larger scale infrastructure a lot of progress can be made though.

My concern is not with the public, but with local authorities who if left to get on with it will just burn more money on piecemeal crap, and just ignoring cycling as a positive transport mode. I also agree that the vocal minority will scream and narrow minded and blinkered local politicians will continue pandering to the motorists.

Stronger enforcement of driving behavior is needed & this would raise cash for councils. As an example in a few minutes this afternoon I saw 4 vehicles park on DYLs & a bus stop to "pop" into shops. When illegal acts like this are ignored to allow ultimate convenience, then we're basically knackered.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:26:55 -0000

I changed the blog name. I agree with you. Shouldn't have been so close to an ad hominem critique.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:13:50 -0000

I want what you want.

But I look at this from a social, historic and cultural perspective and can't escape the fact that Britain is a motor-fixated country where even when it's highly inconvenient to drive, people will drive.
Getting the sort of cycle infra needed to get people out of cars would have to fly in the face of democracy. Most people want to drive. I don't like this.
When local authorities take away car parking places the squealing is awful and very hard for a politician to ignore.
In a different context, the PM of Luxembourg said "We know what we have to do. We don't know how to get voted back in again if we did it."

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Gary Dawes — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:06:22 -0000

As well as lots of baseball stadiums, we need to make playing baseball easier and more attractive than football.

There needs to be a combination of encouragement and coercion to make people change from cars to bicycles. None of which will work of course if the environment and infrastructure is not safe and convenient in the first place, which is why infrastructure is so very important.

There will be a lot of resistance and vocal opposition from a section of society, but that cannot be allowed to derail the process.

Yes, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany have cycling embedded in the national culture and psyche much much more than the UK. But Ireland, and the USA haven't and they are seeing large gains where they are building proper safe infra. I don't think that the UK is any more wedded to the car than the US is.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 17:16:31 -0000

I understand that. Maybe I shouldn't have alluded to a particular blog.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Dr C. — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:39:53 -0000

It seems to me that the lots and lots of interconnected measures, including infrastructure which are required to build cycling, along with the idea, often championed by you, of cyclists needing to work together and present a unified front to decision makers are really helped by articles like this.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 07:29:31 -0000

Lots and lots of interconnected measures, including infrastructure.

I understand the point about people wanting to drive in Stevenage cos they're very often driving to others towns for work etc, but that doesn't explain why Stevenage's school children don't use the town's cycleways and cycle to school.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Max C — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 07:25:09 -0000

An important message effectively delivered, but if infrastructure isn't enough then what is? I had a look at Stevenage's infrastructure following your previous post on it, and although it's amazing by UK standards it's unused because it's in a place nobody wants to go to (Stevenage). I still think build infrastructure where there's demand and they will come, and cycling's place in the national psyche will soon follow.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

carltonreid — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 07:21:28 -0000

I thought about adding a comment about moving to America…

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Karl McCracken — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 07:09:55 -0000

Tell me about the road networks in Stevenage, Cramlington, Milton Keynes &c.

"Build it and they will come" is only one side of what's required in the UK. The other half is making driving harder - especially for those short trips of less than 10km, which account for over half of all car journeys. This is something we just didn't do (but, as you point out in your comparison of Stevenage with Houten, the Dutch did).

Roads are now built based on economic models that equate more driving with a positive benefit to society.

The truth is the exact opposite, and making the economic case for that is the only way to get it accepted.

If that's too hard, then perhaps "Doing a Hembrow" is your only option. This will regrettably involve you moving to the USA, but I look forward to reading your posts on their excellent baseball facilities, to visiting your webshop selling proper American baseball equipment, and encouraging local politicians to use your services to open their eyes to what is actually possible if they've the will to see it through.