Selling Cycling as "green" is a mistake

Cycling is often marketed as "Green". That's by the cyclists, and by the DfT, when they announce fuck all for walking and cycling, while giving billions to what must clearly be "brown" transport.

Selling cycling as "green" is a mistake

• Daily Mail readers who think Global Warming is a myth will think that "green transport" is a NuLabour conspiracy -and will rant against the green hippies in capital letters.
• It becomes too easy to cry "hypocrite" to people who commute to the North Fringe to work on aircraft (BAe), tanks, bombs and nuclear submarines (MoD), computers (HP) or those tech companies east of UWE that do satellites. 
• Those Daily Mail people -lets call them the population of Patchway- can view the cyclists as "them", and then in their thousands sign petitions demanding that the cycle/bus only route be kept open to cars. Because cycling is for other people. 
• It makes cycling vulnerable to the electric car marketing weasels. Look at Copenhagenize for coverage of this -a german car rental advert saying "you don't have to cycle to be green"

Electric cars are going to be the next enemy of cycling. 

1. They take "Green" money away from cycling programs.
2. They demand tax free and congestion zone free concessions.
3. They take up as much fucking space on the road as any non-electric car
4. They take up as much parking space as a normal car
5. They will be driven by fuckwit drivers who are on the phone as they run you over.

Electric cars are useless for long journeys -everyone knows that. They are being sold as good because "most car journeys are six miles or less". Which is the journey you don't need a car at all -bicycles work.

The car manufacturers would rather we all drove to work in back in electric cars than cycled their on bicycles. We are one of their threats. They are our enemy. 

Electric cars can only be sold as second cars -and Patchway is their target market. Fat lazy gits who will soon be demanding that e-cars are allowed down Highwood Road because "they are as green as bicycles"

We must not fall into this trap.

What to do? 

1. Sell bicycles as low cost ways to avoid congestion and parking problems, giving you exercise for free. Because they are. 
2. Talk to the motorists in the language they understand: congestion, money, time, parking.
3. Don't go into detail about how the S Gloucs cycle team are a waste of space who fritter away cycle city funding, or how the bicycle lanes abandon you at places like the M32 crossing. 

Here are ways to justify cycling in S Gloucs that may appeal to someone who drives

Congestion:

• "I was spending half an hour every evening stuck in the ring road by the aerospace roundabout, and had better things to do"
• "I hated having to stay at work until after 6 pm just so the ring road traffic got quieter"
• I discovered there was a direct route from stapleton to MoD/UWE that meant I didn't need to be stationary on the M32 every morning

Cost

• I was paying fifty quid a week to get stuck on the ring road.
• I was paying 10 quid a day to park in the Bristol city centre.
• I save a thousand pounds a year by cycling to work.
• We sold off the second car, cutting out the fuel, insurance, breakdown, servicing and MoT costs -this lets us put 2-3 thousand pounds a year towards (holidays, schooling, a second home -whatever the driver aspires to)

Time

• It's faster to cycle to school and work than it is to drive.
• I don't get held up by the car in front -if I'm late I pedal harder.
• I don't have to waste time going to the Gym for exercise.
• By not looking for parking by the school, we could set off later.

Parking

• There's nowhere to park at work.
• There's nowhere to park at home.
• There's nowhere to park on gloucester road/Southmead Hospital, wherever else you shop other than Cribbs causeway or ASDA there.
• I hated having to get in by 8 am to get a parking space.
• I didn't want to pay 10 quid a day to park in the Bristol city centre.
• I hated spending 15 minutes driving round a bit of bristol (your choice of Cotham, Montpelier, St Pauls, Southville (for people from S of the river)
• The only places in Bristol where I could park were places you'd never be sure your car was when you came out at night.

These are the ways driving hurts -and apart from cost, electric cars can't do any better than petrol cars. The car companies know that -which is why they want tax breaks, subsidies, -and bus lane access. Here TfL said "no", but S Gloucs aren't so concerned about cycle safety -which is why they allow HGVs down the ring road bus, HOV & bike lane. 

Fight the electric cars where they can't win: congestion and time! Even on cost, electric cars cost so much you'd have to drive many tens of thousands of miles on one -but the limited battery life (measured in years, not miles) makes that hard for a toy you can only use in town.

Sell cycling with the benefits that person you are talking to cares about -not something abstract like "green" that they don't give a fuck for.

What the Fuck is an Urban SUV?

The car manufacturers love to wave their green credentials, their electric toys, then demand more money from the governments "to go electric", more concessions, more subsidies. The politicans love to get in the regional papers visiting car factories round the country: Northumberland, Liverpool, Swindon, Oxford, and make hose same promises "the car industry will bring economic recovery to the country", "electric cars are the future".

Bollocks.

Buy a newspaper. Look at the adverts. See any selling electric cars? Not likely. What you are likely to see are adverts for "Urban SUVs". Not eco-friendly electric. Not saving the planet. But what the car manufacturers want you to buy.

What the fuck is an urban SUV?

First, there were 4x4s, Landrovers, jeeps. Functional for farmers, the higher end Range Rovers for the landed gentry. Pickups for the builders. Then people started buying them for the image, and the car industry was happy to sell them. They discovered the new market didn't need four weel drive, so calling them 4x4s or 4WDs wasn't right. They invented a new term: SUV. Sport Utility Vehicle.

Then they sold them for sport, for utility. Pictures of snowboarders driving in the snow with snowboards on top. Rock climbers in the wildeness. Pickup drivers "haulin'". Image things. If you do those things, you need an SUV. And if you had an SUV, you lived an active, sporting live. Never mind the fact that snowboarding and rock climbing are lifestyles -and the people who live that lifestyle can't afford SUVs. They live in camper vans in ski resort car parks in winter; campsites in summer. If they do have a job in a town, there'll be a fiesta or astra full of climbing gear. Lifestyle snowboarders, climbers and other "extreme sport" people are just the image for SUVs, not the customer. The customer is someone with money who would rather have a life more interesting than what they have -and the SUV helps pretend that they do.

Nowadays: the SUV is a family vehicle, it's sold on safety for the kids. The marketing dept. loves a few days of snow or summer floods, so the TV can show landrovers coming to the rescue of people who "only" had hatchbacks -they'll buy ad space in the papers to say "this is what you need".

Though the price of buying an SUV - a lot-, the cost of fuel -a lot- and the servicing charges -way more than a hatchback- means that there's a limit to how many "real" SUVs they can sell.

And so we have something new: "The Urban SUV". This is not an SUV for the mountains, it is one for the town.

Think about this: a vehicle with no more luggage capacity than a normal car, worse fuel economy (aerodynamics), worse handling (higher centre of gravity), worse use in town (the width needed to compensate for that SUV means they need to be wider), is now being sold as a vehicle for use in the cities.

That's where the car manufacturers money is really going. Not into electrics, but into overweight, overpriced alternatives to "practical cars".

How do they sell them?

They scare people.

Look at all the adverts. They portray the city as an edgy place ("graffiti"), dark and anonymous, and something that you need an armoured car to get through safely;

• Toyota Urban Cruiser: Tough. Selling a car driving round a city at night "scary", nobody around "danger", but you are safe in your SUV.
• Ford Kuga This one is still sold on the outdoor bollocks, but look at the bike shot. Shit bikes, shit suspension, floating rear triangle design. No luggage rack. These are not useful bikes in a city -and they are shit offroad too. Same as the SUV itself.
• Nissan Quashqai. This is the worst example. "The ultimate urban car", the quashquai is "The king of the urban jungle". Marketing: Graffiti. The rough inner cities that you drive through on your way to the suburbs, doors locked, hoping you don't make eye contact with the locals. Tinted windows help there.

These overpriced vehicles are sold by scaring you that cities are dangerous places where you need tough SUV-like cars. That may help convince people who "still" drive round in hatchbacks, estate cars and the like that they need something tougher for use in a dangerous city.

The danger in a city is not the graffiti. It is not unexpected snowstorms coming in off the cotswolds and covering emerson's green in 18" of power snow. It is not car-jacking criminals loitering at the perennial traffic block by parkway station. What is the danger in the city?

It is selfish wankers driving urban SUVs who think they have more right to the road than people on bicycles and pedestrians. It is those drivers on the school run, bully bicycles out the way, going past them with millimetres to spare, turning back to look at their kids on the handheld games consoles and saying "look how dangerous it is out there -I am glad I am driving you to school". It is people in Urban SUVs who believe they are safe in one, start getting complacent, making phone calls, and run over someone "they came out of nowhere".

Yet nowhere in the adverts do Nissan, Toyota, Ford or anyone else come out and state the truth: the danger to the drivers of urban SUVs are other drivers of Urban SUVs.

For cyclists, Urban SUVs make things worse

• They ruin visibility for everyone. You can't see over them -and vehicles past them can't see you.
• they're wider, so are harder to squeeze past
• the raised seating makes people harder at judging their position, which means they pass you worse, or hold back and then pass you baldly at the wrong point.
• if you really think your car is "tougher", you drive more aggressively -to bicycles, pedestrians and other cars.
• in snow and ice the drivers get overconfident as they discover that their "all terrain" vehicle needs winter tyres to stop.
• they cost more than standard cars -making people think they have even more right to the road than cyclists who don't pay road tax
• They reinforce that car-as-status-symbol bollocks. If you have an "urban SUV", you are more than just another persion. 

Even without the SUVs on the streets, the whole "you need an urban SUV to survive an edgy city" marketing is an enemy. It's designed to scare people into armouring themselves and then driving through the rough parts of town at speed.

Contrast that with the cycling chic story: cities are nice places for people to cycle round.

You can only have a cycle-chic environment in a city without Urban SUVs. they are our enemy.

cities shit for walking. S gloucs. And their legal system

Bradley Stoke way is in S. Gloucs, the main through route through Bradley Stoke, a residential area.

And what happened there: someone drove into an 11 year old boy doing 67 mph in the 30mph zone.

Punishment: a fine, a suspended sentence and a 12 month driving ban.

The judge said ""I accept that you are fully remorseful about the speed of your driving and the consequences of it."This was not a case where any injury was intended by you.""

This is fucking bollocks and it shows how fat and lazy car driving judges are fucking spokespeople for the association of British Drivers.

1. The fuckwit was driving at twice the fucking speed limit in a residential. What more fucking intent to cause injury can you have. Maybe you could do that in a motorway -but in a residential area? Nobody crossing the road expects cars doing 70mph to come through.
2. What fucking excuse is it "late for a meeting". Either set of early  or be late. Not drive at 70 mph through the suburbs.
3. What fucking judge says "you didn't mean it"

Driving at 70 mph through a city and hitting someone should be treated as attempted manslaughter. You make a decision to drive that dangerously, you get to live the consequences.

Selfish, ignorant, dangerous

Taking a quick break from slagging off S Gloucs, let's look at Bath.

The A4 sucks. It sucks for cars, as you have to drive down it to get from the A46 Batheaston bypass to the A36 or use that cars-only back route. All the HGVs and heavy traffic go down the A4. Eastbound, enough space for a segregated route, only there are enough parked cars to stop it being a good unsegregated route, let alone something safe. As cars approach the roundabout to get to the A46 & Motorway, they pick up speed and things get worse

Eastbound, equally shit, except the traffic jam makes it slightly easier.

And look, just near the Bathwick Street Bridge -a proper off road bike lane!



Except without some way to keep lazy selfish wankers out of it

Wankers, plural
   
Why park here? Its where they can park without "inconveniencing" anyone, the bollards keep the cyclists away from the pedestrians, but to fuck all to stop cars. And the council doesn't give a toss either

Addison Lee declares war

There's a theory in some cycling circles that the more people who cycle, the better it will be as everyone else will expect cyclists and be nice to them. Bollocks.

You don't get cut up by a minicab driver on a phone in NL because its not "enough people cycle", it's because everyone cycles, so they all know what it is like. And because the roads are set up to keep minicab drivers away from the schoolkids.

London -like the rest of the country- isn't set up this way.

There's another theory: that as fuel costs and congestion gets worse, more people will cycle.

Maybe. But maybe not.

Many of those people who try cycling will have such a bad experience that they will change their mind. It may be "they aren't properly trained", but you can't take the lane in a city unless you are fit enough to do 20mph, and ruthless enough to smack on the side of any vehicle trying to take that lane from you. Schoolkids don't get a look it.

Some of the people who try cycling will stick to it, learn the back routes round cities -and the Roads of Death that are almost impossible to avoid, even if it is just crossing them. If there's good parking at their destination, somewhere at home to keep a bike, they may stick to it and be happy -possibly even start campaigning for cities and suburbs to support their needs.

Will everyone else be greatful? Bollocks.

That same fuel costs and congestion is going to make everyone who drives even more angry and resentful.

You can see that from the hate comments in papers, in radio. "pay fuel tax", "pay up", "we pay", "fair costs". The more you pay to drive, the more you resent freeloaders, and the more you feel that you have the right to be there, and cyclists don't. There's also "Cognitive Dissonance": the more you spend, the less willing you are to recognise you made a mistake. People who drive feel they have paid enough to be there, and we haven't.

There's also the feeling of injustice that bicycles aren't stuck in traffic jams. Again, the comments complain about that "undertaking", "not staying in lanes". And of course "use bus lanes".

Addison Lee's actions fit entirely into this model

1. The drivers have had enough of congestion, so want to use the bus lanes. Griffin thins he has the political clout to get the rules changed, win new accounts, and have his drivers get more customers/day.
2. Griffin is also fed up with the amount of money he feels that his company pays to be on that road, and that we, the cyclists, don't deserve any space.

That's why he wants the bus lanes: money.

The rant about cyclists being untrained and diving under his cars? That's just resentment about the growing number of bicycles. View that as a measure of success.

After all, he's done more to give Addison Lee Cabs a bad reputuation than any number of youtube videos has done. He's got the cyclists and black cabs allied. And he's even got the Daily Mail on our side.

That means he's done more for cycling in a week than Boris Johnson has in four years.

Filton Shubbery battle -have the pavement instead

Remember how the traffic creators (calling them "Traffic planners" would imply planning skills and ignore demand creation) wanted to turn part of a park into an extra roundabout lane?

Well, the Filton Town Council response is "have the pavement instead"

FILTON councillors have rejected a request from South Gloucestershire Council to hand over a piece of parkland to make way for a road widening scheme.

South Gloucestershire's Mark Shearman, principal engineer for transport services, wrote to the town council. He asked for councillors to decide whether the town council could "contribute" a small corner of Elm Park to the scheme, originally asking for 317 metres squared.

In his letter he said that the extra land would provide an opportunity to address congestion on the approach to the roundabout, upgrade the traffic signals to a more efficient system and improve facilities for cyclists.

He explained that the scheme would be funded with section 106 money from the new Southmead Hospital development.

That is this would be the NHS funding the removal of parkland to make it easier for fat people to drive to the hospital for their Diabetes checkups. Does nobody in the council or traffic creation department think about the hypocrisy there? In Bristol, S106 money goes to encouraging cycling. In S Gloucs: extra lanes at junctions.

As for the claim this would help cyclists, that's clearly bollocks. How would encouraging more cars to drive down Filton Road and make it harder to get across the BAe Roundabout help cycling.

...

Resident Brian Smith, 75, who lives in Third Avenue, attended the last council meeting.
"I don't think the scheme is necessary," he said.
"The width of the footpath could be reduced to make way for a third lane of traffic before we start giving away our green land.

The locals like their greenery, but don't give a fuck about the pavement either. Well, nobody wants to use that pavement, though it is the only way to get to the shopping centre set up for people to drive in to, and it is part of the official ring road cycle route. Not caring about it reflects the views of the residents, rather than the council. At least they want the park to stay green.

...

A South Gloucestershire Council spokesman said: "The council is currently working with Filton Town Council on plans to improve the ring road junction with the A38 at Filton roundabout. 

"These improvements are a response to the Southmead hospital redevelopment and address the expected increase in traffic flows in the area as patients, employees and visitors travel to the hospital.

"The proposals involve widening the carriageway to provide an extra lane on the westbound approach to the roundabout and will use a narrow strip of land from the adjacent Elm Park, which is owned by Filton Town Council. 

"In order to minimise the amount of land needed for the improvements, options considered include placing the shared use footway/cycleway path running alongside the road within the Elm Park boundary. 

"An area of redundant highway land near Shellard Road is also being investigated for use as a replacement for the Elm Park land."

Let's think this through. There's no free parking being added at Southmead, the area nearby is going to have its parking rules enforced. While it makes sense for out-of-shift staff to drive in and out, if the council had actual support for cycling or public transport in the area then they'd be doing something to aid that, rather than push bicycles away and do nothing for buses.

Regarding Shellard Road -its on the east side of the fields. They may find something there, but given the council's habit of turning traffic free routes into rat-runs, don't expect it to stay parkland. Five years from now, they will want to widen the route further back from the roundabout, and at that point the small print in any land swap will surface to show the council can have it back for free.

For anyone who says the council can be engaged with, politely, this shows the traffic creation department's world view. Their hierarchy of Provision is

1. HGVs (only S Gloucs has a bus/bike/HGV lane)
2. Cars
3. Parking for Cars
4. Extra rat-runs to take the pressure off the A4174
5. Extra routes to the M4
6. Extending the A4174 around the South of Bristol to create the demand for even more lanes
7. Grandiose Bus Rapid Transit schemes down the Bristol-Bath Railway Path.
8. Trains
9. Pedestrians
10. Bicycles
11. Greenery

Why put pedestrians above bicycles? Because every shared use path -the only bike paths in the area- have lots of signs up telling bicycles to slow down for pedestrians. But there is no single "shared road", open to both bicycles and cars, where there are signs up telling the cars to slow down for bicycles. If anyone on a bicycle gets hit by a car, it's their own fault for being there.

BBC, getting "road tax" wrong again

Another complaint, this time to the BBC

Complaint about the Radio 4 programme, You and Yours, broadcast at 12:30 on Monday April 9, regarding the repeated use of the phrase "Road Tax".

The you and yours programme on small cars has both the presenter and the interviewee repeatedly using the phrase "road tax" as a misnomer for Vehicle Excise Duty. Such an erroneous uce reinforces the mistaken belief that cyclists do not pay for the road and therefore have no right to use them, which increases conflict between drivers who believe bicycles should be off the roads, and those of us who are trying to use a low-pollution,  low congestion solution to our cities' transport problems.

This use of the phrase "Road Tax" is a recurrent problem with BBC reporting. While it may  be considered acceptable in a slightly-comedic series such as Top Gear, to use it in a consumer journalism series implies inadequate factual review prior to broadcast.

In the past, BBC news programmes have published corrections to such errors
http://road.cc/content/news/17863-bbc-look-east-forced-set-record-straight-road-tax-%E2%80%A6-er-ved-video

Could you consider the you-and-yours reporters to do the same -after they have been correctly briefed on the funding model of roads and motor vehicles contributions thereof?