Devo max is not on the ballot paper

As the title indicates, this post is intended mostly for my Scottish readers. If there are any.

This post is not about cycling, except, in a way, it is related.

I've always thought that the general lack of progress on improving Britain's environment is bound up with a democratic and constitutional failure. It is notable that the most democratic countries in the world tend to have the best-manged environments, and the most dictatorial, the worst. The UK has always fallen somewhere inbetween, but not very close to the best.

I view the Scottish referendum as an opportunity to force some constitutional change on the UK establishment. I think the result of a 'yes' vote would, in the long run, probably, be a better, more modern and more democratic, Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, that looked after their people and their environments better.

If, as looks likely, there is a narrow win for 'no', I expect little to change. Cyclists, more than most, will know how promises made by politicians at the point of an election disappear like Scotch mist after they have won. The 11th-hour commitment by the main Westminster parties to devo max in the event of a 'no' vote is deeply unconvincing. The British establishment is extraordinarily resistant to fundamental constitutional change that would break down its powers and privileges. We have been let down on this front by the Coalition, and in particular the Lib Dems, who did not use their bargaining power effectively to gain reform. We had a referendum on changing the voting system for Westminster, but that was meaningless as it did not offer the real reform of proportional representation that constitutional progressives want. The promise to reform the house of Lords has been broken. Promises of devo max I am certain will also be broken in the same way.

The party leaders in Westminster cannot deliver devo max because there would not be support amongst English MPs for an even more asymmetrical devolution arrangement that is even more unfair on England. There is no overall, final constitutional solution being proposed here, because the party leaders haven't been able to think of one that is in the least bit probable or stable. The 11th hour pledge is a transparent panic measure that has not been thought-through. It would, indeed, be the duty of English MPs to vote against some elements of the bribe that has been proposed to try to stave off the Scottish independence bandwagon.

The referendum debate should never have focused so relentlessly on the currency, which is actually not that fundamental an issue. Scots after independence could use the Pound, or the Euro, or their own unit, or whatever currency was found to be most convenient and beneficial for Scotland and all her main trading partners, including England, Ireland, and the rest of the EU,  through international negotiation, the results of which cannot be predicted before independence, because so much would change afterwards.

The focus should be on democracy, on representation, and on systems. If the parties in Westminster had been interested in a federal UK, they could have proposed one by now. But the problems are deep. England would be too dominant in a federation, if kept as a unitary governmental entity, yet England has been a united entity for so long that it cannot now be broken down in any obvious way into provinces that should appropriately have a similar level of devolution even to Wales, let alone Scotland.

My feeling is that the Union has served its purpose, a long and honourable and historical one, and it is time to move on, for Scotland (and indeed Northern Ireland as well, but that is an altogether knottier problem). We have so many international institutions that have an effect of partially pooling sovereignty that did not exist when the Union was founded: the EU pre-eminently, of course, but also the Commonwealth, the UN and NATO. Borders have effectively been broken down between all EU states now. The Union is a level of cross-border organisation that, though there was great justification for it between the 17th and 20th centuries, has now been rendered fairly surplus to requirements.

I think only a 'yes' vote by Scots will deliver the kick needed for real constitutional, democratic, change, leading to long-term social and environmental progress,  in any of the nations of the current UK. The next opportunity, should this one be missed, will be a long time coming.

Sticking-plaster solutions for the recession

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (that's the archaic name we use for our finance minister in the UK, I have to explain for my overseas readers) has announced that he will be using £40 billion of public money to underwrite bank loans to small businesses, as there is perceived to be a problem with these businesses not being able to obtain credit from the banks, and this is said to be hindering the "recovery".

What this amounts to is the government taking over part of the banks' job for them, using the its ability to borrow money at low interest rates to subsidise the loans to businesses. It would mean firms being able to borrow at 4% rather than 5%. Across the political spectrum this is generally regarded as being a good thing.

But it seems to me strange that a Conservative chancellor is effectively nationalising banking in this way. Is this not big-statism, and an interference in the normal commercial working of the banking system, things to which you would expect right-wing politicians naturally to be opposed? What are the implications of this?

The government is able to borrow money at low rates of interest because it is perceived by lenders to be at very low risk of defaulting. Businesses are charged a higher rate by the same lenders because they pose a higher risk. If there is a problem with firms being able to obtain credit, this must be because the banks do not feel certain enough that they will be able to make a profit on the lending without charging a high rate. The credit problem is not a problem with banks being nasty or selfish, it is indicative of underlying contraction or stagnation in the economy: a recession without "recovery".

By nationalising part of the risk of lending to businesses at low rates, the government must reduce its own creditworthiness, creating a risk that it will be charged marginally higher rates in the longer term, as the risks of businesses defaulting on their loans are transferred through government accounts. To an extent, therefore, in an indirect way, this government is advocating a similar approach to that which it is so ready to criticise in the heavily-indebted European countries like Greece and Italy, where interest rates charged to government have spiralled because of uncertainly about repayment in the long term. Where there is uncertainty about economic expansion in the near future, there is no free, easy way out of a credit crunch. The government juggling bits of the lending system between public and private sectors is a sticking-plaster solution which cannot change anything fundamentally because the recession is really out there, for reasons other than what banks do.

Somehow politicians and the media have managed to convince the public that the recession is a product of the problems of the banking sector, rather than the problems in banking being just a symptom of a real fundamental economic problem. The recession was all caused by unwise mortgage lending in the USA, according to many. More recently, the stress has been on the idea that it is all the fault of those running the Euro.

I have always believed that there is an underlying recession which exists because of the reasons that recessions and depressions always occur: commodity shortages and environmental issues, which are opposite sides of the same coin. Problems in banks and national banks are just a delayed manifestation (delayed by borrowing on the future) of the costs coming through due to the effects of global warming, other environmental problems associated with energy-intensive development, and demand for essential commodities outstripping supply with world population growth and the rapid expansion of the emerging economies.

The answers to the crisis are not fiddling with banking and taxation or even radically cutting public expenditure, which will just have to be increased again in the future to sort out the problems created by the current round of cuts. The answers lie in sustainable development, particularly reducing reliance on fossil fuels, better, more efficient planning of society (not a laissez-faire "business always knows best" approach), reviving manufacturing industry, engineering and science, the activities which genuinely create wealth, as opposed to speculation, which does not, making people skilled and productive in areas that genuinely benefit society, making society fairer, more democratic, equal and hence better-satisfied, and above all, controlling global warming and developing a climatically stable and fair development path for the whole planet.

Not easy. The hardest thing will be to convince people that they have to get used to the fact that growth, as defined in the past, will have to stop. There may never be a "recovery". That does not mean that peoples' lives will get worse however. They will have to change. The big challenge for politicians is explaining the difference.

London's aggressive road culture

Goodge Street junction with Tottenham Court Road, London W1, evening

London's aggressive road culture gets to everybody, however many wheels they have, including none, and whether they are private, commercial or public service vehicle drivers. The purpose of a stop line? A thing to be ahead of at the moment the signals go green. And that bus must have gone through a red light. The shabby patched, depressed road surface and pathetic narrow advisory cycle lane (which is parked on just behind the camera's viewpoint) contribute their elements to the scene.

I don't blame the drivers and I don't blame the cyclists. I don't think the problem is the size of London or its poverty. London is a rich city. I think in the end it comes down to problems with democratic structures, which lead to failure to invest efficiently (not heavily, but efficiently) in the urban realm, for the benefit of all. I was struck by a paragraph in David Hembrow's blogpost From cycle path to cycle route, describing the creation of a cycle route in 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands:

While the streets had to be redone completely, the city took the opportunity to also change all the sewer pipes, the telephone, data and electricity cables and the water and natural gas pipes. This is the usual thing to do in the Netherlands. There is good coordination between all the companies responsible for all these systems under supervision of the city or municipal authorities. This dates back from the time (not so long ago) that all these services were run by the councils themselves. Since all cables are underground in this country [as they are in central London] it is a very good thing that there is this coordination. You wouldn't want streets to be dug up separately by all the different companies.

You certainly wouldn't. Ha ha. Tell that to Eric Pickles, right-wing Tory Euro-sceptic Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Give people a messed-up, basically incompetently administered urban environment, poorly planned and worse maintained, and having minimal law-enforcement, and they'll bend all the rules they can to get through it as quickly as possible. London's aggressive road culture is an expression of a poor environment.

Cycling: lets get a little less "eco" about this

Though one tries to be independent as a blogger, and express original thoughts that have not been voiced elsewhere, occasionally a contribution to a particular subject comes along that just has to be highlighted, and basically, just relayed, as it seems to critically elucidate a vital issue which has always lurked just below the surface, with nobody really laying out before where the problem lies.

These are my thoughts on reading this invaluable contribution to the cycling infrastructure debate from David Hembrow. Hembrow lays out a number of common objections to the construction of quality cycle infrastructure that originate in supposed concern for the environment, and shows, though, basically, the application of common-sense, how invalid they are:

I was told as a child that money "didn't grow on trees". However, the one thing which certainly does "grow on trees" is of course trees themselves. Cutting urban trees and replacing them causes only a temporary change.

Eventually, any urban tree will become too large and need replacing. This is an ongoing process in all cities. To bring forward the replacement of a few trees to enable construction of top class cycling provision benefits the environment.

This issue has been floating around in my mind for many years as a campaigner for better cycling provision in London. A shibboleth-like "preservation of trees" argument has so often prevented changes to the roads to benefit cyclists and pedestrians. It has, in my experience, really been a major factor in preventing progress on better streetscapes and urban designs in the UK, because it has been an argument that has tended to be accepted by both "green" campaigners and those who wish to prevent change for the better, hence it has been effectively unanswerable, and the result has been a log-jam in altering the built environment to benefit cyclists and pedestrians. And yet, as Hembrow remarks with childish simplicity "One thing that certainly does grow on trees is trees themselves".

Other areas Hembrow deals with in his post are drainage, and its relationship to laying cycle paths with proper surfaces, and lighting. Another, that, I would add, is "disturbance to wildlife". These are all arguments that have, in my experience, been used to scupper pro-cycling and pro-walking proposals in London. The striking thing is that these arguments are not, typically, used to successfully prevent road-building, road-widening, construction of car-parks or other commercial or industrial development of land in cities. 


Why not? The answer goes to the heart of how our society thinks about cycling and walking. They are not regarded as serious transport. They are not regarded as a seriously productive part of the economy. Hence they are not regarded as a high economic priority (and see this fascinating post on the At War With The Motorist blog on how the economic contribution of different transport modes is currently officially being measured by our Department for Transport – it is horrifying). 


Because of this, infrastructure plans that will benefit cycling and walking are easily derailed by flimsy arguments dressed-up in ecological terms that are really just part of the great local government tradition of "creatively finding reasons to do nothing". In contrast it is widely accepted, by public and politicians alike, that "serious" infrastructure projects like new roads and railways and new housing or industry have to be driven through at the expense of some alteration to the natural environment. The alignment of pro-cycling and pro-walking campaigners, typically, with the wider environmental or green movement, facilitates this status-quo reinforcing situation. They themselves are often genuinely not sure what is "best for the environment" in the long term, with all these competing arguments. And so they too are likely to err on the side of caution, of not wanting to change anything.


Now, don't get me wrong here. I am not arguing for indiscriminately cutting down mature trees here there and everywhere, or casually paving over remote and undisturbed Sites of Special Scientific Interest, or lighting up the New Forest with laser beams (though the last really is what Southampton City Council wanted to do – and for no good reason!) But I am questioning the way competing considerations are often balanced up, particularly in the context of the dense urban environment of London. I am suggesting that the result of this balancing up is often not to produce, overall, long-term, a "green" result at all, but quite the reverse. Some examples, all from north-west London, may help to explain my case more clearly. 


In 2009 I was asked to look at plans for a new section (one of the last to be built) of the "London Cycle Network Plus", in Harrow. This was to be on heavily-trafficked main roads just south of Harrow Town Centre: Kenton Lane, Tyburn Road, and Lowlands Road. Now, in fact, Harrow LCC have a much better idea for where the cycle route E-W through Harrow Town Centre should go, but I am leaving that to one side. This was the alignment of the LCN+ route that the council wanted, on these cycle-unfriendly, not very wide, main roads that basically form a bypass to the town centre, and connecting two gruesome giratory systems, the Northwick Park roundabout and the  Lowlands/Bessborough Road roundabout. The only redeeming feature of this route is that it has some quite nice parkland on both sides of the road.

The plans the officers came up with showed the kind of classic "bitty" mixture of on-road and off-road cycling provision, that I have already criticised as ineffective in this post. They had sections of advisory cycle lane (the kind with dashed lines that motorists are allowed to park in), sections of off-road segregated track, and sections of shared-use path with pedestrians in the parkland by the south side of the road, alternating few times (I can't recall the exact details, and the don't matter) in a distance of little more than 1km. I tried to explain to the officers why this would not work: how short sections of off-road path are not worth cyclists getting on to and off again; how it is safer and more efficient to stick to the carriageway; how, for cyclists not confident enough to cycle on main roads, these little bits off-road will do them no good, and tend to create more illegal cycling. What would work in this location, we (I , the Harrow Cyclists representative and the CTC rep) argued, would be a consistently off-road cycle path (bearing in mind there was no chance that the (then) Conservative-run council would allow the loss of space for cars that mandatory cycle lanes on the road would entail).

The reason they could not do that? Trees. Mature trees in the way, trees that are a distinctive part of the Harrow landscape. Now, these issues are always difficult. These trees are indeed nice ones. This parkland with its trees is indeed a nice feature of Harrow town centre. But only relatively, only because the planners have made such a complete balls-up of the rest of Harrow town centre, covering it with elevated roundabouts, flyovers, concrete multi-storey car parks and cathedralic shopping centres.

Herein lies the rub. In case like this, there has been decades of destruction of the traditional characters of our English town centres by insensitive, commercially-driven, motor-centric planning. Where a little nice bit is left, everybody wants to preserve this. This might also be a good place to put a bike path. But, no, now you cannot alter anything in the landscape to make the bike path practical, because we have wantonly destroyed so much in the past, that now this landscape has to be fossilised. It cannot now be touched. So cycling again gets the back end of the deal. Cycling was not catered for when the big changes to the urban fabric were made, in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and regret at the cataclysmic mistakes of that era now paralyse thinking over optimising what remains. A "preservation mentality" prevents consideration of proper cycling infrastructure, and so the motor-dominated environment created in the late 20th century continues to rule.

A second case: on the border between the boroughs of Brent and Barnet exists a reservoir, variously known as the Brent Reservoir or the Welsh Harp (from the name of a pub which used to stand where the River Brent drained into the reservoir, but which was demolished in the 1970s to make way for the concrete jungle of the Staples Corner road junction). The Welsh Harp reservoir was created in 1835 as a header water supply for the Grand Union Canal. It is today surrounded by a mixture of public open spaces, industrial land, and housing. It is hemmed in with major roads on three sides: the A5, the A406 (North Circular Road) and the A4088. These roads and their major junctions to the west of the reservoir at Neasden and to the east at Staples Corner, which reached their modern form in the 1970s, make the reservoir and its open spaces quite inaccessible by any means of transport, but particularly by walking, cycling and public transport. They also cut off the open spaces on the north side from those on the south side. There is furthermore a lack of paths across these open spaces.

Neasden Recreation Ground by the Welsh Harp Reservoir, Brent: an under-used public space with a lack of suitable paths for walking or cycling, hemmed in behind the North Circular Road, reachable only via footbridges, from one of which this picture was taken. The dam is in the background, with Kingsbury Church beyond.

Looking the other way from the same vantage point: the community-severing A406 North Circular Road

The lands around the reservoir are administered partly by Brent, partly by Barnet, and partly by British Waterways. These bodies are supposed to co-operate in managing the reservoir lands through the Welsh Harp Management Committee. The land at the west end of the reservoir, near the dam, is occupied by various sailing clubs. These have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of limited public access to the reservoir lands. British Waterways will not allow the use of the dam as a walking or cycling route, though it would be extremely useful as such to allow journeys avoiding the horrible A4088 Neasden Lane. The unconvincing argument given for this intransigence is "security" – despite the fact that dams all over the country, and, of course, abroad, are used as walking and cycling routes. The overall effect of this is that the reservoir lands are extremely under-used and do not make the contribution they should to the public amenity of north-west London. People in NW London who wish to find a traffic-free cycle circuit in a park for leisure or family cycling or for teaching kids to ride have to go the south-west London, to Richmond Park, to do this. There is nothing for them in north-west London, an area containing maybe 5 million people.

It was suggested, as long ago as 1994, that a footpath should be created all the way round the reservoir, linking up the severed open spaces (the idea of cycle paths was not around at that time). The idea of a cycle and walking route around the reservoir was again put forward by Brent Cyclists in 2010. This idea has been rejected by the Welsh Harp Management Committee, both on grounds of cost (as usual), but also because it is claimed that cyclists and walkers close to the reservoir would disturb breeding wildfowl.

Now, I don't know what these wildfowl are. I don't know how special there are, exactly where they are, or if it is really true that a walking and cycling path round the reservoir would of necessity disturb them. It has not been demonstrated in detail to me, and so I have my doubts. Could not a path be routed to be sufficiently far from them not to trouble them? If not, could not some land be taken off the industrial premises, that hem the reservoir in quite closely at certain points, to take a path sufficiently far away from them? If these are not possible, and if their habitat must be damaged, could not another habitat be created for them elsewhere to compensate?  Even if none of these things can be done, is it reasonable that the breeding of these wildfowl in the middle of an urban area at an artificial reservoir take precedence over developing low-carbon leisure and transport choices for 5 million people?

Staples Corner. I think the breeding wildfowl are supposed
to be somewhere in the greenery to the right.

Well, is it? It is not an easy or obvious choice, but why shouldn't the reservoir lands be used to try to create pleasant and useful routes for walking and cycling that go a small way to undoing the car-dependency in the local population fostered by this car-centred infrastructure that has been used to hem the reservoir in?  On either side of the Welsh Harp, the concrete jungles of the Neasden junction and Staples Corner testify to the failed urban transport concepts of the Motorway Box era, cutting communities off from one another and forcing everyone into cars in order to get around, creating a brutal environment for anyone who tries to travel under human power. As in the Harrow case, the cause of cycling is stuck between the two apparently immovable barriers that none of this motor infrastructure can be altered now (it would cost far too much), and the bits of space that remain, and happen to have attracted the odd breeding fowl, or grown a big old tree, are considered too fragile to alter.

I think what is going on in these cases is that actually an exaggerated importance is being given to one small aspect of the natural environment as it is, that is being used as an excuse for no change. So there remains no-where to teach children to cycle, and no route to go for a decent walk before having to cross a huge road, that you have to do by climbing stairs up to a desolate walkway, and then down again on the other side, or alternatively by diving down some rank underpass. So the car-dependency is not challenged, so nothing is done to counter the ever-increasing pollution and noise (which can't be doing these trees or wildfowl all that much good). We have an eco-logjam where the small remaining green bits of the city do not seem to be usable for cycling, and Harrow, Brent and Barnet continue to make their disproportionate contributions to global warming. How much good is that doing to wildfowl, either at the reservoir or anywhere else in the world?


In The Netherlands, they do recognise that there is pressure on urban environments, and things are sometimes in the wrong place in towns and cities, and sometimes you do have to create significant temporary disruption in order to move things and re-arrange the urban elements, to create better choices for transport by foot, bike, boat, and even car. They are not afraid of spending money on this, and it doesn't seem to cause them big political problems, or problems with an ecological or preservationist lobby. Why not? Are people there just used to taking a broader, more longer-term, more holistic view of the issues?


Back to north-west London, and a third and final example, which demonstrates another type of problem that often confounds attempts to create off-road cycle routes in our cities. If we can't have a decent-length cycle route round the Welsh Harp, what about having it a bit further east, on Hampstead Heath? Well, Hampstead Heath is ruled by the Corporation of London, though it is geographically in the boroughs of Camden and Haringey. The Corporation is not a democratic body: it consists of City-types "elected" by the bosses of City firms. Why should they govern this area of open space in north London (and other scattered open spaces, such as Queen Park in Brent and West Ham Park in Newham)? Well might you ask. The reasons are diverse historical hang-overs, not good ones. Mrs Thatcher gave Hampstead Heath to them when she abolished the GLC. Anyway, they run the heath through their Heath Management Committee, which is advised by their Hampstead Heath Consultative Committee. This latter body is dominated by local residents groups, which consist of the wealthy owners of large houses which abut the heath. They are the people who make the roads around Hampstead, Highgate and the heath congested and dangerous for cyclists when they are in their cars, but, when they want to go get out of their cars and go walking on the heath, they consider it rather as most people do their back garden. They do not want to meet cyclists there.


Some limited shared-use paths for cyclists, which do not connect very well, were introduced on to the Heath by the GLC and preserved by the Corporation. There has been an endless campaign by Camden Cycling Campaign, occasionally abetted by Sustrans, to try to get more useful cycle paths on the Heath, which has been blocked down many years by the Hampstead Heath Consultative Committee and the Heath and Hampstead Society. This amenity group contains people very wedded a fiction that they decorate with the Latin title rurs in urba, drawn from the 19th century act that brought the Heath into public ownership, that means that the Heath is considered to be a bit of the countryside in the city. I have pointed out to them that if it really was countryside, they wouldn't be able to walk all over it, but this doesn't seem to cut much ice with them. They claim that cycling is too dangerous on the Heath, that more of it it would result in lots of injured or dead pedestrians (but why doesn't the existing cycling do this?), and that the paths are too steep and too narrow for cycling. They claim even if more cycling did not cause injuries, it would worry pedestrians and put many off from using the Heath entirely.

Many of the people who argue like this want to remove cycling from the Heath entirely. The often say they are "pro-cycling", but that they believe the cycle paths should be on the roads surrounding the Heath. These roads are of course narrow arteries full of large volumes of fast traffic going round the Heath. The Heath is even crossed by two busy roads: North End Way and Spaniards Road, but this does not seem to alter their rurs in urba concept, whereas, apparently, connected cycle paths would shatter it. Obviously they have never been as far afield as Richmond, or even Hyde Park.

One answer to the claim that the shared-use paths are too narrow is to suggest building new, dedicated cycle paths. But this suggestion drives these self-appointed guardians of the Heath to a new level of fury. The Heath should not be urbanised, they say. It should not be "covered in concrete", and it should not be made part of the transport network. Cycle paths would be the thin end of the wedge. The next thing would be motorways and housing estates being built on the Heath, destroying its delicate habitats, ruining it for everyone. This is exactly what the Heath and Hampstead Society, they say, has been fighting for 100 years to prevent.

Again, a "preservation of the natural environment" argument is very dubiously used to prevent the creation of useful cycle routes: places where families with children could cycle without quickly coming the the end of the path and a barrier created by a fast, busy road; places where children could be taught to cycle. In this case, the argument is clearly hysterical and used by those who are more motivated by their own narrow local interests than a broad environmental agenda. A compounding factor is the lack of democracy in the governance of the Heath.

So, the relationship of the "cycling as transport" lobby with environmentalism can be a troublesome one. We emphasise the "green" credentials of cycling, but cycling is in fact technology, and part of the industrialised society. It is just another technological solution to the human desire to move further and faster. In the move to promote cycling as "low carbon" transport, we can generate dubious alliances: as I pointed out in an earlier post, Team Green Britain, supporting cycle events such as Bike Week and even the London World Naked Bike Ride is a branch of the nuclear power industry (EDF Energy).

Team Green Britain promote cycling with a heavy "reduce your carbon footprint" message:

Gareth Wynn, Group Director, 2012 Programme at EDF added “As the first Sustainability Partner of London 2012, EDF Energy founded Team Green Britain to help Britons reduce their carbon footprints ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Travelling contributes significantly to most people’s carbon footprint, but cycling is a low carbon way to get around, plus it can be enjoyable and help you get fit at the same time. We’re hoping that Team Green Britain Bike Week will help people get back on their bikes, helping them reduce the carbon footprint of their travel in the long term”.

In my opinion this is the wrong way to promote cycling. In my opinion, virtually nobody starts cycling because the wish to reduce their carbon footprint and be more "green". Look, I am as concerned about carbon footprint as anybody: I am so concerned about my carbon footprint  that I spent £650 of my partner's money recently taking a train to Geneva (first class), when I could have flown (economy class, also at her expense) for £150. But even I, paragon of environmental virtue that I am, did not start cycling in order to save the planet. I started as a child as a means to gain independence. I started again as an adult as it was a cheap and efficient way to get around London (at a time when there was less traffic than there is now). I think we have to treat the people whom we want to get cycling as normal, selfish humans. I think we have to "sell" cycling to them on the basis, primarily, of convenience and economy and fun (so we have to actually make it convenient and fun, so that means getting the infrastructure right first), and, perhaps secondarily, though this comes some way behind, on the basis of health and fitness.

Ultimately, in both promoting, and providing for, cycling, the "less green" approach may be the one we need to get the ecological benefits we wish for in the long term.

Team Green Britain Tosh

In my last post I reflected on the near-impossibility of making a simple bike journey safely in the "Bikeless Borough of Barnet", but the truth is that the situation is not that much better in the "Biking Borough" of Brent, or the apparently biking-neutral boroughs of Harrow or Hillingdon, to name those I am most likely to cycle in of the Outer London Boroughs. I believe the rest are similar; evidence from bloggers in East London and South London suggests this is so.

I have blogged before on another site about this fantastically frustrating situation: about the total, nutty disjunction between the promotion and propaganda surrounding cycling in UK, and the reality of what those who attempt to cycle discover on the roads. I think I'll reproduce that text here (with corrections), which I wrote two years ago, as it's just as relevant now. Here, the boroughs in question are Brent and Harrow.

It's striking how much cycle promotion there is around London these days. You can't get on a tube or bus without seeing posters exhorting you to cycle.

And lots of people do want to cycle. But then come the practicalities. A question we just received on our [Brent Cyclists] Yahoo! group was: "What is a good way to cycle from Dollis Hill to Stanmore?" This cyclist has been on the TfL journey planner, and selected "bike only", and got the suggestion to go up the A5 and over the Staples Corner flyover (where speeds are often in excess of 50mph) with it's terrifying low angle of merging motorway-style slip roads. And one has to answer his question, sorry, but it isn't actually possible to cycle from Dollis Hill to Stanmore by an acceptably direct route without going through feasome motorway-style junctions, or breaking the law and riding on pedestrian bridges and pavements. Brent south of the A406 North Circular road is completely cut off from north Brent and the outer suburbs, that is the way it is, and no-one in government seems to have a clue how to address that problem, or even to understand what a problem it is.

So, there's a fundamental problem with cycle promotion in this country. It's all upside-down, cart before horse. Government keeps telling people to cycle before the facilities are put in place to make it feasable, safe, and attractive – and, in fact, without there ever being a serious intention to make it so. We keep having cycling festivals and this and that cuddly thing, without ever having done the hard stuff, without having actually built the routes. The so-called soft and hard measures are in the wrong order, which will never work. Logically, it is completely crazy. Translated to another form of transport, it is as if we were railway promoters spending all our budget on advertising our wonderful railway, telling people to use it, but we don't build it, it just doesn't exist. It's just nuts.

Well, maybe as a nation we can't afford to buid proper cycle routes. But it seems we can afford to do the promotion. And advertising doesn't come cheap. Advertising budgets are measured in millions. The cost of, say, a cycle bridge across the North Circular would be millions too. But that would be millions well-spent, it would be a permanent piece of cycle promotion which would not disappear when the poster boards are resurfaced. And if it worked, it would continue working indefinitely – what an investment.

The sad truth is that the cynical, but realistic reply to the qustion about cycling from Dollis Hill to Stanmore is that the best way to do that is to take a folding bike on the tube and cycle the last bit from the station, or, leave a cheap bike permanently at the far end. The tube and railways are how most sensible Londoners without cars cross the North Circular barrier. Just imagine if the tube lines stopped at the North Circular, how divided London would be. That's what we have in cycling terms. We don't have the network, and we are wasting money telling people to use a mode of transport that is not practical.

The brilliant (but unanswerable) Freewheeler of Waltham Forest puts it like this, in reposnse to TfLs "Catch up with the bicycle" poster campaign:

And once the marketing of cycling using sexy models has persuaded you to try out cycling, what next? A world of crap. Like here on the B159 approaching High Road Leyton, last Friday. A signed cycling route on that meaningless farce which goes by the name of the London Cycle Network. Here, the cyclist catches up with London’s ever-growing gridlock. And it’s simply not possible to get past, which is why so many cyclists take to the pavement. There’s a vision of more and more people cycling combined with an absolute refusal to provide the safe, convenient cycling infrastructure that would accommodate mass cycling. Cognitive dissonance, in other words.

What parent would want their child to cycle to school on cycling infrastructure like this? It’s no use Transport for London marvelling at the extraordinary levels of car dependency in outer London when that dependency is nurtured in every aspect of the transport network.

My friend Paul Gannon, who had lived in The Netherlands for a time, and then came back to London and pioneered campaigning for segregated cycle routes in the UK at a time, in the late 1990s, when that was totally unfashionable with the cycle campaign establishment, indeed, looked upon with horror and opposed at every possible turn, used to say that the trouble is that the UK is, in cycling terms, like a partying teenager who won't do any work. We are always having the celebration of cycling first, but somehow never getting down to work on the environment needed to get ordinary people cycling.

That was more than 10 years ago, but, frustratingly, nothing changes. I have just seen this press release from "Team Green Britain". Don't worry if you can't be bothered to read all of it, just scroll through it, as it's just typical UK cycle promotion happy-clappy committee-written tosh.

15 June 2011

MPs on their bikes to kick-start Team Green Britain Bike Week 2011

Team Green Britain Bike Week, the UK’s biggest mass participation cycling event, launches on 15 June at the EDFEnergy London Eye, with the first of hundreds of ‘Bike Fixes’ which will roll out around the country between 18-26 June 2011. 

Spike Taylor, former Team GB chief mechanic, will kick off ‘Britain’s Biggest Bike Fix’ with Dawn Porter, Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Ed Clancy, and a number of MPs from various parties at the annual All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group bike ride. The ride will start at the EDF Energy London Eye and takes the riders on short trip around Westminster before finishing at the House of Lords.

Team Green Britain Bike Week is aiming for ‘Britain’s Biggest Bike Fix’, an ambitious attempt to mend over 10,000 bikes and liberate the multitude of unused bikes from sheds across the country – by encouraging people to dig them out, get punctures fixed, brakes adjusted and gears tuned at events around the country.

Phillip Darnton, Chairman of the Bicycle Association says: “We know that 77% of people in the UK own a bike, but only 14% use them regularly and a major barrier to people getting back on two wheels is often something as simple to fix as a dodgy brake or puncture. 

“So we want anyone with a bike, who wants to get it roadworthy, to help make Team Green Britain Bike Week become ‘Britain’s Biggest Bike Fix’. We are urging new and lapsed cyclists to check out www.bikeweek.org.uk to find out details of their nearest event to re-discover how cycling helps you get fit, have fun and feel free”.

Dawn Porter, TV presenter and keen cyclist says: “Cycling is my favourite way to get around town but I never leave home without my trusty puncture repair kit and Allen key! I encourage everyone to get to a Team Green Britain Bike Week event to pick up a few useful cycle maintenance tips and take advantage of the bike fixes to help you make the most of cycling in the summer months”.

This is the second year in which Team Green Britain, founded byEDF Energy in 2009, has supported Bike Week. Team Green Britain is an online community that aims to enable people to live in a more sustainable way. Team Green Britain is now comprised of over one million members. Team Green Britain and Bike Week are again working together to inspire Britons to reduce their carbon footprint and promote low carbon transport solutions to a wider audience than ever before.

Gareth Wynn, Group Director, 2012 Programme at EDF added “As the first Sustainability Partner of London 2012, EDF Energy founded Team Green Britain to help Britons reduce their carbon footprints ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Travelling contributes significantly to most people’s carbon footprint, but cycling is a low carbon way to get around, plus it can be enjoyable and help you get fit at the same time. We’re hoping that Team Green Britain Bike Week will help people get back on their bikes, helping them reduce the carbon footprint of their travel in the long term”. 

Team Green Britain Bike Week runs from 18-26 June 2011 and is for everyone from total novices to passionate cyclists. The opportunity to get your bike fixed is just one of the attractions of the events – to find details of your nearest event visit www.bikeweek.org.uk.

In 2011 Team Green Britain Bike Week is funded by EDF Energy and the cycling industry via Bike Hub. For more information about Team Green Britain, and advice and ideas to help you save energy and money, visit www.teamgreenbritain.org.

Who are "Team Green Britain"?. I looked on their website to try to discover, but under the link, "What is Team Green Britain?", instead of just telling me who they are, they insisted on presenting me with a mind-numbingly soppy and banal video involving conspicuously multicultural people waving green union flags. But elsewhere I read:"Team Green Britain was founded by EDF Energy, the UK’s largest low-carbon electricity producer, and London 2012." So they are a kind of quango funded by one of the near-monopoly utility companies. Which explains, I suppose, why the have escaped incineration in this government's famous "bonfire of the quangos". EDF of course wouldn't support incineration, because they are trying to de-carbonise us. That's why they generate most of their electricity from nuclear, then promote wasting it on light pollution:

Team Green Britain Website: just look at all that light pollution in the background. I don't call that "green".

Well, why do I say, so insultingly, that their press release above is "a load of tosh"? Because it is. It patronising rubbish to suggest that the reason, or even "a reason", for the low levels of cycling in the UK is that people do not know how to mend a puncture; that bikes are languishing in garages up and down the country (as they undoubtedly are) simply because of want of a bit of 3-in-1 oil. While it is true that many bike owners will not know an Allen key from a sprocket, is it really the case that they they do not know how to open their purses to pay a man in dirty overalls who does? Do they not know how to find a bike shop, or how to use a plastic payment card? I am sorry, I cannot swallow this claptrap. The reason people leave bikes languishing in sheds is not because they cannot fix them up. As the recent study by academics at Lancaster University confirmed, the reason is because they don't have a safe and pleasant environment in which to cycle. In a phrase:


IT'S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID.

The reason I have just typed in capitals, is because I am trying to shout. I am angry about this.

IT'S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID!!!


That's better. Except that it's not, really. Because there is this Environment Issue Avoidance Industry operating in UK cycling. Freewheeler noticed it in his devastating critique of the Brent Biking borough Report, where he commented:

This MVA Consultancy report does a professional job of identifying the poor condition of cycling in Brent. However, it doesn’t diagnose it because it is incapable of understanding the reasons for it, and therefore its cures for the condition are rather like medical cures of the pre-modern era – a mixture of quackery and superstition. All the traditional cycling folk remedies are here – cycle training, signposting, promotional activities, recycling old bikes – and none of them will save the patient.

It has been much the same for decades, as David Henbrow noted, looking back in 2010 at the British National Cycling Strategy from 1996.

The longer Team Green Britain, or any of the other organisations in the Environment Issue Avoidance Industry that is most of UK cycle campaigning (and, yes, this means you, CTC and CCN) keeps wittering on about how people are not cycling because they "lack training", or "lack confidence on the roads", or "don't know what to wear in wet weather" or "can't find the right routes" or "lack the skills to repair a bike", or any of these other bits of patronising tosh, the longer we delay solving the problem, the more years go by with derisory levels of cycling in the UK, the more money we waste on ineffective cycle promotion and pointless studies of cycling, the more people take up cycling and then quickly give it up again, the more people die of avoidable obesity-related health conditions and from the effects of pollution, the more we destroy our cities and countryside with motorways and concrete and car-parking, the more we live in de-humanised car-centric communities, the longer we fail to get to grips with transport-related CO2 emissions leading to more global warming.

Please sign up to the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain's campaign for proper, effective cycle infrastructure in the UK.

Impossible journey in the Bikeless Borough of Barnet

This long blogpost starts by not being about its actual subject, which is a real journey, but by connecting it to recent events. But, be patient, and all will be revealed.

According to BBC news, Andrew Boff, Conservative London Assembly Member, who was mentioned here in the previous post as one of those who walked out of the chamber thus preventing the debate on 20mph on Blackfriars Bridge, has claimed:

The walkout had nothing to do with the issue of Blackfriars Bridge or air pollution.

This is part of ongoing action that the group is taking in response to the Labour, Lib Dem and Green party groups voting en-block to prevent Conservatives from taking up the proportional number of committee chairmanships, thus depriving the 40% of Londoners who voted for us a voice.

He also told the Evening Standard:

The walk-out was in protest at the refusal of the Greens, Labour and Lib-Dems to share committee chairmanships. It's not that we don't care about the 20mph limit- we spend a lot of time talking about it. My instinct is that it should be 20mph.

If Boff thinks we should have a 20mph limit, it would be nice if he hadn't prevented the Assembly from taking a vote to send that message to the Mayor. The Conservatives on the Assembly seem to consider their little strategic war on the committee chairmanship issue (and note that these committees are purely advisory and have no power over the Mayor) to have a higher priority than discussing the vital life-and-death issue of danger faced by vulnerable road-users on London's streets. Readers can decide themselves how reasonable they think this position is.

It is certainly not the case, however, that the other Conservative AMs agree with Boff. Gareth Bacon and Victoria Borthwick have sat on the fence in their replies to constituents asking about 20mph:

Clearly the key is to ensure a balance for all road users. Just as it was important to protect the bridge for cyclists, it is also important to ensure that all traffic flows at a reasonable rate.

(Note that that this reply shows they understand nothing about the relationship between traffic flow rates and speed limits in a congested environment: slower top speeds normally lead to better flow.) On the other hand, Brian Coleman (aka Mr Toad) is characteristically clear in his view:

The speed limit is a matter for tfl not me but I do not support 20mph zones they are unenforceable but anyway traffic cannot get anywhere near that speed at this junction

Now Coleman, as is well-known, sees London from the passenger seat of a black cab, paid for by Council Tax payers (he has given back his free Oyster Card as he never uses it), from which the speedometer would not be visible. So clearly he has no idea what speeds actually are anywhere. But we know that Coleman has no concerns bout the safety or convenience of non-motorised road-users. He never has had. As well as being the AM for Camden and Barnet, he is on Barnet Council (representing one of the wealthiest and most car-centric areas in London, Totteridge, in the far north of the borough), and is now its Cabinet Member for Transport & Environment. Putting Coleman in charge of that portfolio may be fairly likened to putting Ratko Mladic in charge of race relations.

Coleman's career is objectively documented on Wikipedia. As it says there, without distortion, he has "built up a reputation as an outspoken supporter of car driving". One of his actions as head of Transport in Barnet was reported in the Hendon & Finchley Times earlier this year as being the axing of school crossing patrols. More generally, the themes of his tenure of this office have been the removal of traffic-calming measures, the removal of on-road cycle lanes and banning of cyclists from off-road paths, removal of bus lanes, the widening of roads and junctions, increasing of parking and narrowing of pavements in Barnet. Despite all this excellent work, there are signs now, however, that he may now be falling out of favour with the car-loving voters of Barnet, as he is finding the need to support the extravagant recent hikes in allowances to Barnet councillors, in the context of the cuts in general council funding, by raising money from increased parking charges.

Be this as it may, long before all this, cyclists in his GLA constituency of Camden & Barnet knew all about him. In response to an e-mail from Paul Gasson, then co-ordinator of Camden LCC, in 2001, Coleman wrote:

Thank you for your e-mail of 8th November regarding London Cycle networks.

It is true that the Transport for London budget for the year 2002/3 does not include a budget for the London Cycle Network.

I am not, however, prepared to make any representation to the Mayor over this for the simple reason that I consider cycle lanes to be an unnecessary obstruction to cars, for which of course, roads were built.

I do not intend to be facetious over this matter, however  many motorists are thoroughly tired firstly of the delays caused by the building of cycle lanes, followed by the further delays when the completed lanes encroach on road space, coupled with the fact that they are so drastically underused that they regularly provoke outrage at the pointless wastage of public money.

I hope that this is an adequate expression of my views.

Yours sincerely,

Brian Coleman

On another occasion, in response to a similar lobbying letter from an LCC member, he wrote something like (I cannot now find the actual text) "Hell will freeze over before I support spending money on cyclists".

So that's our Brian. Who is, let it be said, is very good to his mother, making her Lady Mayoress during his spell as Mayor of Barnet. I hope she stays safe on the roads, so well managed by her son. Her chances are not good, however, as Barnet now has the worst road safety record of any London borough.

There are, as readers may know, so-called "Biking Boroughs" in London. I have criticised this empty, woolly, underfunded Johnson concept here before. But Barnet was clearly never going to be one of those. Barnet, as a consequence of Coleman's policies and those of his Conservative colleagues and predecessors, is now a a Bikeless Borough.


OK, there are cyclists in Barnet. Some of them are in the local LCC group, Barnet Cyclists. As may be judged for their website, however, they are mainly a leisure-riding group, not a campaigning one (uniquely within the groups making up LCC), and most of their riding is, sensibly, in the countryside and not in the Borough of Barnet. There is also an annual "Bicycle Rally" in Barnet, called the Greenacre Bicycle Rally (why "bicycle", not "bike" or "cycle", the more normal UK terms?) Brent Cyclists is taking part in this event this year, and in consequence of this, I happened yesterday to be cycling from Kingsbury to Finchley, trying to chart a west-east course through Barnet that would be suitable for inexperienced riders, families and children, cycling from Brent to the Greenacre Bicycle Rally. I have to say I failed, because what I was trying to do is impossible. There are no safe, attractive routes suitable for inexpert cyclists through Barnet. That is why this is "The Impossible Journey". Everywhere one attempts to find a route in Barnet, with the the aid of the TfL London Cycling Guides, one is stymied by major infrastructural problems: lack of suitable crossing points of linear barriers (motorways, railways and trunk roads), fast and dangerous roads with cycle-unfriendly junctions, and petty and pointless bans on cycling in non-motorised spaces (note that I was trying to make my route completely legal, so as not to bring LCC into any possible disrepute).

If you cycle from Kingsbury to Finchley the major linear barriers in the urban fabric that you have to traverse are the A5, the Midland Main Line, the M1, the A41, the Northern Line (Edgware Branch), the A1, the Northern Line (Mill Hill Branch) and the Northern Line (High Barnet Branch). That's eight linear barriers. O these, six these have no satisfactory crossing points, "satisfactory" meaning without heavy, fast traffic, and legal to cycle on or across. (The Northern Line (Edgware Branch) and Northern Line (mill Hill Branch) do have reasonable crossing points).

I decided to approach the first of these barriers, the A5, from Kingsbury on Cool Oak Lane, which is a London Cycle Network route. It is slightly scenic, with a narrow, signal-controlled bridge across the Welsh Harp Reservoir. Unfortunately, it is also a narrow race-track rat-run with blind corners: a quite intimidating environment for inexperience cyclists, but the best I could find. It would be nice to be able to turn right into Park Road off the A5, meeting it from Cool Oak Lane, but that potentially quiet route for cycling eastwards and crossing the railway and motorway is rendered impossible by a barrier in the middle of the A5. A gap in the barrier for cyclists to turn right would be quite possible, but it is one of those trivial oversights that make cycling in these suburbs a headache that such has not been provided, despite being suggested many times to uninterested Barnet traffic officers.

Barrier in the A5 at the Park Road junction, from Google Streetview

Since Park Road is actually two-way, it is possible to cross the A5 on foot (taking your life in your hands) and continue to cycle east on Park Road. But if you stick to cycling in a totally legal fashion, you have to go north up the A5 to the A504 Station Road, do a right there, then a dangerous right off this fast road and a back-street left-right-left to Park Road – a circuitous route, and a nasty rat-run, as lots of cars and vans do this, particularly kamikaze minicabs, zooming round the tight corners. When I have attempted this legal route I have been harassed by them. This is supposed to be another LCN route: another LCN failure.

Back to Park Road: if you continue eastwards the route is satisfactory and you can cross the railway and motorway, but then you come to the next barrier, the A41 dual carriageway with its big barriers.

The A41 at Park Road/Beaufort Gardens

There is a dingy and menacing pedestrian underpass here, as you might expect – standard UK pedestrian environment – as a minimum. But no cycling allowed.

A41 underpass, no cycling, but the red ring on the sign has faded out. Sympathetic background of storm clouds.  

The TfL London Cycle Guides mark places like this, labelling them as "no cycling allowed". On earlier editions, in Ken Livingstone's time, they were marked as "please walk your bike on this section of the route". So, a politically-motivated change, but same difference. Funny how the road network for motor vehicles doesn't have crucial gaps where you're not allowed to drive. That would be just stupid, wouldn't it?

There is a failure here to understand the disbenefits of forcing mixed mode journeys. Walking is a different mode to cycling, and walking a bike is different again. When Dr Beeching, scourge of the British railway network, closed all the branch lines, he thought people would still use the railways in the same numbers as before; he thought they would just use a different method, bus or car or taxi, to get to the nearest mainline station. He didn't realise that if you force mixed mode journeys, they become far less convenient, and people won't do them anymore. They will go by car so they can go all the way by the same mode, because one mode is always much more convenient than two. So it is with telling people they have to dismount from their bike. They loose most of the benefits of going out with a bike in the first place. Trying to use the bike becomes a pain, and they choose another mode, usually the car. In passing, that's why TfL's attempts to get people to use the hire bikes to go to the Olympics will fail, because the nearest docking station to the Olympic site at Stratford will be at Victoria Park, 20 minutes walk away. It won't be worth mucking about with the bikes.

So, back to our Impossible Journey in Barnet. After walking through the underpass under the A41, it is possilbe to cycle via Cheyne Walk and Shirehall Lane, and under the Northern Line (Edgware Branch), to Hendon Park. Here there is a cycle route marked on the TfL guides, through the park. It isn't marked on the park at all, so it's legality is unclear to me. This can be followed northwards on to the West View path – a very narrow shared-use space. The main thing that is wrong with the West View route, however, is that whenever it meets a minor residential road, it gives way to it, and there is no concern in the design off the junctions to limit the speed of cars crossing this quite important pedestrian route (not so important for bikes as there are few cyclists in Barnet) or to allow pedestrians easily to cross. in fact, the junctions are not designed at all, they are just blocked, as we see here at Sydney Grove, where the route is blocked by railings that force pedestrians and cyclists to do a detour round and where they have to cross a fairly dangerous road with poor sight-lines due to parking.

West View path junction with Sydney Grove

At least cycling is allowed here, which is exceptional for a path in Barnet. Perhaps Coleman hasn't noticed this one yet. Since this path insn't taking me in quite the right direction to get to Finchley, however, I must divert off eastwards via Someset Road and Chapel Walk. Yes, walk again. Here  perfectly feasible W–E route is again prevented by "no cycling" roundels.

Chapel Walk. Walk!

Chapel Walk leads to Brent Street, where you can, as a pedestrian, just about negotiate a crossing into Victoria Road, an attractive little lane, on the other side. This is a "suggested route" on TfL Cycle Guide 3, but problems come where this intersects with the LCN route marked in blue, as both the N–S options, Alexandra Grove and Hillview Gardens, are marked as one-way southbound. I think this may be a mistake in the guide, and one of them should be one-way northbound. I followed First Avenue northwards, where a met an incredibly dangerous blind corner with the A504, here called Finchley Lane, and still as full of 30 limit-exceeding motorists as it was when it was Station Road. However, use it one must, as there is no other method of crossing the A1 going in the direction of Finchley. One can speed down into the A1 junction as it is in a valley. At this point on my journey, a passenger in an overtaking car thought it was amusing to shout something incomprehensible at me as he passed at high speed. No big deal, this happens all the time to cyclists in the UK: insults, spit, water from pistols, beer cans, or other material objects, hurled at cyclistsin frightening moments from the passenger seats of cars travelling at high speed. But the fact that it happens all the time must be a reason why many less hardy souls give up cycling quickly. And it happens more in places like Barnet, which are Bikeless Boroughs, than it does elsewhere.

We are nearing Finchley now, and there is a traffic-free cycle route, marked in green on TfL Guide no. 3, that goes in roughly the right direction, along the course of the Dollis Brook, through Windsor Open Space. Except that it has now been closed to cyclists. This is obviously a very recent development, as the  roundel signs look new.

Welcome to Windsor Open Space says the sign at left. But not you, you with the bike. Remember, Barnet is officially a BIKELESS BOROUGH.

So it seems Barnet has now removed the one slightly helpful off-road cycle route that existed in the borough. However, they have not removed the blue LCN signs, which still in places point mournfully to such suburban shangri-lahs as Hendon and Whetstone, now inaccessible to the cyclist who does not want to tangle with the ratrunning hooray Henry and Henrietta drivers of Barnet. So, stymied, I go back to the A504, now called Hendon Lane, and turn off at Cypress Avenue and cycle through the surprisingly pleasant "village" at Claremont Park. In this area a lady ferrying children in her little blue car tailgates me on the narrow parked-on-both-sides street, on which I occupy the centre ground as overtaking is not safe, and I am going quite fast anyway for this residential road. She hoots her horn, and eventually forces an overtake, pushing me into the dooring zone. Standard motorist behaviour in a Bikeless Borough, and she is showing the children early how cyclists should be treated. I wonder if any of them want to cycle.

On this occasion I found a better road under the Northern Line (Mill Hill Branch) than I had used before. Dollis Road, under the viaduct, is deeply unpleasant: narrow, with speeding overtaking traffic, centre islands just where you (and overtaking cars) don't expect them, and a terrible road surface (Barnet has given up maintaining it's roads in the current climate (financial as well as meteorological). Crescent Road is much nicer, but then, where it meets Nether Street, the junction layout prevents you cycling northwards into Nether Street. I got off again to do this manoeuvre. So, as so often, a piece of engineering designed to prevent residential rat-running by motorists catches cyclists, through mere thoughtlessness on the part of council officers not interested in cycling, and prevents them from finding a decent route. The Dollis Brook walk continues further north, and I lookied ito this, but again, cyclists are not welcomed.

Lovely Barnet: graffiti-covered welcome to Riverside Walk, but no cycling again. Becoming something of a theme, isn't it? If you're on a horse you're out of luck as well. "Roads for motorists, paths for pedestrians" could be the Coleman Barnet motto.

Never daunted, I then investigated a different option again for getting to North Finchley, the marked blue LCN route on the TfL Guide that runs on minor roads parallel to the Dollis Brook just east of it. But I found that has a very dangerous junction where it gives way to a particularly bad E–W rat run in Barnet, at Sussex Ring/Argyle Road. I eventually concluded the best way to North Finchley, and best way to cross the Northern Line (High Barnet Branch) was via Nether Street, which crosses the line at West Finchley Station. This road is a horrible, twisty, constricted rat-run with terrible surfaces as well, but it seems slower and therefore less risky than the straight rat-run of Argyle Road. Where it meets the A598 and the A1000 at Tally Ho Corner, there is nowhere to go except north, without tackling the giratory system, which takes the skills of a full-fledged fast vehicular cyclist used to crossing multiple lanes of fast traffic, but that is my destination, as, apparently, the Bicycle Rally will be there – at the Arts Depot, the elegantly-named Barnet Council-funded arts centre, which lurks inaccessibly (to pedestrian and cyclists) in the middle of the giratory.

So that was my Impossible Journey in Barnet, which, on Sunday, I will do, hopefully, with a group of keen Brent cyclists. Congratulations if you have stuck with this.

Brent Cyclists, through Brent and Harrow Assembly Member Navin Shah, asked the following question of Boris Johnson in April:

TfL have said that the main potential for cycle growth in London lies in the Outer London Boroughs. Some of these, for example Brent, have been designated as “Biking Boroughs”, and are eligible for small funds from TfL, while neighbouring boroughs are not eligible for these funds. Given the target for cycling mode share of 4.3% by 2026, how does the Biking Boroughs scheme in its current form aid integrated cycle provision in London?

The answer came back:

All Outer London Boroughs were given the opportunity to become Biking Boroughs at the end of 2009. Following a competitive process which evaluated the level of commitment and political support for cycling in boroughs, 13 boroughs were awarded Biking Borough status in early 2010. Each borough has since developed a Biking Borough Strategy to inform their Local Implementation Plans (LIPs).  The Biking Borough grants will supplement this.

All boroughs are encouraged to work together through their sub-regional partnerships to ensure their delivery plans are integrated with those of their neighbouring boroughs.  In addition, all boroughs are able to use their LIPs transport funding to promote cycling and deliver cycling infrastructure where this is seen to be a local priority.

So, an extraordinarily hands-off approach there from Boris Johnson, this supposed champion of cycling, in saying that boroughs will only deliver cycling infrastructure "where this is seen to be a local priority". And if it is not? No cycling infrastructure, as in Barnet. Authorities like Barnet are completely free to opt out of Boris's "Cycling Revolution". Not much of a revolution, is it, if you happen to live in one of these boroughs?

Barnet Council has created a Bikeless Borough. There is virtually nothing for cyclists in Barnet except cycling on the traffic-choked, boy-racer filled main roads and residential rat-runs. No cycle lanes, paths, parks, home-zones, nothing like that. In Brian Coleman's Barnet, there is no room for the bike. Bikes, as he said so clearly in his email to Camden Cycling Campaign, just get in the way. It will get even worse when the TfL/Barnet Council changes to the North Circularl/A41 junction at Henlys corner get built.

Well, as a final thought, I must retreat from that statement slightly. The Bikeless Borough is 95% the fault of Barnet Council, but I put the other 5% of the responsibility at the door of local cycle campaigners. Granted, they have had a particularly difficult political situation to deal with in Barnet, but, also unfortunately, Barnet Cyclists, the LCC group in Barnet, have been led for some years by a gentleman named Jeremy Parker, who though a very personable chap, I have to say has completely wrong ideas about cycle infrastructure. He seems to have got these ideas from John Forrester, leader of the vehicular cycling sect in the United States, and vehement opponent of cycle lanes. Parker did, indeed, live and cycle for some time in the States. Parker's ideas are written down here and here. As these documents date from about 14 years ago, my apologies to him if he has significantly altered his opinions in the meantime, but I don't think he has.

Jeremy Parker's most characteristic idea, that he often articulates, is that:

The entire street London street network is already the London cycle network

That is, cyclists don't need any other network, anything special. He is therefore in general opposed to "cycle facilities".

I am afraid to say that in the state of Barnet's cycling environment today, you see what happens when the councillor who believes that "cycle lanes are an unnecessary obstruction to cars, for which of course, roads were built" meets the cycling campaigner who believes that "The entire street London street network is already the London cycle network". You get the Bikeless Borough of Barnet.

Blog posts that have impressed me today

Mr C at MCR Cycling of Manchester has written a piece which thoughtfully draws parallels between the promotion of waste recycling and the promotion of cycling, showing "the limits of elective behaviour change".

Over in Copenhagen, unfortunately, they are suffering from a new bout of "road safety promotion" – that strange phenomenon which seeks to place the responsibility for avoiding crashes squarely on people trying to negotiate the roads without being encased in a metal box, rather than attempting to mitigate the source of danger, the fast-moving and carelessly-operated metal boxes themselves. This is what Mikael Colville-Andersen calls classic "ignoring the bull messaging", i.e. the car as the "bull in society's china shop". That latter post is a "classic" and worth a read if you have not read it before.

Finally, if you are familiar with the documentation that has gone with cycle campaigning in the UK in recent years, you will likely have seen before the photograph that Freewheeler of Waltham Forest, in his usual brilliant fashion, looks into closely, establishing its vital true context. It turns out, it was really quite misleadingly used, and this sheds a light on CTC's understanding of cycle facilities and safe cycling conditions. Another great public service done by Freewheeler.

I am off for 5 days to Geneva now, to see CERN. I will leave any readers with something almost as remote from cycling in the borough of Brent as it is possible to get, though in fact the picture was taken from Brent.

This is the North America Nebula, NGC 7000 (the only NGC number I can ever remember), with the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) to its right, some 1800 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus, taken early on Wednesday morning. I am very pleased with how this image has turned out, as it was taken with relatively cheap equipment: an ordinary 66mm ED refractor, focal reducer, and a Canon EOS 400D DSLR (astro modified by removal of the IR filter) and with internal light pollution filter, that I bought 2nd hand for £350. Plus of course the mount – that was the expensive part. Also it was taken with only 28 minutes exposure in 2 minute subexposures from highly light-polluted Edgware with the sky already lightening towards dawn. Yet it is the best picture I have achieved of this object, which just shows how good the commercial DSLRs are now: almost as good as CCDs.

You can see the full-size image here if you wish. My other astrophotograhy is on this site.

No cycling in lift

My partner Helen captured this on her phone in a lift in Coventry station. The sign in the middle says "Riding of Cycles Prohibited". Cyclists here in the UK are used to encountering "No Cycling" signs everywhere, but this really takes the biscuit. If you are not allowed to cycle in a lift, where are you allowed to??!

It reminds me of the developers of the Brent Cross Cricklewood Development who, in early discussions with Brent Cyclists and others, proposed the idea of a cycle route through their site that would be linked to the road (the A5) via a lift. The general ridicule which ensued from this cased them to back down and propose a spiral ramp (another poor solution). But that they could even conceive of such a thing shows how unbelievably far from understanding utility cycling many of the most powerful people in Britain are.

Then this also puts me in mind of Boris Johnson's ludicrous Thames cablecar project, that, unbelievably, looks as if it might really be built (I'll believe it when I see it). This has been well-critiqued here. Boris finds it too difficult to get the tubes to work well (they operated without problems on all lines for only one day last year), or to build cycle highways that bear the slightest relation to that name or are of the slightest use, but thinks it is a good idea to spend more money than it would take to fix these problems on a techno-folly on an epic scale that will do nothing for the basic transport needs of Londoners. Unfortunately it looks as though construction will be started this year, so it would be too late for Ken Livingstone to stop it, were he to be re-elected in 2012.