You said it yourself
Jan.09, 2006, filed under Miscellany
“You get to 4% and, on any trip in a car, you see a cyclist,” says Lougheed. “Drivers start to use the left-hand mirror more. They get used to cyclists being part of the traffic. And cycling becomes a stronger part of street culture and fashion. It’s seen as cool.”
So says the Cycle Officer for Darlington, which, along with Exeter, is one of the six cycling demonstration towns. It’s a great thought, and an admirable ambition. Sadly I can’t help but think that the portion of the budget they will be spending on infrastructure means that even if they do increase cycling to 4%, so many of those cyclists will be on segregated paths and out of the way that it will not be enough to cause the phase change they seek.
I’m hoping that the people in Exeter will be able to tune their thoughts away from visions of green paint and shared paths, and realise that the tipping point they seek, whereby cycling becomes part of street culture and is ‘cool’, will only happen if the cyclists are on the street.
Seems obvious, really, but it’s amazing how readily people miss the obvious.
Leave a Reply
-
Singularity
~something that is singular as (a) a separate unit, or (b) unusual or distinctive manner or behavior; PECULIARITY;
~the quality or state of being singular;
~a point at which the derivative of a given function of a complex variable does not exist but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists;
~a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole. Sight
