Circular Vehicling Campaigning.

This is a tale of 3 roundabouts:

One near Vienna that has shown to be good for cars but dangerous for cyclists.

http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/oesterreich/1564400/Tulln_Kreisverkehr-fur-Radler-unsicherer

and one in the UK designed by an bunch of cretins, to be paid for out of cycling infrastructure funds and approved by cycling organisations.

http://departmentfortransport.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/bedford-borough-council-traffic-department-you-are-a-bunch-of-cretins/

Both are designed purely for cars and both have cycling organisations encouraging cyclists to take the lane for better safety.

I could go on and try to explain why this is stupid but Austrian and some British cycle campaigning organisations clearly think they know better than the Dutch.  They are clearly not listening to anyone who tries to explain why the Dutch systems work and that putting yourself in the way of something dangerous is not a natural response normal people will choose as a pleasant method of stopping that thing from hurting them.

The third roundabout is the downward spiral of the road environment. If we really care about main stream cycling, and want the society our children live in to benefit from its many positive effects,  then we have to break the circle of expecting cyclists to behave like cars and drivers to behave like cycles.  This only creates more people forced to use cars even for short urban trips and road design focused on coping with higher and higher volumes of dense motor traffic.  The resulting conflict and pressure for space polarizes groups and makes sensible policy politically impossible.

MaHü

Soon 2 districts in Vienna vote on the MaHü project.  This has created a lot of discussion and interest about public space and it's use, which I think is a really good thing. 

I have my opinion and I am interested in the discussion.  However when you engage with some activists who are opposing traffic calming you quickly realise they have no problem with making totally wild statements that have no references or basis on reality.


There is a very patient, well written and researched blog post here: http://blog.sektionacht.at/2014/02/zwoelf-mythen-zur-neugestaltung-der-mariahilfer-strasse/ (which I hope you will read and use for those bullshit bingo moments).

I try to keep an open mind but one side of the argument is frankly completely fucking nuts, and has more to do with political polarizing than anything I understand to be based on reality.

Picture from wikipedia showing the the apparently good old days when motor traffic was free to create traffic Jams (while looking for parking spaces), buses got delayed and the (very few) cyclists got doored, while pedestrians squeezed along crowded footpaths.

The vision that came out of the Dialogue Process that will be fully implemented if those crazy Greens are allowed to take away freedom and ruin Vienna.