Velo-Cities – in search of why a city should convert its transport policy to favour cyclists and pedestrians.

What’s a city anyway?

In Heathcote William’s eloquent poem-book Autogeddon a city is viewed by an extraterrestrial. They conclude that the primary inhabitants are cars inexorably connected to large buildings. Carbon-based life-forms move the vehicles along sophisticated transport routes. To buildings in other parts of the city, to other cities.

A city, according to Wikipedia is “a large human settlement” facilitating the interaction between “people, government organizations and businesses”, possessing “extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication”[i]. The Guardian draws on a 1907 “rule of thumb” that a city is “home to at least 300,000 residents, a distinct identity … and a good record of local government”[ii]. Across the Atlantic a city “is a legally defined government entity. It has powers delegated by the state and county and the local laws, regulations, and policies are created and approved by the voters of the city and their representatives. A city can provide local government services to its citizens.”[iii] Which is quite similar to Wikipedia’s definition.

Cities house and facilitate the smooth interactions socially, economically and politically of large numbers of people

Heathcote William’s aliens are mistaken. Cars do not figure in the definition of city. At least not directly.

As I walk a thin strip allocated to pedestrians sandwiched between buildings and a large strip of asphalt devoted to People In Cars (PICS), it’s not hard to conclude the right of the vehicle exceeds the right of the person and that Heathcote’s aliens have a point.

When I get on a bicycle and ride in a city my conviction that the right of PICS and vehicles exceeds mine, even though I am now a legitimate ‘vehicle’ using infrastructure I’m obliged to, only increases. Pedestrians are separated from vehicles so the antipathy is reduced. And every PIC ultimately becomes a pedestrian.

Cyclist are a hybrid: part pedestrian, part vehicle. Not every pedestrian and not every PIC rides a bike as a form of transport.

Numerous conflict points arise in a near continuum as I ride through the city. I’m in the way when PICS want to turn left or right or even go straight ahead. I dodge car doors opening, jaywalking pedestrians and PICS coming out of subterranean portals who just don’t see me. At traffic lights I’m obliged to be a ‘vehicle’ but am not accorded the space offered larger four-wheeled vehicles or faster two-wheeled motorised bikes. If I act as a pedestrian, pedestrians scowl and growl as they attempt to cross the same intersection or road when the Green Man allows them. Rarely are there any places to park anywhere near where I want to be. Secured to a lamp-pole or other immovable object on the sidewalk pedestrians grumble about the hindrance it causes. If I try to leave it in a bay for ‘vehicles’ the PICS make sure I know it’s not allocated to my kind of vehicle. Many businesses have ‘Do Not Park Bikes Against The Wall/Window’ signs.

I am too fast to be a pedestrian. And I’m too slow to be a legitimate and equally treated user of vehicle transport infrastructure: roads and streets. And parking areas.

Why do people not ride in cities? It’s dangerous. It takes effort. Effort is a personal issue. Making it as easy as possible for people to ride facilitates riding. That means the infrastructure has to be in place, it is safe to ride, the various road users are educated about cycling, there are convenient places to park, and, ideally, a shower available in the office.

Who am I: vehicle or pedestrian?

Cycling occupies a unique place among transport mythology. Part pedestrian, part vehicle. In many cities cyclists are encouraged if not obliged to share transport infrastructure with pedestrians. In others they have to share the roads with motorised transport. They also have to obey the same laws as motorised transport. There is nothing remotely the ‘same’ between a car and a bike.

Cycling with pedestrians is a nightmare. Cycling with cars is a nightmare. The pedestrian loses, the car loses, the cyclist loses. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation.

Sharing a main arterial road with two or three lanes of tightly packed cars travelling some three-times faster than I is intimidating. Although we’re obliged to obey the same traffic laws, out of courtesy we’re encouraged to keep close to the side of the road. Most times a vehicle will give a cyclist a wide berth when they pass. But not always. Sometimes because there’s a car in the next lane. Sometimes because the driver simply doesn’t care, or out of resentment or, perhaps worse, ignorance of the risk several thousands of kilograms of metal object represents to one-hundred kilograms of human-on-a-bike. It is inordinately frightening to have a car pass with but ten centimetres to spare.

Vulnerability

The OECD’s 1998 report on Safety of Vulnerable Road Users[iv] points out that “high speed sport cyclists increase risks for the other vulnerable road users. Especially (on) combined routes for both pedestrians and cyclists.” A ROSPA fact sheet reports “Per billion vehicle miles, 1,011 pedal cyclists are killed or seriously injured, in comparison to 26 car drivers” in the UK[v]. That’s a brutal 42-times difference. For adults 84% of accidents involve a collision with a vehicle. The consequence of thousands of kilograms of 4-wheel disk-brake safety-belt SIPS air-bag steel-casing safety features around a person versus several hundred grams of bicycle helmet. Most deaths are due to head injuries.

Whilst “failure to look properly” either on behalf of the cyclist or driver is the largest contributing factor, interesting to note is the inclusion of “‘cyclist entering the road from the pavement’ (including when a cyclist crosses the road at a pedestrian crossing)” as the “second most common contributory factor” accounting for about 20% of serious collisions. And which most likely include a combination of both factors.

Cycling on a dual-use (cycling-pedestrian) path puts the pedestrian at risk from the faster moving cyclist. Even a very slow cyclist moves at double walking pace of 4 to 5 kph. A sports cyclist will be travelling 25 – 30 kph if not more. Six times walking speed.

Dual-use paths are not transport corridors.

They’re recreational. Great to walk along, to cycle with the kids, enjoying a winding languid tour. The sportster training and the commuter commuting want efficient cycling paths, a reliable transport corridor along which they can ride. Fast moving sportsters and commuters do not belong on recreational dual-use cycling paths. Dual-use paths often have confusing and dangerous road and intersection crossing. They do not facilitate fast efficient and above all safe movement of cyclists.

Why try to ride a bike in a city? What’s the point, the benefit?

Cities are ostensibly built on my behalf, as a resident or user of the services offered by it. Or both.

It’s not unreasonable to think then there should be a lot of pedestrians and cyclists in a city.

PICS don’t actually do anything for a city, except cause pollution and pose risk. A PIC has to exit their vehicle become a pedestrian, and then they effectively contribute

Old World cities and the old parts of New World cities had to be retrofitted to accommodate the car. Whilst new New World cities, like those in Australia and America, are designed around them.

Geometric grids, large arterial roads dividing into smaller and smaller internal roads bisecting a city.

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Medieval future cities

An article by Grace Lisa Scott describes architect David Galbraith’s opinion that future cities will be designed more like medieval cities because they won’t be designed on behalf of the car. Instead, cities are expected to be designed for … People[i]. 

Many of Europe’s major cities have struggled to adapt to the car. Amsterdam being an example. In many medieval cities the inner sanctum where the main square is, is often pedestrian-only, like in Tallinn, Estonia. In recognition that cities are not for cars, but for people. I’m also sure it’s because it’s simply impossible to have cars negotiate the tight convoluted paths designed centuries ago when there were only people, and the odd horse, to consider.

1000 jumbo jets crashing every year

But today’s cities kill: local air pollution. Today’s lifestyle kills too: sedentary, high-stress, decreasing mobility and activity, highly-processed foods high in sugars and salts causing an obesity epidemic driving up a long list of health impacts from type-II diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses, respiratory and skin irritations. We – the citizens of cities – are increasingly an unhealthy tribe.

Local air pollution contributes to (ie: doesn’t directly kill) the ‘early deaths’ of lots of people. 400 000 in Europe per year[ii].

Local air pollution kills the equivalent of 1000 Boeing 747 jumbo jet crashing in Europe every year. Like, 19 a week, two every single day.  

Add the uncounted but undoubtedly far more who are regularly sick on their way to having their life shorted by local air pollution, then the cost of local air pollution is enormous. “The Cost of Air Pollution” an OECD report from 2014, calculates that some 3 million people die from outdoor air pollution globally every year, for an eye-watering cost of 3.5 trillion dollars US. Approximately half of that, 1.7 trillion USD, is due to road transport[iii].

Transport’s hidden costs

Transport contributes to human-induced climate change too. Road transport contributes 20% of the EU’s CO2 emissions[iv]. Avoiding runaway climate change is essential to avoid severe disruption to our way and our quality of life. “Significant reductions” in transport emissions are needed, according to the European Commission, “if the EU is to achieve its long-term climate goals”.

Fossil fuels are on their way out. Aside of the environmental and social cost, there’s security of supply which can be erratic and severely impact on the purchasing power of consumers as fuel prices increasing in excess of wages.

These are the ‘hidden’ costs of transport, so-called externalities. The costs the owner/driver do not pay directly. These are the costs we – all of us who live in cities – pay, even if we do not own nor drive a car. TU Dresden’s 2008 report on The True Costs of Automobility is one of many analyses of externalities of transport across the EU. They looked at accidents, air-pollution, noise, climate-change (low and high) and other and concluded that externalities cost 373 billion EUROs across the EU27, for the high-climate change effects. 3% of EU27’s GDP. Or 285 billion EUROS for the lower-climate change effects (table 4 page 34) [v]. If you are in the EU our current transport system costs every man woman and child 750 EUROs every year, whether you own or drive a car or not.

The current transport system costs the EU 373 billion EUROs in hidden costs every year: 750 EUROs for every man woman and child.

Not everyone owns a car

Dargay (et al) concluded on average 25% of households in the EU “do not have a car available for their use” in 2001[vi], whereas average car ownership in the EU is 500 per 1000 people[vii]. An individual may have access to a car that’s owned by someone else in the same household. A household without access to a car means no-one has access to a vehicle. Since there are over 500 million people in the EU[viii] that means some 125 million people have to find a non-car way of accessing the social, recreational, commercial, retail, economic and political services in a city. Including access to education, shopping and work. That’s a lot of people disadvantaged by prioritising development of cities around car transportation.

The benefits of cycling and walking

With local air pollution contributing to significant deaths and costs, an obesity epidemic unfolding globally whilst fitness levels plummet negatively affecting quality of life and contributing to escalating health costs, climate change forcing even reluctant countries to implement mitigation and adaption strategies including reducing dependency on fossil-fuel which drives up transport costs, exasperated by nearly seven billion people expected to be living in cities by 2050[ix], and that pedestrians are at risk from cyclists who are at risk from cars, then there is no shortage of reasons to re-think the entire urban area transport approach.

No shortage of reasons to re-think the entire urban area transport approach.

In 2011 Copenhagen had the enviable statistic of 36% of journeys to school or work done by bike. However, so many cyclists caused congestion, aggressive riding and attitudes and lack of parking[x]. Copenhagen’s existing infrastructure, tailored to the car, can’t cope even with cycling lanes 3 – 4m wide in comparison to the UK’s 1.5m wide lanes. I was in Beijing in the very early 90s long before China’s economic miracle really took hold. There were entire high-ways of cyclists, tens of thousands in thirty-metre wide torrents entering the city in the mornings. The air was clear, with no smog.

Cycling is a mode of transport (not just recreation)

Cycling, like it was in Beijing in the 80s, needs to be taken seriously as a mode of transport. It is a recreation too. And it’s a sport. To expect all three attributes of cycling to be accommodated by a single cycling transport infrastructure approach is bound to fail. Pedestrians and recreational cycling kind of get along, with due care. But not pedestrians and commuters or transports or sportsters. Cars and road transport and cyclists do not mix either.

Cycling as a mode of transport needs to be incorporated into a city’s transport infrastructure, legal, social, economic and environmental frameworks.

Urban areas, cities – those geographic entities based on lots of people – need to have cycling incorporated into their transport infrastructure, legal, social, economic and environmental frameworks. Each street, each road, each highway needs to have dedicated cycling lanes, wide enough for projected growth of cycling. A long-term (possibly endless) cycling education and awareness program needs to be implemented to educate all road users – pedestrians, cyclists and motorised – to cycling as a transport mode. Similar to road safety campaigns. Starting with children in primary school and rolled out across all ages of drivers and users.

As Copenhagen shows, if infrastructure isn’t planned properly it’s inevitable that congestion and parking and accident risk will increase. Current cycle-paths assume very low rates of cycle-journeys. Eventually, the size and number of roads solely devoted to cars will have to be converted to cycle paths. Controls at intersections including signage and lights will need to be orientated to cycling, rather than the car.

This will infuriate already irate car drivers. So why would a city prioritise pedestrians and cyclists?

Costs and benefits

Cost. The cost of dealing with local air pollution. The cost of dealing with the noise and disturbance of transport. The cost of dealing with climate change, the cost associated with adopting more renewable energy solutions, the cost of the obesity epidemic, the cost of accidents, the cost to consumers of buying maintaining and operating cars. All those externalities combined with the direct costs driver’s endure.

To stop a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet with 400 people on it falling out of the sky twice a day.

It would, however, cost a fortune to retrofit a city to include cycling as a transport mode. I don’t know the cost of this, having not found an analysis of how much it would cost to convert a medium sized city to incorporate cycling lanes, parking area, plus concomitant education program. The more pedestrians and cyclists the more benefits, so it would have to have a generational outlook.

Given the staggering costs of transport externalities across the EU – that 375 billion Euros – there’s certainly economic justification to implement more pedestrian and cycling orientated policies and infrastructure in cities. Re-designing a city for pedestrians and cyclists cuts costs, both direct and indirect, helps addresses local air pollution, climate change, security of energy supply, and contributes to improved fitness and health reducing demand and cost on health services, and makes cities quieter and more habitable too.

Self-mobility cuts costs, addresses local air pollution, climate change, security of energy supply, contributes to improved fitness and health and makes cities more habitable.

I really look forward to the change from cities designed and built for cars, to one in which the pedestrian the cyclist are at ease and comfort as they make their ways around.