Sunday, 4 May 2014

Shawlands and Strathbungo


Back to Glasgow now! After last weekend's bike débâcle, I finally managed to get my bike in for some attention at the repair shop. As I waited for it to be fixed, I decided to take a stroll around the area to get a coffee and a pastry, as one is wont to on an idle Saturday with no large cycle protests to attend.

Strathbungo

The shop sits on Pollokshaws Road in the heart of the South-side in a small area just north of Shawlands called Strathbungo - an interesting part of the city that straddles the line between more affluent Crossmyloof and Maxwell Park, and the less salubrious areas of Eglinton, (Eastern) Pollokshields and Queens Park. In recent years it's become a little enclave of bohemia, with boutique hipster brasseries like Gusto and Relish and The Bungo rubbing up against traditional working class stalwarts like Heraghtys and The Allison Arms. For a small area, there's quite a bit of cycle infrastructure on display, although it still falls down in key areas of safety and directness.


View Larger Map

Strathbungo lies at the centre of a couple of key local through routes, specifically the North-South route along Pollokshaws Road and East-West routes along Calder Street, Allison Street and Nithsdale Drive/Road/Street, as well as bisecting a couple of train-lines. About 10-15 years ago, traffic routes were amended to create a gyratory system - plans which were vigorously opposed by local businesses and residents - which involved a implementing several one-way streets and the closing off roads to through motor traffic.

At the same time, some cycle-specific elements were implemented to complement. Most of it still survives, but as with a lot of contemporary infrastructure, without maintenance it has deteriorated somewhat. At the same time, there are some ideas that were implemented at the time which seem - in hindsight, quite forward thinking. For example, all the way up Pollokshaws Road, there are examples of raised pavements at junction which give the impression of pedestrian priority.

The concept is good - if only it could be extended to complementing cycle paths
As we shall see later, regrettably this approach seems to have been abandoned for newer projects -  because it's difficult to keep maintained or because it annoys drivers? There's also an example along Torrisdale Street of our old friend the cycle contra-flow, except this time its a fully protected example, whilst still maintaining vehicle parking.

It is possible - why not more of this?
It wasn't perfect though - it's under 100m long for a start. Perhaps it's difficult to see but the lane is also on the wrong side of the road for the direction its intended for (east to west) and is arguably too narrow for a bi-directional route, but the fact that this even exists shows that it's possible. In addition, if you continue the route further towards Queens Park and Victoria Road, you have a potentially useful low traffic route which is shorter than the driven equivalent.

You can also cross onto Nithsdale Road towards Maxwell Park
Regrettably, the reverse is not legal - the eastern end of Torrisdale Street is also one-way westbound, but lacks the cycle contra-flow element. This means that cycles heading eastwards need to divert onto the two-way section of Queen's Drive (albeit turning onto access-only Albert Avenue) or take a detour along Niddrie Road and virtually traffic-free Prince Edward Street - the Glaswegian equivalent of "Quietways".

The western half of Strathbungo resembles something close to the Woonerf's of the Netherlands, namely narrow roads primarily aimed at local access, except minus the lower speed limits. Motor vehicles haven't been removed here, but there's no through roads, with the exception of a narrow lane for bin lorry access at the rear by the railway line.

A little further south, we have another example of what you might call classic filtered permeability, albeit somewhat compromised by the lack of double yellow lines preventing parking across the mouth of the path.

No-one here today but usually that space is taken by a motor vehicle

Heading south along Pollokshaws Road towards Shawlands, you are struck by how wide the roadway is and how underused the space is. Again, Glasgow has done half the job, by taking away some general traffic lanes but without being brave or radical enough to the extra step to make cycling easy and pleasant. Again we have the raised pavements across minor roadways, but that seems to be more about traffic calming than prioritising pedestrians.

No space for cycling here?
As was customary for the time when it was developed cycle provision along here consists mainly of a shared bus-lane in the southbound direction, with nothing on the northbound carriageway. But there's also a median here which appears to serve no purpose that I can see - pedestrians can't (or wouldn't want to) cross here. The southbound pavement by the park is also pretty generous - I walked up here on a dry Saturday afternoon and there was barely any foot traffic other than the odd jogger.


View Larger Map

Continuing on to the border with Shawlands, I was struck by presence of street-lighting attached to the side of tenements, as opposed to the usual free-standing affairs.

A rare sight


Clearly it is possible to do that and, as Glasgow has retained a lot of its traditional sandstone tenements, it seems strange that they haven't made further use of this sort of arrangement. It would certainly help to reduce the plethora of street furniture that litters the pavements.

A pole - yesterday

Shawlands

And onto the crossroads at Langside Road where Shawlands really begins. My fellow Glasgow-based cycling blogger Darkerside has discussed Shawlands at length before, so I won't repeat all of his good work, but there have been a few changes since that post was written which bear comment.

There are apparently plans afoot to transform the area around the crossroads, specifically the Mitchell Halls and surrounds, to turn it into a form of civic square. As you can see in the map and my picture below, there's no shortage of space, but how to allocate it?


View Larger Map

Space for Posters but no space for bikes?
The problem here is the combination of the wide banking left turn (which acts as a traffic light by-pass - the lights across it are pedestrian signals only) and the bus lane. If they close off the left lane, I think the bus lane probably has to go too. Alternatively, they could be radical and ban left turns here altogether, although that would have the effect of forcing more southbound vehicles to stay on Pollokshaws Road, and thence travel through the warren of residential back streets between it and Tantallon Road.

The problem with adding zippy-looking pedestrian-orientated infra on busy through routes - without maintenance it deteriorates rapidly
A bit further along, a section of the main shopping street has been renovated recently (still incomplete), which has widened the eastern footpath considerably and replaced the tarmac with attractive, expensive-looking pink paving stones (similar to what has been done in Merchant City).

Now with added pinch points!


Regrettably, the have also removed some of the raised beds over the side streets, replacing this instead with dropped kerbs:

 
As it is now...
...as it was a little further up the road

Again, perhaps fashion has changed amongst Glasgow's highway engineers but it seems a shame that this idea has been discarded, given that it could work well if combined with segregated cycle paths.

The widened footpaths have definitely to be commended, and it was apparent that some of the local cafés had taken advantage by extending outdoor seating into it - precisely the kind of thing that makes an area seem much more pleasant. They have also retained the on-street parking, but yet again Glasgow has failed to take into account cycling into the design plan.

This new section corresponds to the footprint of the much-reviled Shawlands Arcade on the western side of the carriageway. Space for the extended pavement has been reclaimed by removing the totally unnecessary central reservation, but I would argue that even more could be done by either entirely removing parking from the western side or by reducing the width of the pavement.


View Larger Map

Now I appreciate the latter suggestion seems a bit extreme, but there's a good reason I make it. The footpath at the roadside only really serves the people who park on the road there - the shops are in an elevated promenade and there are only a couple of entrances for pedestrians at either end of the arcade area. Assuming the Arcade stays in its present form (not a given but there are no current plans to demolish it as far as I'm aware), pedestrian through traffic mainly limits itself to the promenade area. Removal of parking would be a more palatable choice but every bit as contraversial, but there is a relatively un-tapped resource - the Arcade's own 300-space car park, which is free for the first 60 minutes. There have clearly been attempts to promote its use recently, as evidenced here:


That provision easily out-numbers the on-road capacity and is significantly cheaper - all it requires is a bit of consultation and some promotion to change driver behaviour to accept this, and all that under-used space could be freed up for better northbound cycle provision (or indeed creating a wide bi-directional path), whilst still retaining loading facilities on the southbound carriageway.

At the top of the shopping area, its difficult not to conclude that something could be done to improve provision here. Look at all the sheer amount of roadspace  in the next picture:

Feel the width!
The room is there, we just need the will. And for all its faults, Shawlands still manages relatively well - the Arcade aside, most of the shops that line Pollokshaws and Kilmarnock Road are populated and not just by charity shops and bookies. There are green grocers, butchers, bakers, little fashion boutiques, as well as a slew of little coffee-shops, restaurants and bars. I even nipped in to "EAT" cafe on the way back - the place that had chided Glasgow City Council for raising parking rates. Maybe if they paid more attention to where there customers actually came from, they'd be more positive about the changes in the area.
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Saturday, 3 May 2014

The trouble with Exceptionalism

I've had a couple of idea banging about in my head for a while which strictly speaking are only tangentially related to Glasgow Infrastructure.  I thought I'd dissemble here. First, an admission:

I don't have a twitter account.

Now, I’m not looking for some sort of hipster medal for this mundane factoid but, for various reasons to dull to go into, I never set up an account (and likely never will). That doesn't mean that I don't use Twitter. Far from it: I'll look at it pretty much every time I use a computer (several instances a day) but perhaps not in the most practical manner. Rather than having a timeline of my own populated by the tweets of those I'm following, I'll simply look up people and read their feeds (it's probable that if you are reading this and you have a twitter account, I may have read yours at some point).

I have a handful of people I "follow". Their conversations (and that of their regular interlocutors) provide sufficient fodder for my reading requirements; albeit often in a fractured, one-sided manner. In the old days of USEnet, this sort of behaviour used to be called "Lurking". (I wonder how many people have lurking followers like me?). Suffice to say, you can end up in some pretty unlikely places, far away from your own little world.

This is how I came across Rita Krishna and Vincent Stops - two councillors from the London borough of Hackney. My sister lives in London and I've visited a number of times but I know relatively little about it or its psychogeography - if we're talking London and its not the City and other central bits, Camden, Holloway or Teddington (where my aunt lives), I'm a bit lost. The most I knew about Hackney up until very recently was that it was a nickname for black taxis. Since the advent of the CEoGB and Twitter, I now know a little bit more about the area, specifically that it has one of the highest rates for cycling in Britain. That sounds good until you remember how truly terrible rates of cycling are in the UK as a whole - hovering somewhere around the 2% mark. Even if painted in the best possible light, nowhere in Britain has rates even close to those achieved in other countries with unarguably healthier cycling rates like Denmark or the Netherlands. In a country like ours with such pathetic modal share, its inevitable that if you dice up the boundaries finely enough and cherry-pick the results, somewhere turns out to be the "best". Places like Hackney should more accurately be referred to as "the least worst for cycling" (feel free to insert your own "one-eyed man" metaphors here).

But not if you are either of the two aforementioned councillors, judging by their twitter feeds. Both seem to be unabashedly proud of their borough's (somewhat arbitrary) record and vigorously defend it, even in the face of what come across like logical arguments from dissenting voices. Here's some examples:








Now a number of things occur to me as I traduce these two people by virtue of my limited knowledge of their wards and the opinions they demonstrate in their twitter feeds. Firstly: could I name any other councillors in any other borough, county or district directly by name? No. Why do I know theirs? Because they are vocal and outspoken. In other words, for good or ill, they engage with people, especially those they don't agree with; a rare thing in the filter-bubbled, group-thinking, bias-confirming modern-day internet. This is what democratically elected figures ought to do of course, but they arguably go above and beyond what is expected - they speak to people both within and without their wards.

Secondly, again for better or worse, they clearly believe what they are saying. I don't doubt for a second that Mr. Stops advocates effectively for mass public transportation, specifically buses. He is clearly very passionate about them and perhaps if I was a bus enthusiast too, I would appreciate this. Anecdotally-speaking (the worst kind of rhetoric, I know!) I have used buses for long enough to be grateful that I rarely need to use them any more, but I recognise that there are many people - particularly in a deprived city like Glasgow where the proportion of households with access to a car is in the minority - who absolutely rely on them, and that they are a preferable option for moving large numbers of people simultaneously, compared to an alternative scenario involving those same people travelling in private motor cars.

But buses are problematic. They are noisy, dirty and often too big for narrow urban spaces. Glasgow's two most polluted thoroughfares: Hope Street (officially the worst air quality in Scotland) and Union Street (a blighted, filthy embarrassment) - are utterly dominated by them. Buses primarily run on diesel, which while being nominally "greener" than the equivalent petrol engine (in terms of efficiency and C02 emissions) generate a whole host of dangerous, particulate-laden fumes. The sort of fumes that harm people, particularly those with chronic aerobic conditions like asthma or emphysema. As with HGVs, the sheer unwieldy bulk of buses presents a physical hazard to other road users; specifically vulnerable ones like pedestrians and people on bikes. Even in my pre-cycle advocacy days, I recognised that mixing bikes and bus lanes together was a terrible idea, not least because of the short-term speed differential. People on bikes tend to go at roughly the same speed at a constant rate - buses start, accelerate and stop suddenly - thus creating a scenario of the two vehicle types leap-frogging past each other. Anyone who has ever had a tailgating bus growling behind them will know this problem instinctively - the resentment and frustration emanating from the harassed, (probably) poorly paid driver is palpable.

And yet Mr. Stops appears to think they are the golden solution - he would like to see more people using buses and seems to think nothing of bikes mixing happily with them. He also thinks that Hackney serves cyclists well. Now it is easy for people well-versed in the language of cycle campaigning to dismiss him as deluded, which he may well be. But at the same time, this man, a person with the life experience, knowledge of local government and the necessary rhetorical skills to communicate and persuade people to vote for him, has come to this conclusion: Hackney is good for cycling. And in a sense, he is right.

The pity is that it could be so much better.

In a similar vein, Mrs Krishna also appears to think cycling is well-served, although she comes at it from a slightly different angle to Mr. Stops. She advocates mainly for pedestrians. This manifests itself in a combative approach to dealing with cycling advocates, often employing somewhat tortured logic to get her points across:




She seems to see urban geography as a zero-sum game, with anything perceived to be detrimental to the pedestrian as an affront to be vigorously opposed. She seems to view cycling as distinct minority pursuit for privileged eccentrics, rather than one of several complementary modes of transport, which fluidly segues between pedestrian and vehicle.






By denying the benefits to both sets of road users of implementing good cycle infrastructure, Mrs Krishna creates a false dichotomy - either cycles or pedestrians - which is ultimately detrimental to the well-being of both and ignores the primary problem source: the over-riding deference to motor vehicles. Either a wilful disregard or an apparent lack of imagination prevents her from seeing that the family that "can't walk together holding hands" without an vastly expansive pavement just might (if conditions were favourable) make the same journey by bike and might enjoy it better if they did. Pedestrians and bikes needn't be in conflict with each other. The same goes for wheelchair users or those who use mobility scooters - improving cycle infrastructure invariably helps these groups too. And yet Mrs Krishna ties herself in all sorts of rhetorical knots to create this unnecessary conflict:




Thus reading her time-line descends into a depressing zero-sum game of brinkmanship, invective and victimisation.






I feel part of the problem is due to the two councillors belief in the intrinsically special nature of Hackney. They believe that the sorts of tried-and-tested solutions offered in such things as the Dutch CROW manual aren't applicable to Hackney's unique situation. From what I've seen through the narrow window of twitter and the internet in general, positive things have been implemented there. Some of the techniques employed - route unbundling, filtered permeability - are tools in the Dutch kit for creating cycle-friendly cities. Other approaches - the dogmatic commitment to the removal of one-way systems, regardless of utility - are less progressive.




A cycle route is only as good as its weakest point: it doesn't matter how good individual parts of it are, people will not use facilities if the parts in between - in the case of Hackney, major thoroughfares like the A10 - are still just as hostile and frightening as ever. There are elements specific to Hackney - a younger population, a lower level of car-ownership, a lower density of Underground stations - which explain its relative success in cycling despite the conditions: not because of them.

(As a slight aside, its funny how when foreign observers saw the first autobahns being developed in 1930s Germany, no-one appears to have said "Oh well, that might work okay in Nazi Germany but it's just a part of their fascist culture. It wouldn't work here...". Instead, there was immediate recognition that autobahns were a universally better, safer way to transport large volumes of motor vehicles between cities in short time-frames - of course, the downsides of the sort of urban sprawl they enabled wouldn't be apparent for decades.)

There is a firm belief that the interventions of the council are solely responsible for the slightly-above-average levels of cycling. On the contrary, I think its likely that (if it hasn't done so already) modal share will hit what is referred to in mathematics and the study of algorithms as a Local Maximum. This means that it will reach a peak - well below its theoretical optimum (the "Global Maximum")  - and will not grow any further unless a step-change occurs; specifically a change that may well be (temporarily) detrimental. This is a key principle in a technique for solving a family of problems called a Hill-Climbing Algorithm - sometimes things need to get worse before they get better. We accept this as part of normal life - for example, we put up with the disruption caused by roadworks on the basis that the surface will be repaired and improved. And yet when talking about building cycle infrastructure, any impact on other road users or other interested parties (e.g. local businesses and their obsession with parking) is used to justify compromising or simply not implementing changes that could be helpful to all.

Put plainly, if a major change in circumstances doesn't occur in Hackney - namely, the installation of a network of segregated cycle paths on major routes or traffic congestion reaches truly unbearable levels - its likely that cycling will stall and stagnate, as the borough runs out of the sort of people who are willing to cycle in the currently hostile environment, or the churn of people taking up the activity versus those who give it up will reach an equilibrium.

My worry is two-fold: if cycling modal share reaches a (sub-optimal) peak, people like Mr. Stops may well shrug their shoulders and say "oh well, that's the best its going to get. The demand for cycling just isn't there - MOAR BUSES!". Given that what goes on in London can have knock-on effects for the rest of the country, you might have on-looking councils who then say "well, if it can' get any better in Hackney, should we even try?".

Thus it becomes ever more vital that cycle advocates engage with people like Mr. Stops and Mrs Krishna - people who are at least having the conversation about sustainable transport - and hopefully engender a change of heart on their part. That's the hard part of course. The crux of what I'm saying is as follows:

What would it take for someone to persuade me that I am wrong about some area of knowledge where I felt a rock-solid sense of being correct?

How would I even recognise this situation if it occurred? Would I persuade myself that I felt this way all along ("Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia...")? As I write this, I am genuinely struggling to think of a time when I have done an absolute volte-face on something more important than musical taste or brands of beer. The closest I can think right now is my attitude to Shared Space, which has evolved from a position of admiration for its supposed aims and benefits, to one of scepticism. But then this was borne of a detached sense of ignorance - I didn't have a personal intellectual stake in the belief in shared space or otherwise.

I doubt the same thing could be said of the two councillors, whose sense of civic worth seems to at least partly stem from the idea that Hackney's "success" in  cycling, walking and the use of public transport stems from direct interventions by the council. How difficult would it be to accept that, well, maybe your policies didn't have that much influence and that you are fundamentally wrong on key issues such as segregated facilities and one-way systems. Once a level of belief has been engendered in someone, is it ever possible to contemplate a reversal?

Lastly, is it even right to concentrate energies on people like the two councillors? Would it not be more useful to target those who don't engage with the conversation? For example, the refuseniks of Kensington & Chelsea, or the deluded designers of Glasgow's Clyde Gateway, or the silent partners in the backroom discussions that lead to such car-centric monstrosities as this, this or even this?

Maybe the answer is to engage with anyone who is willing to listen, and then persistently badger those that won't. Perhaps more pertinently for me, the solution is not to take what people say on twitter too seriously; lurking is clearly bad for one's mental disposition...
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Saturday, 26 April 2014

Pedal On Parliament

Pop 2014 - Young rider on a balance bike
I was in Edinburgh today to take part in the 2014 edition of Pedal On Parliament, a rapidly growing protest march (?) from the Meadows to the Parliament Building at the foot of the Royal Mile.

As always seems to be the case with me, just getting to the start line was a chaotic rush. My bike has not been working properly since I got back from holiday, with the chain jumping gears seemingly at random, thus making it virtually unusable. As such I've (regrettably) been driving to work for the last week - in other words, re-acquainting myself with all the reasons why we need a proper cycling strategy in Scotland (*sigh*).

Given that I'm rather incompetent when it comes to mechanical things (I can understand them but my hands just don't work properly when there's a screwdriver or a hammer in them!), Saturday was the first proper day I'd have the opportunity to get to the bike-shop to get it looked at. I thought I could just about limp over to the shop, drop it off, then head into town for the train to Edinburgh. About halfway there, my chain decided to snap (second time this has happened recently) meaning I had to do that most inconvenient of things - walk the bike along the pavement.

It was therefore with more than a sense of consternation that I discovered the shop was closed - I really hope it was just because the owner was at PoP! Hence I had to turn tail and head back to the house to drop off the now useless device and then change clothes (despite wearing gloves, I'd somehow managed to get oil on my trousers - curse you, impractical touring bike)! After a bit of fretting and charging about the house, I managed to get safely out and onto the Edinburgh train for 10:45 - Phew!

Hurrying along North Bridge, I just about managed to make it to the start of the route just as the bells and whistles rang out at 12 - PoP was officially starting!
Pop 2014 - at the start of the route
The front of the "peloton"
The pictures don't really do it justice, but the line of people on bikes stretched right the way along the path over to the road at the other side of the Meadows. It was really heartening to see the diversity of the crowd - men, women, children, elderly people; folk on foot, on MTBs, tandems, fixies, recumbents, cargo bikes - a few people even had mobile sound systems! In particular, I was taken by the fact that there was a good mix, sartorially speaking. Not everyone was in hi-viz, lycra and helmets - plenty of folk in "normal" dress, as well as a large contingent of dapper trendy-types (usually on vintage Pashleys!).  If this isn't illustrative of the suppressed demand for cycling, I don't know what is.
Scotland: not really a "cycling country" is it?
Abandoned clothing doesn't disrupt the PoPers!

I suspect the bike counter was struggling to keep up!

Perhaps I missed the memo, but  the pedestrians I saw appeared to be passers by and onlookers - most people taking part were on bikes, which made me feel slightly left out (I really wish the bloody thing was working). In what might be regarded as a foolhardy move, I chose to march on the path with the people on bikes - I wanted people to know that I was part of the event - which meant that I was frequently in the midst of a horde of bikes but there was a friendly atmosphere, with people on bikes looking out for me and each other without incident.
Looking west down The Royal Mile
As I marched down the Cannongait, the main peloton took advantage of the incline and raced ahead, leaving me to walk down the middle of the closed-off street on my own, which made me feel a little silly and self-conscious. Eventually I reached the main contingent at the green outside the Parliament, where I met Sally Hinchcliffe - one of the organisers of PoP and a leading member of The Cycling Embassy of Great Britain. She was somewhat pre-occupied with directing people to talk to their MSPs but it was nice to put a face to a name finally - a common phenomenon of the internet age I suppose...

"The Grassy Knoll", as MC Dave Brennan drolly put it
(I also noticed some of the Cycle Hack contingent hanging about, which reminded me that I've yet to get my ticket - I was a bit shy to go and speak to them unfortunately...)

After a bit of delay while the remaining stragglers arrived, the speeches began. In something of a coup for the event, the first set of speakers were all children, who (aside from some understandable volume issues) bravely spoke really well and articulated the primary issues better than most of the adults who followed. The only exception being the dignified speech made by Lynne McNicoll - co-founder and trustee of The Andrew Cyclist Charitable Trust - who brought home why making Scotland's roads a safer place is so vital.

Keith Brown MSP, not being heckled

The keynote speaker though was notionally Keith Brown, MSP, who was actually more politely received than I expected (having anticipated the sort of reception usually reserved for education ministers at teaching union conferences). In terms of the content of his speech, well he was a little defensive when talking about his department's record, as well as the paltry £4.5M (over 2 years) he conveniently managed to cobble together in time to announce on the eve of PoP. The significance of that announcement seemed to be more about it being sourced across multiple departments including Health and Sport, rather than being wholly from the Transport budget - apparently there is no precedent for this in the Scottish Parliament - than the actual size or use for the funding. Given that PoP are asking for £100M per year, the sums involved in this announcement are clearly inadequate and tokenistic.

The most important element of his speech was the fact that he was delivering it at all. The fact that he was brave enough to attend suggests that PoP is starting to be taken seriously by some at Holyrood - a fact underlined by the presence of Willie Rennie, leader of the Lib Dems in Scotland, who appeared to understand the issues facing people on bikes. He talked anecdotally about commuting from Fife to Edinburgh.

Probably the most disappointing element about the political presence was the distinct lack of a west coast contingent - it was very much Edinburgh-centric when it was supposed to be about Scotland as a whole. As far as I could tell, for the whole of political cohort Glasgow, only Patrick Harvey MSP bothered to attend (apparently Councillor Frank McAveety was there too but I never saw him). In this Commonwealth year, shame on Glasgow's political class for failing to show up. Edinburgh is only a 50 minute train ride away - it's hardly the ends of the Earth!

The biggest cheers of the day (for political speakers) were for Alison Johnstone, Green Party MSP for Lothian who clearly (and predictably) "gets it", with regards to the obvious benefits of building a true cycling culture. Unfortunately the Greens are still very much a marginal (albeit noisy) presence in the Parliament - which underlines why it's even more vital to get the mainstream parties on board.

Dave B with daughter* - that's what it's all about isn't it?
Thereafter, the event came to an end, with people still milling about and chatting amongst themselves. Feeling a bit spare, I departed for a pint in the art deco-themed City Cafe and then headed off for the train. A feel-good worthy day out but one which underlines the continued need for sustained pressure - PoP undoubtedly helps to frame the conversation, but there's a long way to go if the aims of the manifesto are to be achieved. Assuming it happens, I'll be going again - hopefully this time I'll be able to persuade some friends to come along!


(*) I don't make a habit of taking pictures of people's kids in public incidentally, but it seemed an appropriate image for PoP!
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Sunday, 20 April 2014

Cycling in California



For this post, I'm going to describe my impression of cycling in California, specifically San Francisco  - somewhat of a diversion from the usual subject of this blog. For the last few weeks, I have been holidaying in the Golden State. Part of our itinerary involved three nights in San Francisco, notable for having one of the highest cycling modal shares in the USA - I couldn't resist the opportunity to try it out.

Before I start the discussion, a few caveats:
  • Probably a bit controversial for a cycling advocate to admit but my holiday was - first and foremost - a driving holiday; therefore a proportion of the observations were made from the seat of car
  • With that said, as when on holiday, we walked a lot and made use of public transport in SF
  • We mainly drove during off-peak hours - we tended to avoid the busiest periods - thus might not have had a realistic perception of traffic and congestion
  • Cycling provision and modal share across towns, cities, counties and states can differ enormously
  • I was there primarily as a tourist and was thus concentrated on enjoying myself - I wasn't there specifically for a study tour
  • My impressions and perceptions are my own - it's very likely that I've made errors of fact or incorrect assumptions
  • For the more egregious errors I make, I welcome comments from residents or people better informed - please, please let me know!

California

Venice Beach, CA
Firstly, I'll take a look at my impression of cycling in the state as a whole, bearing in mind I only actually got on a bike in SF.

Intinerary


Here's a rough itinerary of the whole trip:


View Larger Map

As you can see, we covered quite a lot of Pacific, Central and Southern California, as well as a couple of (fairly weird) days in Las Vegas, Nevada. We spent the greatest amount of time in the big cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Palm Springs - almost all of the other places were daytime visits or overnight stop-overs.

General

I think it bears stating the obvious first of all: like other parts of the US I have previously visited, California is overwhelmingly set up to accommodate motor vehicles. Cars are - almost without exception - given the highest priority. Aside from congestion and traffic (a big aside, I know), it is generally convenient and comfortable to drive about; there is simply so much space allocated to you. From the sprawl of Los Angeles and the so-called "Inland Empire", to little provincial towns like Pahrump NV, most roads are at least five lanes and often widen to seven  - pretty much all of them feature a central lane dedicated to making left turns (equivalent of our right turns). Most towns are arranged in traditional grid-iron layouts, meaning you tend to travel along a die-straight road between seemingly endless arrays of crossroads. Local, minor highway infrastructure that would count as a major trunk-road in the UK are ubiquitous.

A typical street in LA
Urban zoning thus caters for this car-centric mindset with most businesses being sited in strip malls, large "big box" retail parks or on their own standalone lots with parking round the back - thus somewhat paradoxically, on-street parking is almost non-existent except perhaps in the busier high-density down-town areas. This means that there's often a lot of space by the kerbside that rarely exists in the UK (this will become relevant in due course).

Traffic Law

Traffic laws also prioritise traffic, with "jay-walking" (i.e. pedestrians crossing the road away from designated areas) being an offence and with some peculiarities relating to red lights. Unless otherwise stated, you can make a right-turn on a red light if there is no obstruction - you are merely obliged to stop, then "yield" (give way) to vehicles coming from your right or to pedestrians on the crossing to your left. One strange (but paradoxically welcome) consequence of this  arrangement is that waiting times for pedestrians are much shorter, because the pedestrian crossing phase cycles much more frequently (as they don't have to wait until all four arms of the junction are at red). Other than traffic lights, stop signs are the primary means of controlling traffic at junctions: four-way intersections with stop signs at each are a common arrangement; European-style give-ways are relatively rare.

Clearly there are potential problems here because it relies on drivers being aware of pedestrians and their willingness to stop, which could create conflict. Perhaps because US drivers are continually stopping and yielding, combined with the ambiguities of the red light and the four-way stop - it comes naturally to look out (is this not one of the principles of shared space after all)?

Speeds are on the whole higher than in the UK. Most roads have a 35 mph speed limit or higher (25 in school or in some residential zones). Aside from parks or civic squares, I only recall one instance of a pedestrianized zone (indeed, the only other examples I can remember seeing in previous trips to the US are Times Square in New York and Main Street, Memphis TN).

Cycling

As is hardly surprising, motor traffic is legion. What is thus perhaps more surprising is that cycling is common here too. Against my expectations, even "the city where nobody walks" - Los Angeles - has a large contingent of bike users. I believe this is facilitated in part by the acres of space on the carriageway, the lack of on-street parking and the peculiar traffic laws (thus legitimising red light jumping). Painted cycle lanes are a common sight on many streets, although they share similar problems with their UK counterparts, namely that they tended to abandon the rider at junctions and provide no explicit priority (although I guess one might use the pedestrian phase to traverse it). Some painted cycle lanes have an additional painted buffer with solid hatched lines which provide a little extra distance and the subjective sense of separation (despite no physical barrier). I do not recall seeing any protected cycle paths, although off-road sections through parks existed. Suffice to say, I saw very little in the way of filtered permeability, which seems like a lost opportunity, given that the grid-iron layout of these cities means there are often multiple routes to the same destination (and thus scope for diverting motor traffic away from some routes).

Signage and painted symbols explicitly warn drivers to be aware of bikes and to "share the road" - on roads with narrower lanes, you'll often see things called "Sharrows" which indicate to drivers than people on bikes will be in the middle and have  priority (this perhaps indicates the vehicularist mindset that underlies US cycle policy). Anecdotally, I have heard that some states have laws which require cycles to yield to traffic behind it if they are "causing an obstruction", which appears to be if more than 5 cars are queuing behind them - whether or not this applies in California, I'm not sure, but the presence of sharrows suggest it might be the case.

A (slim) majority of bike users I observed wore helmets but it certainly wasn't universal. Perhaps as a function of the climate (hot, sunny, dry) and the geography, very few urban riders were kitted out like how we typically view "the cyclist" here - the vast majority wore normal (weather appropriate) clothes and shoes - almost none of it "hi-viz". There were a lot of people riding fixed-gear bikes, either the typical "hipster"-style fixie or (my favourite) large, heavy-looking cruiser bikes.

Like this but usually brightly coloured
I never got the opportunity to ride one of these beasts but they were available to hire at resorts like Pismo Beach, Palm Springs and in Monterey (I curse myself for not checking to see if you could hire them in SF!). One of the more pleasing sights towards the end of the trip was at the Coachella Music Festival, where it seemed that hundreds of festival-goers cycled to and from the venue on precisely this sort of ride, evidenced by the lines of them locked to fences at the entrance (contrast to Scotland's big festival T in the Park, where almost nobody cycles).

Much like this... (not my picture incidentally!)

San Francisco

Bike Hire

One of the things I'd wanted to do months before I came to the city was to cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge - I knew this was possible by virtue of people who had done it previously suggesting it. You can cycle over the bridge to a little town called Sausalito in Marin County and get the ferry back to the city. 


I consulted our guidebook and came across a few options for hiring bikes - none of the suggestions were terribly close to the down-town area we were staying in. There was one past North Beach, which (in hindsight) was actually relatively close to the bridge but we also wanted to have a go at cycling around Golden Gate Park, a lovely rectangular park with similarities to New York's Central Park, although in my view slightly misleadingly named, as in reality its not particularly near to its namesake bridge.


One oddity about San Francisco, which has a large public transportation system - MUNI for buses, BART for its metro system, as well as the world-famous hill-climbing street-cars - doesn't seem to serve the western part of the city particularly well, with only the buses going west of Van Ness Avenue. Hence, after a somewhat disconcerting walk through the rather sketchy Tenderloin area we had to hop what seemed like the slowest possible trolley bus through the Civic Center to the Haight-Ashbury district (you know, "Haight-Ashbury"...? Flower power, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane etc. Ask someone less square!), replete with slightly scary passengers talking to themselves...

Hiring a bike

We arrived at the hire centre, which was at the eastern gates of the park. Aside from the vehicle, it was a similar experience to hiring a car, namely filling out a form, adding on the extra charges for insurance and the damage excess waiver (!) and then providing a credit card (with the ubiquitous ID request). Somewhat disappointingly, the only bikes available were generic (albeit well-maintained) mountain bikes - no cruiser bikes for me unfortunately. It took between 5-10 minutes to get set up and ready to go.

I should add that, at this point, I saw the park on the little map they provided, as well as what looked like a continuation of that park up the coast and round towards the bridge... perceptions can be deceiving, as we were to discover.

Golden Gate Park

We set off through the park, which has some surprising features, namely that a whole lot of traffic drives through it, specifically Highway 101 ("El Camino Real") - as the name suggests, a very busy road which makes its way directly across the park and on towards the bridge. I took one look at it and thought "well, we're not going that way!". Thankfully, there are relatively traffic free routes around the park, although to my surprise (given what I know from Glasgow parks) there were multiple restrictions on where you could use the bike. Mainly these were bike lanes on the road, albeit with a large painted buffer between you and traffic. We travelled along John F. Kennedy Drive down a gentle slope towards the western coast and the Pacific Ocean.

After a quickly dipping our feet in the water, we headed northwards to what turned out to be a fairly steep cliff to what I presumed was the rest of a trail towards The Presidio and henceforth to the bridge itself. My cycle partner - not a seasoned commuter cyclist like me - started to complain about the additional unexpected effort. It's difficult from a map to appreciate the geography of the city, in particular the numerous steep hills that dominate it. I hadn't anticipated this particular set of climbs I must admit. After a bit of huffing and puffing, we turned into Land's End Park and followed what was marked as a cycle trail, which I expected to take us to "El Camino Del Mar". We cycled on until we reached a large, steep set of stairs... followed by yet another steep set of stairs!

At this point, my cycle partner doubted my navigational skills, so rather than face the 2nd flight of stairs, we turned back and headed towards Point Lobos Avenue, which seemed to take us back towards the city (and another large hill to climb). We turned up towards Clement Street, where I took this picture:

Looking South - this is quite a steep hill
But at this point, my companion was at near breaking point, not particularly liking the exertion, the hill or indeed cycling on the roads with traffic. So we took a turn-off at the Legion of Honor and diverted back down Camino Del Mar to... the set of stairs we'd turned back from earlier (if I'd held my nerve...). So I didn't in the end get to cycle over the bridge, although we did get to travel over it a couple of days later ... by car:

Not as much fun though...

As for the rest of the hire, we dotted back through the park again, although this time we travelled along the much less forgiving Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, which again entailed cycling completely with traffic - in the end, we bailed from the roads and (illegally) carried on the footpath - such was the unfriendliness of the traffic and the parked cars (again, in the middle of park - why?).

Dropping off the bike was fairly easy, albeit by the time we returned they were getting pretty busy with other customers. It's a pity that a more local hire service couldn't be found to make it a bit easier to explore the city - albeit the hills make that a daunting prospect. This is precisely the sort of place where I'd expect a bike-share scheme to come into its own, which brings us nicely into the next section...

Bike Share

I'd been hunting about for SF's bike-share scheme since we arrived and I finally came across it during my aborted attempt to visit the Museum of Modern Art at the edge of the SoMa district - remember kids: check the website before you travel, otherwise you might find your destination is closed for refurbishment (!) until 2016. Having a few hours to kill, I headed along Market Street, a long wide avenue that cuts diagonally south-west across the down-town area from the bay at the Embarcadero to the famous Castro District and beyond. It's notable for being really pretty much flat (certainly compared to other nearby streets!) and for being a major thoroughfare for public transport -  MUNI, BART and streetcars all have hub stations here. There are numerous shops, department stores and even a Westfield centre.

Getting the bike

I happened upon the 4th Street bike station as I was wandering up Market and decided to investigate. Similar to London's bike-share scheme (which I'd not had the courage to try out last time I was there) you have a line of bikes deposited in docking stations, alongside a little kiosk/auto-teller device. For unregistered, casual users like me a credit or debit card is required to make use of it. The hire process is similar to the way you might buy a rail ticket at an automated teller - except with a few more options. After what seemed like several minutes of clicking through screens (most of which appeared to be liability disclaimers), I had paid my $9 for 24 hour usage (free for 30 minutes per hire, thereafter a sliding scale of charges for every additional half hour) - contrast this with the flat rate of $2 for a one-way ticket on the MUNI which we took to Golden Gate Park the previous day.

A little ticket printed out, providing me with a 5 digit (base-3) code to take to the bike and enter to unlock. At this point I made an error - for some reason, I typed my code into an empty docking bay (I think I momentarily got confused about where you had to enter this code - total idiot!), which was duly accepted and proceeded to unlock my non-existent bike! In a panic I tried re-entering the code into an occupied dock but it wouldn't accept it! I returned to the kiosk, concerned that I'd be counted as having "rented" an invisible bike and would be charged the full "lost bike" amount. Happily when I re-swiped my card, I was immediately issued with a new code, which successfully released a bike. Phew! Perhaps they don't think anyone would be daft enough to try an empty dock but it would have been better if it had recognised the lack of a bike and had rejected my code in the first place. In any case, I checked out my newly acquired steed (you ought to do this first, it occurred to me later), verifying the brakes functioned and that the seat was adjusted correctly, thereafter I set off along the street towards the Embarcadero. I should add was wearing sandals, shorts and T-shirt at the time - no special clothing required!

The bike itself is a little heavier than my own but it is very comfortable (albeit not ideally proportioned for my 6'3" frame), with swept back handle bars and a wide, chunky (well cushioned) seat. It has seven relatively low-ratio hub gears (given the hills, this is probably for the best), a set of permanently-on lights and a little basket area, replete with stretching rope-tie. One odd thing for me was that the gear changer rotated counter to the way I'm used to - hence I sometimes found myself in the top gear at the junction or would find my legs comically whirring at pace whilst in full motion as I shifted lower in error.

I felt a little rush of joy as I swept along the cycle lanes of Market Street at a relatively gentle pace. I found myself un-harried by the cars in the lane to my left, nor indeed was I bothered much by the trolley buses and street-cars that otherwise patrol the route. Perhaps because I am relatively comfortable mixing with traffic, combined with the wide Californian streets which afford a bit of confidence. It's easy to be seduced by the relatively care-free nature of this sort of cycling; the weather, the sight of other (normal) people on bikes. For a moment, I genuinely had a feeling of the sort of ordinary, stress-free cycling that people in the Netherlands take for granted. However, this changed a little as I reached the Ferry Building.

The Embarcadero


View Larger Map
 I found out later that this road had once been the site of a large two-level expressway which was damaged during the 1989 earthquake and subsequently demolished - if only Glasgow's council had the courage of San Francisco's mayor Agnos, who pressed ahead with the removal of this once polluting eyesore on the shore of the Bay, in the face of vociferous opposition from local business interests (sounding familiar?)

The resulting space has opened up the bay-front area - which as the name "Embarcadero" suggests consists of a series of landing piers for ferries and cruise ships - and is now a major tourist area (trap?), regularly overflowing with pedestrians, generally pottering about buying chintzy souvenirs or catching the ferry over to Alcatraz. There is however still a two-carriage roadway going north-south, which is where the problem is. There are painted cycle lanes on the roadway and thats the route I took northwards to Pier 39.

Looking at the map as I have been writing this blog, I notice that there's seemingly a parallel cycle path on the pavement but I assure you that this wasn't particularly clear - what you appear to have is a shared pavement; a textbook example of why these arrangements don't work properly if there's too many people on foot. Suffice to say, I remained in the cycle lane.

This is where it starts to unravel. Despite removing the express-way, this is still an exceptionally busy road, filled with slow moving motor traffic (although thankfully it is no longer directly linked to the nearby Bay Bridge). I was heading northwards and it should be noted that there are no further right turns here - all the junctions ahead (other than bays for taxis and buses) came from the left. And yet cycles are still expected to stop at all red lights, which I duly did. And the lights took what felt like aeons to change - I was passed several times by less patient cycles who (naturally) passed safely through the junction against the red light.

Suddenly, without warning the cycle lane just gave up and I was back in amongst the cars - this is the point where my Glasgow cyclist instincts kicked in and I reverted back to a quick, aggressive vehicular style of riding. I was also starting to panic somewhat as I couldn't find a docking station and was keenly aware that my 30 minutes time limit was rapidly running out. This is where my initial fears about bike share schemes were realised - how do you find a station?

Station-hunting

Now it will be argued that bike share is merely intended as a form of public transport: you start off at point A and you get off at point B, just like you would a train or a bus. It isn't necessarily meant for someone to just drift about aimlessly on. In hindsight, what you clearly need to do is examine the map and identify the station you want to stop at, but this still requires a degree of navigational competence and awareness. If you get on a bus or a train, the stops are generally called out and (unless you are particularly unlucky) the driver will know where he or she is going - it's just a case of counting off the stops and waiting for the appropriate point to jump off. Bike share schemes don't have the benefit of this - you are on your own.

It turns out that there's a Bay Area Bike Share App which can help you with this (although I'm not sure if it features navigation functionality to guide you there step-by-step) but again this wasn't clear when I set out to use the service (I don't recall seeing it being advertised at the docking station). What would have been more useful would be the inclusion of bike share stations on Map applications, in the same way that metro and bus stops are usually - then you could make use of the sat-nav feature (bearing in mind this would use up some precious and ludicrously expensive international roaming data).

I can't remember which junction I turned off the road onto, but I tired of being held in queuing traffic on the Embarcadero, so I opted to change to a parallel road (Front Street), which to my astonishment turned out to be almost empty of traffic. "Why aren't the cars here?" I thought to myself.

Eventually, after fruitlessly circling about looking for the blasted docking station, I elected to turn around and come back the way I came, heading back onto the busy bay-front road. This time, the road layout was more complicated, due to the numerous right-turns. Here, the bike path will often divert left over into the second lane to allow right-turning traffic to cross the cycle lane and hug the kerb - in other words, a design for conflict not a million miles away from what I found on the Clyde Gateway.


View Larger Map

Mission Street

I bombed as quickly as I could down the road and turned right onto Mission Street - as this was down-town, I did encounter on-street parking which required me to adopt a traditional primary position. Note, the "sharrow" on the road in this next street-view image:


View Larger Map

On Mission, the bike lanes are replaced in favour of the more familiar (to me) bus and bike lanes, which meant sharing with taxis. At this point, I'm firmly out of holiday-pottering mode and fully into a defensive cycling mindset - although how refreshing to do it without all the accoutrements of British cycling (namely helmet, hi-viz jacket etc. - I'd recommend trying out cycling in sandals incidentally). However, I'm starting to sweat profusely (not just due to the warm April afternoon), which isn't my idea of calm, normally clothed utility cycling. My aim was now clear - find a station back where I came from in time to meet my partner at 5pm. After more fruitless journeying down Mission, I looked to my right and noticed this pedestrian pathway - the pedestrianized zone I referred to above:


View Larger Map

... but there was no indication whether or not I could use this on a bike! Thus I had to carry on a further two blocks to 5th Street, in order to turn back on myself along Market to the 4th Street docking station - the only location I knew for certain I could return the bike to! So there I was - a bit of a sweaty, dishevelled mess returning to where I had left, probably about 30 minutes over my time - but arrived safely.

Thoughts

As I hope I indicated in the text above, I found the overall experience of using the bike-share to be pretty good. Clearly there were problems finding a docking station but that could perhaps be mitigated with a bit of forward planning. The big problem is still the obvious one - infrastructure. I still can't really fathom why cars are permitted on the Embarcadero - there seems to be no real reason for traffic to be there (other than that required for access to the piers perhaps) - it certainly wasn't a convenient way to travel. It seemed to me that it could be directed away via other parallel routes, or perhaps motor traffic could be restricted to one side of the street-car tracks (the western carriageway), with the remaining lanes being given over to pedestrians and bikes. It would also be nice to permit northbound bikes to bypass the junctions completely - there's no need for the continual stopping and starting next to noisy, dirty traffic.

One thing I didn't touch on above - like a lot of bay area public transport, the bike-share scheme is overwhelmingly concentrated in the eastern down-town areas, specifically around Market Street, in what appears to be a mirror of the BART metro station layout. I'm guessing this is intended to allow BART users to transition quickly onto bikes for the so-called "last mile" journey - perhaps with destinations such as SoMa or North Beach in mind. The westmost station is at the intersection of Market and Van Ness Avenue (a major trunk route northwards to the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin County and beyond), at the threshold of the Lower Haight. As I pointed out in the bike-hire section, the only ways to get west of this point is to walk, drive or take a bus, which seems somewhat disenfranchising to residents in this part of the city, never mind in places like Mission.

I also thought the cost was a little steep for what you get, and it wasn't clear to me how people who don't have bank accounts (let alone credit or debit cards) would have access to the scheme. You don't need a credit card to use a bus or the metro, why for a bike? Given the poverty I witnessed in areas such as Tenderloin, I'd be interested to know if people of more modest means could apply for free access or discounted rates. Otherwise it begs the question: who is the bike-share schemes for?

Was it a good way for a tourist to see a city? Well, the true bike hire scheme allowed a little more freedom (in that you were provided with a lock) but I liked the relative simplicity of bike-share - the fact that the bikes are (in a sense) disposable from the user's point of view. The bike was sturdier and more comfortable than the generic mountain bike we were allotted previously. It's definitely a more fun way of getting to know the city at ground level than, say, getting on a sight-seeing tourbus (and no need to tip anyone on the way either). But the slight stress of not knowing the destination, unfamiliarity with the roads might be a barrier, particularly if the streets lack the required sense of subjective safety.

Whether or not I'd use such a scheme at home (such a scheme is due to be implemented next month) I'm not sure - one of the new stations will be near my house, but this will only be temporary - like the residents of Richmond, SF, the Southside of Glasgow is going to be pretty much neglected by it. I would certainly recommend trying out such a scheme if you happen upon one in your travels though! Just remember to check the map first...
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