tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3805138158441245701.post7303713953452459121..comments2023-11-16T10:44:22.206+00:00Comments on The Mind of a Helmet Camera Cyclist: Anger Will Make me PoPmagnatomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14920774671676488322noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3805138158441245701.post-11237912781654763422017-04-30T14:38:33.723+01:002017-04-30T14:38:33.723+01:00If Wikipedia is correct, then Bearsden is the 7th ...If Wikipedia is correct, then Bearsden is the 7th richest postcode area in the UK, and a "middle-class commuter suburb" whose "residents travel daily into Glasgow." Of these, 73% make the 9km trip into town by car.<br />I don't know the A81, nor the detailed design plans of the separatist infrastructure that you propose, but I suspect M. Johnson understands his would-be constituents only too well. That he pays lip service to promoting active travel, while dog-whistling the opposite to the electorate is nauseating, but hardly surprising in a contemporary populist.<br />Such "leadership" beckons disaster. But as your other commenter suggests, effective measures to reduce dependence on motor travel, such as taxing parking in the centre of Glasgow, or excluding the private car altogether, would be likely be more important in tackling at source the reason why cycling on the A81 is currently unpleasant.Douglas Carnall, @juliuzbeezerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13563159368217318352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3805138158441245701.post-91526428079666626532017-04-22T06:35:47.292+01:002017-04-22T06:35:47.292+01:00Ah Bearsden just a 20 minute bike ride from the We...Ah Bearsden just a 20 minute bike ride from the West End. What? Takes you longer than that in a car - quite possibly as I often see cars clogging up the streets around Charing Cross where I live. We're a remarkably tolerant bunch in Glasgow, just over 30% of households own a car, and most of the time we have vast open streets, with hardly a car being driven in sight. But twice a day bedlam in a car it can take 20 minutes to get from where the car was parked to the Motorway, even longer to get from St Georges Cross to Anniesland, or Canniesburn Toll to Crow Road. Take a look at Dave's videos on the cycle-lane-free Switchback Road - in a 10 minute ride he overtakes around 500 cars. Funny thing us that only happens in the mornings and evenings.<br /><br />But let's get back to Glasgow, and the dreadful pollution and dangerous nuisance of that twice a day invasion of cars, each taking up a minimum of 10 sq metres for each individual person in each individual car, which us then parked in car parks, where allowing for the access ramps etc requires at least 20 sq metres per parked car - spaces that are often occupied all day by one car at a derisory rate of return compared with the earning power of the same plot used for retail, offices, hotels or housing. At a rough estimate there are around 20,000 off street parking spaces in the city centre. Few people who live in Glasgow use them (remember just under 70% of us enjoy the financial benefits and freedom of not owning a car - note that many of us still drive probably nicer and certainly newer cars than our car-owning friends) what happens is that between 4 and 5 pm every weekday that 20,000 car 'reservoir' breaches and floods on to the streets. Even at an optimistic 6 seconds per car getting away on say 10 core routes in 2 lanes that makes at least 100 minutes (approaching 2 hours) for the car at the back of the queue to get clear of the 'car park' With all this harm and nuisance (and cost) borne by us Glasgow residents the solution of closing down the car parks, or managing their use better looks a very promising prospect, and one a few of the Glasgow candidates have on the agenda. <br /><br />To illustrate the 'Homer Simpson' mindset of one of the drivers who used to make use of the free parking outside my house before the CPZ regime was delivered and the mass of badly parked cars vanished overnight. He drove in to Glasgow from Dunblane - he had to arrive before 07.30 to secure the parking space, and avoid the gridlock on the A80/M8, so he ate breakfast and read the paper/listened to the news in his car (and like many others dumped his rubbish in our garden/at the roadside) before heading off for his work at 08.45. To do this he must have needed to get up before 06.00 and away from Dunblane by 06.30. At night the queue to get out from my local streets could keep a driver trapped for 20 minutes to travel barely 200 metres to join the road going to the motorway. Had he used the train he's have had at least one hour longer in bed in the mornings and been home earlier by an equivalent amount. The running costs alone for the car that was parked for over 10 hours a day outside my house doing nothing would have amply covered his rail fare! <br /><br />Remember no one is required to provide any road space for parking - roads are for moving traffic of all types including pedestrians and cyclists, and the metric needs to be on the number of people and amount of goods being moved rather than the vehicles. perhaps sometime we arrange a trial with a cordon line on the Switchback Road (with no cyclelanes) and measure how many people can be moved through the cordon by bike and by car in a 20 minute window (with the facility to keep the supply of cars/cycles maximised by sending them back via the other carriageway to ride/drive through the cordon) Could be an interesting result Dave Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11574227829528072780noreply@blogger.com