Shared Space & segregated cycling

in today's cities

This is a slightly modified and annotated version of the slides for the
presentation on “Segregated Cycling”, part of the Subplenary session on
“Shared Spaces” at the Velo-City conference 2009 in Brussels, Belgium.

The complete set of presentations at Velo-City 2009 can be found online here:
http://www.velo-city2009.com/programme-en/subplenaries-sessions.html

The Velo-City2009, Bruxelles Mobilité and ECF logos are property of their
respective organizations. All original content Creative Commons
with attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) to
Esteban García (egarcia@atizza.eu).

With special thanks for their cooperation to the people in the Ciudad Ciclista
Network (http://ciudadciclista.org).
 Culture shock

This is a view on the present cycling culture in Europe

by a cyclist who was fortunate enough to spend years getting to know his
bicycle and his city all by himself,
without any contact with that culture,
and thus without any preconceptions about what he was supposed to think.
 A paradigm shift
is on the making
in our cities.

Peak oil, congestion, pollution, obesity, deterioration of public spaces…

the dominant model for our cities during the XXth century is at the end of
the rope.

A new model is already here for the cities we want, and Shared Space is just
one of the signs of it.
 We are at risk of
becoming an obstacle
to the new paradigm.

And for the first time the urban bicycle users (or rather, the bicycle
advocates) are increasingly at risk of becoming a conservative and
reactionary force acting to preserve the XXth century status-quo and against
the new city paradigm.

The crucial point of this danger is our attachment to so called “cycling

facilities”, and specifically to segregated cycling structures.
 Segregated cycling

The problem comes with “cycling facilities” which are in fact segregated
structures:

Segregation: keeping motorised traffic in streets while marking specific part of

the streets’ width for bicycle use alongside same direction motor traffic.

The basic device for bicycle segregation is a longitudinal divide of the way,
trying to keep different kinds of traffic in different points of its width. The
elemental implementation is a longitudinal line (solid, dotted) on the roadway,
meaning “bicycles to one side of the line, motor traffic to the other side”.
Various enhancements can be provided (pavement coloring, barriers, different
ground levels approaching the cycling space to the pedestrian space) without
changing the essence of the concept.
“Segregation” is often confused with, but by no means the same as,
reserved spaces for bicycle traffic (non-motorised streets, counterflow
cycle-only lanes…).

“Segregated” and “reserved” cycling structures are often loosely and

incorectly bundled together, but they are completely different in nature and
need to be discussed separately if the issues are to be solved.
Cycling segregation is a structural part of the dying paradigm on western
cities.

Cycling segregation is a completelly artificial concept, and an arbitrary

decision made several decades ago in a small part of Europe for ideological
reasons in no way related to cyclists’ safety or comfort.

A number of societies in Europe which could not develop segregated

cycling from the beguining of the car era have chosen for decades to
believe that they needed segregation to promote cycling. The fascination
with “the Dutch Model” has had a devastating effect on cycling culture and
bicycle use in large parts of Europe.
 Kill the concept.

The concept of segregated cycling in post-car cities

• cannot possibly work (i.e., actually increase cycling safety and comfort)
• is having destructive effects in the quality of public spaces
• is, however, extremely attractive and has trapped the cycling community
collective mind
• has thus adversely affected cyclist advocacy and even the way cyclists see
ourselves, the use we do of our bicycles and our place in our cities.
• and is in fact running against the desirable evolution of our cities
in all car-saturated societies.

We need to “kill the concept” of segregated cycling and move on to a

cycling paradigm acording to the present and future needs.
 Arguments for
segregated structures

– The common sense argument.

– The “Dutch do them” argument.
– The “Everybody else does them” argument.
– The safety argument.
– The “BL create cyclists” argument.
– The “vulnerable users” argument.
– The “novice users” argument.
– The visibility argument.
– The transition argument.
– The etc etc etc argument.

In our fascination with “the Dutch Model”

and under the enticing cloack of “a proper space for cycling”
we have build a list of ad-hoc arguments to sustain the segregation
paradigm.
 • Argument 1 • Engineering effects.
• Argument 2 • Safety effects.
• ... • Political effects.
• Social effects.
• Cycling culture effects.
• ...

• Argument n • Horrid effects.

We are looking to those arguments through rosy glasses,

• selectively collecting data,

• paying selective attention to the supporting data,
• interpreting data in reassuring ways,
• downplaying contrarian data…

… While we turn a blind eye to the serious adverse efects that the segregation paradigm
is having at several levels.
 (Advertising break)

Come live and cycle

in sunny Spain!

Let’s have a look at the segregation paradigm at work.

 Engineering

Door to door bike lanes!

Now it is possible to cycle straight out of home into the cycle lane…
 Politics

Cities designed from the ground for cycling!

Segregation as a first choice in design to the exclusion of designs that would

be possible, more modern, more realistic, and clearly safer.

Segregation as a pretext to justify bad, unsafe design.

Whole cities designed from scratch with dangerous configurations.

 Engineering
Source: Ayuntamiento de Guadalajara | Guadalajara City Council

Fantastic projects...

Beautiful projects, lots of talent, time, bureaucracy and money…

 Engineering

...with few details left out!

But when you actually go to see the place, the real effects are disheartening.

… but the segregation bureaucracy goes on.

(The images show how the project in the preceding page would look if
implemented. Which are going to be taken out, the elderly people or the
vegetation?)
Environment

Source: http://www.ecologistasenaccion.org

Bike lanes through privileged

natural spaces!

Even emblematic natural spaces are being destroyed to serve the cycling
segregation ideology regardless of actual circumstances or needs.

(The image shows the building site of a bike path through Natural Park of
Doñana in Spain, one of the most important natural reserves in Europe.
Aparently the perfectly safe, perfectly cyclable, old-fashioned path in the
background of the photo is not good enough for cyclists, and the outcry by
conservationist and other civil groups in the area has not been enough to
stop the agression to the park commited in the name of “cycling mobility”.
The spanish cycling community has been notoriously absent from the
protests against this infrastructure).
A no-fantasies street

Let’s try to have a fresh look a cyclists needs from the starting point of a
real street like the ones in which I live and work: high density, double
parking, scarce space…

How can we get to fill this kind of streets with people cycling?

Shared Space seems to bring in interesting ideas…

 Shared space?
Source: Sociate@Flickr.

But when we see a classic image purported to represent Shared Space, a

number of questions come to mind:

• Where did they park all the cars?

• How did they get those wide spaces?
• How much money all that cost?

… and it becomes clear that if this is Shared Space,

it is not something that can be readily applied
in a majority of the real streets that we have to deal with in our cities today.
 Pulse
A para
cyclist in añadir
Sharedun
space!?
título

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGCE6vI5j68

And then, watching a Youtube video of cyclists riding in this kind of space,
we find…

A cyclist entering the roundabout much too close to the edge…

then making a left turn sign

(which is strange, because one of the uses of roundabouts is precisely to
eliminate left turns)…
 Pulse para añadir un
título

First conflict... awkward... unduly gives way...

getting in an akward position in front of a incoming car…

hesitating, almost foot to the ground… finally giving way to the car
(which is strange, because in a normal situation
it is the vehicle inside the roundabout the one that has the priority)…
 Pulse para añadir un
título

Riding along on the outside...

Riding alonside that car for a few seconds…

 Second conflict... unduly takes preference...

Getting again in an akward position in front of that very same car,

which has to stop this time to give way to the cyclist…
 Pulse para añadir un
título

Third conflict... crossing pedestrian style...

Forcing another car to stop to allow the cyclist cross the street…
 Pulse para añadir un
título

Off we go!

Before going on her way through the wide open, flashy, expensive, “shared
spaces” of her city.
 Is this all
Shared Space has to offer
to cyclists?

… because if it is, it is not something worth fighting for, from this cyclist’s
point of view.
 What is the problem?

The most strange thing is that the configuration of the roundabout and the
speed of traffic in it are so bike-friendly that it offers no difficulty for the
cyclist to ride through it in the most natural fashion…
if only she wanted to.

Which brings us to the conclusion: the cyclist in the video is in fact

refusing to ride naturaly through the roundabout. She is making life
difficult to herself and to the drivers around her because she keeps behaving
as if she were in a bike lane.

(which is in fact the case, but that is another matter).

In short: eighty years of cycling segregation have so crippled the cycling

culture in the Netherlands that cyclists are reluctant to ride naturally in
even the easiest and most friendly places.
Empowering cyclists

Which brings us to another conclusion:

The main goal of any cycling policy in today cities must be

empowering cyclists to take back their cities’ streets and to regain
control of their own safety.

If Shared Space (or any other policy) is not going to bring about this
empowering of bicycle users, it is not worth pursuing.
Fun fact #1:

Empowering
cyclists?

“Cyclists' comfort” has widely been used as a simple criterion for cycling
infrastructure, and as a pretext to justify cycling segregation.

“Cyclists' comfort”, just as cyclists' safety, has been unduly equalled with
“difficulties in the road network”, and thus engineering measures have
primarily been sought to increase it.

However, “cyclists' comfort” and safety are complex fenomena,

a function both of the physical difficulty of the space to cycle through and
of the cyclist’s skill.
 Empowering
cyclists?

The segregationist paradigm has made a enormous (and arguably

unsuccessful) effort over several decades to lower the physical difficulty of
the streets network for cyclists.

A direct effect of that effort has been a continuous lowering of the cycling
skills of the users needed to keep the comfort level.

Several damaging results of this process are visible in the cycling culture of
today’s bicycle users throughout Europe, among others:

• Cyclists who reportedly feel endangered in traffic, but who do not feel
concerned or able to follow the basic traffic discipline and rules.
• Cyclists who cannot cycle confidently and naturaly in the most friendly
and easy streets and roads.
•…
 A no-fantasies street

What does “Shared Space” mean here?

Since the more visible version of the Shared Space concept doesn’t seem of
much use to bicycle users, let’s try to have a second look at its essentials,

strictly from a cyclist’s point of view,

from the kind of real streets we have to deal with:
 XXth Century urban planning:
Adapting cities to motor traffic.

Hard to argue this…

 The ergonomic rules
of traffic


Right to driving space.

Drive on the proper side.

Rules for giving way.

Speed positioning.

Maneuver positioning.

The rock-bottom of adapting the streets to motor traffic is:

creating a uniform and simplified driving space in which drivers can behave
in simple, uniform, predictable and easy to understand and comunicate
ways.

The basic rules of traffic behavior do not need any road signalling to make
driving perfectly safe…
 Space and visibility

A perfectly safe street to drive and ride.

Urban spaces don't need a lot of traffic signs to be safe...

 SLOW

… provided that the driving goes at an appropriately slow speed.

 Source: fuenterebollo.com

… and our forefathers new that very well.

However, during the XXth century, traffic design has created a large array
of signaling tools…
 Fun fact #2:

The name of the game is

SPEED

… almost strictly to allow faster traffic speeds while trying to maintain the
safety level.
 Fun fact #3:

The signal-saturated urban traffic

network:

• Incoherent - Contradictory.
• Ineffective.
• Unwanted side effects.

The irony of this is that

• many of those tools are now being questioned as being ineffective for their
intended goal.

• a number of elements with opposite functions (for instance speed

facilitators and speed limitators) are increasingly present next to each other
(and countering each other) in our cities.

• the whole speed-centered system of design is having unintended and

unwanted side effects.
Militarising
the streets

The speed based engineering has corrupted

the behaviour of users.

Maybe the most damaging unintended effect:

The signalling was intended to make things easier for pedestrians and
drivers, but instead the signalling saturation has gotten in the way of a
natural use of public spaces.

Signals have become more important than people:

for a car driver it is not any longer important whether there is a pedestrian
trying to cross the street.
What is important is whether there is a zebra crossing for the pedestrian to
claim priority.

For one century now, we have been militarising the streets

so it is not surprising if people are forgetting how to act civil in them.
 Simplicity Uniformity

Maybe the main merit of the Shared Space concept is recognising that
this signalling overload has been an arbitrary, speed-minded adition
to the basic principles of street design…
 Simplicity Uniformity

… and trying to get back to those principles.

 Fun fact #4:

We already have “Shared space for cycling”

in a vast mayority of our streets.

Yes, we do!

If we only could convince people of it!

 Why can't we
Convince people?

How did we come to a point in which people think that just riding a bicycle
in a normal street is “suicidal”?

Let’s have a look at this question.

Strangely enough, in the huge array of traffic signals created during the
XXth century, signals created to warn drivers of dangers ahead or to
regulate their behaviour in every conceivable situation, there are only two
signals meant for bicycle users:

Signal 1: Bike lane: You are obliged to ride there.

Signal 2: You are forbidden to ride there.

(there are maybe a couple more signals, but all of them are dependent on
those two)

Isn’t this strange?

What does this say about the cycling culture and the cycling advocacy of
the last century?
Some traffic signs that do not exist...
and the reason why.
 We have this sign...

We have this sign: “Space shared by pedestrians and cyclists”.

 But we do not have this one.

Why, in a century of traffic engineering, we have not been able to create

this sign: “Space shared by bicycles and cars”?

The answer: because the cycling community has decided that their space is
with the pedestrians
(where the cyclists have the upper hand)
rather than with the car drivers.
And we do not have this one either.

It is well known that pavement riding is highly dangerous… why don’t we

have a signal like this, prohibiting it?
 vs.
… because they would be in conflict with
the sign that we have chosen to have.

… because it would contradict the other one that we have chosen instead.

Prohibiting pavement riding would challenge the segregation paradigm

that the cycling community have chosen for ourselves,
and thus it has to be allowed, even if proven
•dangerous,
•a deterioration of the street quality for pedestrians
•and a continuous source of conflicts with them.

)In fact, in most places pavement cycling is forbidden, but the prohibition is
rarely enforced).
 We have this sign,
prohibiting a dangerous maneuver...

We have this sign, prohibiting lorries to ovetake cars in certain points

where it would be dangerous…
 But we do not have this one,
To prevent another frequent dangerous maneuver.

And we know that for a cyclist overtaking on the right a lorry or heavy
vehicle is extremely dangerous.

Why then don’t we have this sign, prohibiting it?

Why not?
 vs.
… because it would contradict the whole concept
of cycling that we have chosen to have.

In fact, the very concept of a segregated bike lane is an incitation to wrong

side overtaking by cyclists. How is it surprising that cyclists keep doing it
when they are in a street without a segregated structure?
 Cycling segregation has precluded the
search for real solutions to real problems
by actual cyclists in real cities.

In short, the segregation paradigm has created an artificial mindframe

in which very real dangers to cyclists are unavoidable
And the measures to counter them are, simply put,
Unthinkable.
Fun fact #5:

We have chosen
a mind framework
acting against
the interests of cyclists
and the chances of recycling our cities.
The cycling community,
and the cycling advocates
Have painted ourselves into a (very dangerous) corner in our cities.

An the only way to break out of it is to kill the segregation paradigm.

Killing the concept

Old paradigm: New paradigm:

Segregated lanes are Segregated lanes are

part of the solution. part of the problem.
 Killing the concept

Old paradigm: New paradigm:

“Create bike lanes Avoid creating BL if at all

everywhere possible.” possible.

Fully develop the alternatives

to segregation.

Clearly tell people to stop

expecting any more bike
lanes.

The bit about stopping creating segregated structures is the easy part.

The really hard part is acknowledging to ourselves,

and to the cicling and not cycling public,
that a radical change in attitude and route is needed
if we reeally aim to turn bicycles in the dominant vehicle in our cities.
We cyclists have been for 80 years trying to create our own space and own
rules.

Shared space, in cycling, in today's cities, means sharing space AND

RULES with cars.

And that means stopping lobbing for space and rules, and start lobbing for
space and rules that we can share.
 • What do we want?

– ... Cycling “facilities”?

or

– ... Cycling cities?

… Because “Cycling facilietes” and “cycling cities” are by no means the

same.

An the the inmediate future, and in the new paradigm for our livable cities,
both may in fact be quite opposite and incompatible.
Shared space for cycling: