Bristol's 2015 Bike Survey. If its so wonderful, why do twats swear at you for cycling?

Sustrans have just published a 2015 survey on use and opinions on cycling in Bristol. This is available as a PDF for anyone who still prints things, and, on Page 2, comes with a sepia tinted photo of Our Glorious Leader for anyone who hasn't seen him recently.

Lots of people will be praising this, so we'll be ruthless and go the other way.

First issue: where do the numbers come from?

There is a full PDF of the methodology, which is what all surveys need: Something to back up the dataset. This shows that the Bristol survey was a phone survey of 1100 people, selected by random dialling, and quotas to match demographics in the area, then some 300 booster surveys to find cyclists who have real opinions on the cycling facilities.

One of our team members got a survey call, so we know two facts about it

1. It was made to a landline. It therefore implicitly excludes all households without landlines. Ofcom's figures would imply that excludes 15% of the UK population from the survey; there's no data for Bristol itself.
2. It was conducted mid-afternoon on a weekend. This may lead to selection bias towards boring people who don't have lives, parents stuck at home with children included.

What we don't know is how wide the survey went. Did it cover the bits of S Gloucs that is the part of Bristol full of people who hate speed limits and residents parking? Or did it only cover BRS and Avonmouth?

Second issue: why be so positive in the interpretation? 

Here's the negative view of Page 5

1. 28% of people don't "like to see people out and about on bikes". Cyclists: these are the people shouting at you.
2. 32% do not believe things would be better if people in general rode bikes more.
3. 26% do not believe that more people riding bikes would make Bristol a better place to live and work.
4. 46% do not believe that things would be better if friends and family road bikes more.
5. 52% do not feel that they should ride a bike more.
6. and from p10: 30% of residents would not like to see more investment in cycling in Bristol.

This may be excessively negative, as the PDF doesn't differentiate "no" from "don't know". All we know is that it is not positive. But lets go for the worst case here.

Over a quarter of the sample set in the survey don't like to see people cycling. More than half don't feel that they should ride a bike more. And, nearly half (46%) don't even want to see friends and family riding bikes more. Maybe because that would create an inconsistent view of cyclists as outgroup vs friends-and-family. We don't know —the data isn't there.

What we see then, is a divided city.

Now, what other bits of the survey are interesting?

P10: bike routes

Notice the popularity of traffic free cycle routes and protected bike lanes amongst all current and potential users.

Notice the complete disdain for shared pavements amongst non-cyclists and experienced cyclists alike. The fact that even the "don't ride a bike but want to" group don't like shared pavements shows how the two-track route policy in the UK, "magic paint on the roads and shared cycle pavements" doesn't even deliver for the people who would like to cycle. Time to knife the baby there.

Similarly: nobody likes bus lanes except for experienced/regular cyclists. Even there, ask them "do you like to be stuck behind a first bus in full early morning black smoke mode" or "do you like to have a bus right behind you?". These are details we'd like to know.

P11: demographics

Older people are under-represented. The pie chart doesn't actually show the number of respondents who cycle vs. the demographics of the city as a whole, so it' not that useful. Let's assume that yes, there are less elderly people. Look at the pie chart next to it. ~50% commute, some (2%?) to school and then 4% to college or university. We're going to take a guess here, but you won't see many of the 55+ going to school or college, or in the 65+ range commuting. You'd expect to see a reduction. More interesting, the smaller 45-54 range (14%) vs. 35-44 (23%). 

The 16% of of people riding bikes who identify themselves as black or minority ethnic —the same as for the city. This is interesting, as it implies the claim that cyclists are all white middle class men is not true in Bristol. But we still see 69% of cyclists identifying as male vs 31% female, showing significant gender disparities in a city where the percentage of sexes is approximately equal. And there is no income related data to look on that axis.

Between 2013 and 2014 the number of trips made by bike increased by 4%

What does that mean? That the percentage of all trips made in the city increased by 4% in one year? Or that in 2014 the number of bike journeys was 1.04 times that of 2013? And if so, how does that compare with the percentage increase in: car journeys, walking, train and bus? More? the same? Less? We need more context for that sentence to parse it correctly.

P13: Metrobus

"with the Metrobus giving hard-pressed commuters even more travel choice, our roads will become even less congested, and better for people on bikes and walking." Someone paid sustrans to write that. Because it should be "with the Metrobus making cycling harder in the city, our roads will stay a congested mess, and while it is being built the centre cycle-crossings and Create centre bridge have gone"

Photographs:

There is nobody in any of the 30-40 photos looking wet. This is an unrepresentative sample of Bristol days. We'd have expected waterproofs to be visible and needed in at least 25-30% of them.

p8: routes

There's 116 miles of "bike route", "79 miles traffic free", and "1 mile of protected bike lane". 27% of people live within 125 metres of a cycle lane, track or shared use path. Well the survey showed that everyone thinks shared use paths are worthless, and "bike route' is vaguely defined here. Presumably it includes anything painted on tarmac, which is effectively meaningless.

Page 12 follows this up with some assertions that 1/3 of morning rush hour traffic is bicycles, and that Gloucester Road has comparable numbers to the railway path. Here is Gloucester Road outbound at 16:30 on this very weekday. As such, it's not something we've been saving for a special occasion, simply a normal weekday, with here the passenger of WU56JKV swearing at the cyclist as they go past.



The driver appears to be concerned that the cyclist "was in the middle of the road" while cycling past the parked cars and the road junction where the traffic island means that the middle of the road is the place to be. They were clearly concerned enough to shout "get to the fucking side". The fact that they'd wound up the window when next passed shows that they hadn't expected to be passed again, as they had to go to the effort of winding it down to make more hand gestures later.

As for the reason for the abuse, "middle of road" was it, though they seemed unable to proceed even after the cyclist had expressed their apologies and invited them to go ahead. It's almost as if they were, to use a phrase, four fuckwits without a fuck or a wit between them.

Note

1. You can't see it in the photo, but the front tyre was pretty much smooth on the outer 1/4 of the tyre. Tapping the reg# and make (ford) into the MOT history site shows the MoT is due soon, and they have a history of bald tyres. We'll check back in a month to see if that tyre earned a failure. If not: they've had to suspend it.
2. At 0:33 you can see that one of its brake lights is dead. This is a defective vehicle.
3. Given that they stay in the same position from 0:33 to 1:33, a minute at a red light, perhaps it is their frustration at having to wait so long which is leading to their anger management issues.
4. Note how everyone in the vehicle hates the cyclists being there. These are all from the 28% of people that don't like to see people out and about on bikes.
5. As this is after 16:30, anyone parked in the bus lane is illegally parked and can earn tickets; its generally the buses that suffer the most from parked cars, but you can see a few times where the cyclists have to swing out.
6. The GPS route map may be accurate, but the speedo is clearly confused, has some bad weighted-moving-average parameters, or at least one of the GPS satellites has just fallen out the sky while still broadcasting its position.
7. The actual Strava numbers for this segment time that cyclist as 19.7 mph, top 100 of the 3500 riders logged, fastest of October to date. In a 20 mph zone, this is not someone you have to wait for.
8. That intermittent bit of paint on the side of the road is probably 2 miles out of the 79 miles of bike route, and definitely part of the kind of cycle lane which 27% of people live with 125 metres of.

The last is interesting, as it says "is that all you can do?", "how does this stop cyclists being sworn at", and "what would the numbers be if the 75 cm path didn't keep disappearing under buses and vans at corners?"

Regarding the passenger of the car, we're going to try a new experiment today. Report them to the ASPoliceWest and ask for a caution for abusive behaviour or a section 59 ASBO. The ASBO strategy is to see what excuse they will make up for not issuing one, as they can't cite court costs, leaving only "we don't think swearing at cyclists is antisocial". Let's see, shall we?

Summary

We're seeing a polarised city here, one shown in both the survey results and today's field test of a ride up Gloucester Road, —a road the survey calls out as a success, but which we document as "par for the course".

It'd be interesting to know the postcode split of the like to see bicycles/hate to cycles answers, and their demographics. While there appears to be an ascendant movement to cycling in the city, the anti- forces are a significant number and do form a noisy minority — not just swearing away at passing cyclists.

Leigh Woods: nicer cars, more polite twats

One of our Bristol Traffic expendable tax-dodging reports was tasked to head over to Leigh Woods on a weekday morning, to see what all the fuss about the Clifton RPZ destroying the prestigous mock-rural suburb. It doesn't appear to be.

Watch this video and consider that all inboud traffic is paying £1/vehicle to drive into Bristol. The Clifton RPZ rollout does not seem to have discouraged this flow of traffic from the "nice but dull" parts of N. somerset, and the "simply dull" parts like Portishead. All the vehicles here will have come down the A369 from Portishead/Gordano M5 junction, or from Clevedon via Beggars Bush Lane. Yet despite the inner city waging a war on the hard-working motorist of the mock-rural suburbs, there's still a line of cars heading in.

What is notable, compared to inner Bristol, and even more so the Glasgow of Magnatom's videos, is

1. All the cars are nice, shiny and relatively new, with a bias towards the overweight SUV.
2. They all have their wingmirrors. This shows that they neither drive nor park in much of the city. These vehicles do not cross Whiteladies Road to points east.
3. There's nobody texting except P277FAL. This implies the flow rate of the traffic is higher than Gloucester and Whiteladies Roads.
4. When the self-important twat driving Mercedes EH03DHJcomplains to a cyclist that they are holding them when there is a bike lane, it's done in a genteel, polite, "could you use the cycle lane", rather than the stream of Glaswegian abuse or a screaming fit of the kind you'd see in Richmond.

That said. EX03DHJ is still a self-entitled wanker. He's just pulled out from the residential side road and is immediately on the horn because the cyclist is in the middle of the road in the line of slow moving cars, then comes up with the "I'm a cyclist myself, you see" cliche, while politely asking the tax-dodger to please use the cycle lane. It being nice sunny morning in Leigh Woods, the cyclist politely says no, rather than telling them to fuck off, the way you'd be expected to do in inner Bristol.

For those residents of the inner city, we have provided a translation

An exchange of views

Another snippet of Taypet21's photostream showing how abusive cyclists can be just because you swerve past them and then in without warning.



Some comments for the elusive Taypet, who, whether they intend it or not, is becoming our Fishponds correspondent.

1. It's not clear that swearing helps you achieve your goal, unless being beaten up is your goal.
2. Yes, you had an exit strategy -and we can see how V484ETF tried to swerve after you, but unless you could be confident that the driver would not catch up with you later, that wasn't a sustainable plan.
3. Lodge Road, eh? You know that Kingswood is getting a bit of a reputation of a place where people on bicycles get beaten up? Just bear that in mind before being quite so abusive. It also doesn't help you if you wish to raise the issue with the polis, as they may have some paperwork for you too.
4. At least he saw you. You weren't going to get Smidsy'd here, and he gave you lots of clearance for the first half of his overtake -right up to the moment he saw the traffic and decided to swing in rather than brake.

As for the driver

1. The emergent ubiquity of cycle cameras means that your actions are more likely to be documented. When at 0:40 you swerved completely into the oncoming lane to pass the (electric) cycle doing approximate 15-20 mph, you should have indicated.
2. Why did you swerve in before you'd actually passed him? There was no oncoming traffic, and if you'd gone past him and then pulled in followed by a full-ABS brake then you'd have stopped before going in to the van (not ours, it is new, clean and has all brake lights lit up), leaving the bicycle to deal with the problem that it was going to have to filter left rather than stop.
3. Finally: why bother, really? You can see the van in front stopped, if your  V-reg doesn't have ABS then your stopping distance on bald tyres isn't going to be great, so look at the speed of the bicycle before trying to pass. 
4. It's not worth the hassle of running them over, especially when the police get called out and those issues about insurance crop up.

We explicitly mention insurance because a quick check of askmid says:

NO V484ETF is NOT showing as insured on the Motor Insurance Database today.

That's despite the fact the DVLA site says the Lexus V484ETF has paid its road tax. 
You need to be glad that Taypet's video has him swearing enough it it that he can't forward it to the police and say "I have evidence that this car is being driven without insurance".

Regarding a Grey Van on Romney Ave/Shaldon Road, Lockleaze

Some tax-dodger emails us:

"were you the idiot driver of the grey van who on Wed Feb 1 was swearing at me down at Muller Road because all the way down Romney Ave he hadn't been able to pass me, because I didn't get out of the way of traffic?"

"If you were, can I point out that I was doing 30 mph, so you had no justification to pass me, and as I was following a car doing the same speed about three bike lengths in front, you had nowhere to go anyway."

"I hope you enjoyed the long traffic jam on Muller Road with no bicycle in your way to get upset about"

We have looked at our van and no, it doesn't look grey, more a white with a brown layer on top, "dirty!" written on the back. (that's our brand, incidentally).

We understand the grey van driver. We don't think bicycles should be on the road, so the fact that you were there -and the fact that he couldn't get past- made it very frustrating. If you had cycled slower and stayed to one side he would still have hated you, but a bit less.

That's something the advocates of "vehicular cycling" don't understand. They think if you imagine that you are a car, and position yourself appropriately, you will recognised as a vehicle and made welcome. Not so: you will just become an arrogant cyclist who doesn't know their place -and deserves the abuse they get.

It is your very presence that is the issue, not just your positioning.

Not our van: WU10JCY

Someone points us at this video as says "That you?"

No. Pink shirts and white dungarees don't suit us. Or him. We are just more aware of the fact.

Also: that van still has two wing mirrors. This video may have been made in Bristol, but whoever it is, they live in the suburbs.

update: "The initial pass was on Stockwood Lane and the chat was by the junction of Lacey Road and Stockwood Lane"

S56JCW? Wasn't us in the van abusing the cyclist.

Someone emails us:

"Hello, is the Bristol Traffic white van the one with the registration number S56JCW? -that is Shithead-56-Jesus-Christ-Wanker to use the phonetic alphabet the van deserves?

I was waiting by Muller Road at 18:15 on August 16 for the pedestrian crossing lights to change so I could get to Boiling Wells Lane when this white transit van drove past and the passenger shouted something like "you fucking cunt" at me" as they carried on over to the M32 approach traffic jam

Not us.

1. We checked on askmid and yes, S56JCW is registered to a Ford Transit 80; our kind of vehicle. First registered in Preston, incidentally.
2. We don't recall abusing your anyone on a bicycle today.
3. We checked which number plates were taped to the back of the van today and no, not that number.
4. If they were abusive, they probably had a good reason.
5. Probably they were resentful of the way you hold them up on the way to the M32 traffic jam, or just pointing out that if you didn't have enough money to own an S-reg transit van, you must be very poor indeed and probably an anarchist criminal looter.
6. If you had issues with the van passenger for pointing this out, you could have chased them to the queue for the M32 and got beaten up. Why complain to us?

There is a web site, 101 Wankers, which documents the harassment a woman gets while cycling round London -she thinks she's being persecuted for riding a bicycle. Not so, if she walked round more she'd recognise we proposition women on foot too. The big difference between Bristol and London is it's smaller, so that one day the van S56JCW is going to meet the same tax-dodger and then the van driver and passenger can give the cyclist the beating they clearly deserve.

Even so, such drive-by abuse does let down the team. There's a bike lane in Muller Road they could have swerved onto, got up onto the pavement and then come after the cyclist. Must try harder.

Nisa Today's drivers shows their awareness of pedestrians

While in London the cyclist campaigners mourn the fact that HGV drivers are often oblivious to cyclists, in Bristol the large delivery vehicles are aware of more vulnerable road users, and rather than use their indicators to warn of impending actions, use hand signals and voice calls to ensure that everyone is aware of the issue.

Here we see FJ59DFF making their intent clear to pedestrians crossing the road, using hand and voice, and by engaging in a dialogue, understanding that their manoeuvres will be carried out, such as the turn from Cotham Brow into Kingsley Road, and from Kingsley road to Zetland Road, where we see the driver adding some voice and eye contact, to make sure that they have been seen.

You could indicate before your truck turns, but then you may not be sure that the pedestrians planning to cross have actually seen it. Hand signals and shouting are more effective.

Note that Nisa Today's are a community set of shops who work together for better pricing; their deliveries are all handled by DHL -hence the little DHL logo on the side of the van. The driver is paid by DHL, so their impact on Nisa Today's branding by appearing in such videos is of little direct consequence.

The Bloomsbury Problem

Another issue we had with the Russel Square area is that this marked a clear attempt to bring cycle-friendly infrastructure into the inner city, rather than, as in Bristol, leave it places where we hope it doesn't get in the way of anyone important.

First, signs, encouraging cyclists to find their way round

Full green bike paths, with raised kerbs to make it slightly harder to accidentally park in them.

Junctions for the bicycles themselves, with no cyclists dismount signs

And here, worst of all, an "except cycles" get-out clause on a one way street. Not "except cycles, taxis and van drivers", but cycles only.

What is really depressing here is that the Camden council staff behind such schemese visited the proposed GBBN Whiteladies Road development, the one that will help motorists driving in to town by removing the zebra crossings in our way and making cycling more dangerous. We know this as we infiltrated the event, keeping track of what people were saying, and whether complaints were being dismissed -as expected- or actually listened to, and tried to slip our own ideas in to distract them.

On the topic of that camden council cycle team visit, can we extend our apologies to the woman driving the green nissan micra down WL road who was held up for fifteen seconds by the funny bicycle people. Yes, you were right to beep your horn at us for not being in the bike lane, even though cyclists don't have to cycle in them, they can cycle two abreast legally, and the traffic jam ahead meant you weren't losing any time. Yes, you were right to complain that eight people on bicycles at 08:50 on a weekday were causing utter chaos, which is why the local council had arranged the cyclist visit to during the quiet period mid-morning.  Sadly, some of the cycle troublemakers had spotted the flaw there and pressured for a rush hour visit, which is why you were held up by three people cycling two-abreast down whiteladies road.

Because we were trying to blend in with these subversives we did have to come up and argue with you while you were stopped at the traffic lights, as anything else would have aroused the suspicions of the rest of the group.

Sorry!

We didn't really mean to call you a selfish idiot who would clearly benefit from getting out of their car and trying to do some exercise! It's your right to get fat and stay unfit by driving to work and back, stopping only in the supermarket to buy ready-to-fry fast foods.

We didn't really want to dispute the niceties of the highway code and the fact that nowhere in it does it say "bicycles should be banned from our roads"  -because like you, we think it ought to! It was just something we had to do to blend in!

Cyclists must know their place

Clearly motorists are more important and must take priority on the road, regardless of the right of way of inferior pedestrians or cyclists. It is concerning to us then that so many of these "alternative" travel modes seem to think that they can be considered as a legitimate form of transport.

Consider this next case. Imagine you are almost 30 seconds away from your destination and you want to turn right into Stanton road from PenPark road, Southmead after a long morning doing something important. A cyclist decides to turn in front of you, thinking that they have right of way as another car might have in his same situation. It will not do at all and is likely to add several seconds to your journey.

It is important to make a point about this impudence! P198HWK takes such action and attempts to force cyclist onto the pavement where he would normally belong. Disappearing around the corner there is an inspired one finger salute just in case there was any doubt by the cyclist that he had done something wrong.





The trouble is that we cannot condone this sort of action. Imagine the engine and tyre wear that vehicles would suffer from this revving and squealing and if this was the norm then it will only add to the large expense that us poor motorists already suffer. Let's hope at least that this one cyclist has learned his lesson.

Lewin's Mead Parking Lane

When a sufficiently large number of vehicles park in a bus lane it effectively becomes unviable. What about half-parking, which these cars are doing. Well, you'd be continually trying to pull out into traffic, and as everyone who drives a car in Bristol knows, you never let a bus pull out, as it only slows you down.

Remember, if this was wrong, the police would do something about it -if they saw it.

Note the driver of Vauxhall Vectra WN05VKE sticking a finger up at the photographer through the windscreen. A valuable contribution to the debate on what kind of transport infrastructure this city needs...