Langholm - An example of how British villages are blighted by traffic

The video above was forwarded to me this week. It shows how the centre of the village of Langholm in Scotland is blighted by an incredibly busy road passing through it. The description underneath the video is well worth reading:

Transport Scotland justifies the 30mph speed limit through Langholm High Street claiming it is ''...unsuitable for a 20mph limit due to the strategic classification of the road (A7 trunk road) and that it should be as free from obstruction to encourage the efficient movement of goods and vehicles....''

That Langholm's High Street is part of the route of the A7 - a major route across Scotland - is an historical accident. However, the traffic on the road has clearly grown well past the volumes which are reasonable to send through the narrow streets of a village of 2300 people.


Where it is wide, just as where it is narrow, the main street through Langholm is dedicated to the needs of those who pass through in motor vehicles in preference to those who live in the village. The narrow pavements provide no subjective safety for pedestrians, and this is a very hostile place to ride a bicycle. View Larger Map

Sadly, this is a scene repeated across the UK. Many small and pretty villages are blighted by absurd numbers of motor vehicles which pass through their centres. I am not aware of any situation where a Dutch village puts up with conditions like this. There are plenty of villages which have narrow streets, but they do not suffer the same blight of having these streets used as major thoroughfares by drivers who are just passing through and will never stop to discover the delights of the village itself.

I'm reminded of the village of Grafhorst in the Netherlands which I have cycled through on a few occasions. This has a population just half that of Langholm, but residents benefit greatly from the bypass which prevents the N760 from blighting their lives. It is safe for children from tiny Grafhorst to cycle to other villages in order to attend school. There are some images below:


Approaching Grafhorst from the South, the N760 is diverted to the East. Cyclists take the original route through the streets in the centre of the village. Drivers who wish to visit Grafhorst turn left here (as the blue car is doing) View Larger Map


The main street in the village is therefore free of through traffic. Even the Google Maps car went no further than this. A cobbled road surface, raised platforms and strategically planted trees help to persuade people not to drive quickly. View Larger Map


On leaving the other side of Grafhorst there is a cycle-path to the next village, much used by children and adults alike. View Larger Map

Note that the N760 is not so busy as the A7 and that speed limits outside the villages are restricted to 80 km/h maximum, and often 60 km/h rather than the 60 mph / 100 km/h normal across the UK.

The signs look similar, but they are not. In Langholm the speed limit is 30 mph / 48 km/h while in Grafhorst the speed limit is 18 mph / 30 km/h. That is the normal speed limit in the Netherlands for roads in villages. However, it is the removal of through traffic that makes the village streets pleasant.
Residents of Langholm are campaigning for little more than a lowering of speed limits through their village to 20 mph (32 km/h). It's a start, but they're not asking for remotely enough. While such volumes of traffic are allowed, even at a lower speed, they will continue to dominate the village and continue to affect the lives of those who live there. This village needs a bypass, and by bypass I mean something which keeps through traffic completely away from the centre rather than the British concept of a bypass which sadly often serves only to provide a parallel alternative route.

A bypass would of course be expensive. However, at this time the money is available. Billions have been set aside in the UK for infrastructure spending in order to stimulate the economyy. It can be spent on pointlessly increasing the capacity of roads between the places where people live or on improving the conditions of those who currently are blighted by roads which are already too busy. It is for British voters, councillors and politicians to decide on the most sensible way to spend that money, in Langholm and every other afflicted city, town and village.

Streets just as narrow as those in Langholm abound in the Netherlands. Because they are never used as through routes for motor vehicles, they are pleasant places for people.

These changes need to be made not only for adult drivers passing through or for those rare adult cyclists who "brave" the conditions, but in particular for the most vulnerable members of our society, children, older people and those with disabilities.

If we're not interested in improving the lives of the next generation then who are we campaigning for ?

30 September update
Perhaps unsurprisingly, some correspondents from the UK made excuses of the usual form about how Langholm is "different" from the Netherlands and therefore a bypass would be difficult. It often seems to be assumed that everything is easy in the Netherlands simply because of the relative lack of hills, but nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, engineering here has been on a grand scale. The Dutch have built some of the world's longest dykes and the world's largest moving barrier. They also reclaimed land which forms the world's largest artificial island, and run trains though tunnels in soft ground below the water table. Just in the last few years in Assen we've seen a canal moved sideways by 2 metres to make space for a secondary cycle-path, and a bridge carrying a dual carriageway built to keep cars out of the way of cyclists. There are now plans to dig a tunnel to remove cars from the outside of the railway station. Major projects are common in the Netherlands even in small towns because they make life better. The only real difference is in the will of the people to demand decent infrastructure.

Rattenberg. Transformed into
a pleasant place to live.

Of course, people still point at the relative lack of hills as if this excuses inaction in the UK. However a correspondent sent me a helpful example of a village in Austria which is a similar position to Langholm. Rattenberg used to have a rat-run through its centre, which is now rather attractive as shown to the right.

Rattenberg was transformed by building the Rattenbergtunnel which bypasses the centre of the city by passing through a hill. Exactly the same approach could be taken in Langholm.


Grotere kaart weergeven

Finally, this blog is not just about Langholm and the problems in the centre of one small settlement. Rather, my interest is in the similar situations in hundreds of small towns and villages across the UK and in other nations, each of which are blighted in a similar way, regardless of the relative difficulty in removing their through traffic. The low aspirations of many campaigners make it easy for too little to be done to resolve problems.

Central reservations enable cyclists and pedestrians to cross safely

Where cyclists or pedestrians must cross a road which is used by an appreciable number of motor vehicles, central reservations make a huge difference to safety. They allow the cyclist to cross just one stream of traffic at once, which is moving in one direction, before making a second decision from the centre of the road before crossing again.

Of course, such a reservation needs to be adequate in size. The crossing shown above, in a residential area in Assen by the local shops, allows two cyclists travelling in each direction to pass each other, and is long enough for a bicycle with trailer to stop safely in the middle. it also has a completely separate crossing for pedestrians, and of course both the cycle and pedestrian paths on both sides of the street. The speed limit for cars is 50 km/h (30 mph).

Here is another view of the crossing:

Open in Google Maps - note that cyclists don't suffer from a "pinch" effect due to cars because there are separate cycle-paths either side of the crossing.

When we first moved to Assen, there
was no central reservation at this
crossing. Image from a leaflet
explaining the change

This is an example of a crossing which works extremely well for cyclists, but it is not in any way an unusual or unique design. It's actually strikingly normal - there are so many crossings like this in Assen that I couldn't possibly count them. You need look no more than a hundred metres to the South from this one to find three more which are similar (see them here on Google Maps).

However, that this is very common doesn't imply that such crossings have existed forever. Actually, this one was retrofitted quite recently.

Back of the same leaflet
explaining what was
being done to improve
safety. Particularly
aimed at school children

Note five features on and around this crossing which make motorists slow down. Firstly, the shape of the crossing requires that motorists must decelerate and change course to go around it. Secondly, the width of the lanes either side of the central reservation is narrow which makes maneuvering difficult at speed. Thirdly, the road is narrow and there is no central white line. This makes motorists less sure of their position on the road and further reduces speed. Fourthly, the speed limit is 50 km/h (30 mph) on this street, which provides access, and 30 km/h (18 mph) on surrounding streets. Fifthly, there is also a pedestrian zebra crossing here for which motorists must stop if a pedestrian is crossing. Cyclists don't have priority in this case, but often receive it anyway.

The requirement that motorists have to swerve could be dangerous to cyclists due to a pinching effect if cyclists were on the street but because there are parallel cycle-paths on both sides of the street there is no danger at all.

See also videos showing the same crossing in use by hundreds of school children.

This can be seen as something which is easily "lost in translation" when implemented elsewhere because while the same concept might appear elsewhere, the implementation is completely different. For example, here's the same concept as implemented in Cambridge, UK:

Crossing of Madingley Road in Cambridge, UK. This is one of several roads in Cambridge which are unpleasant to cycle along and which can be difficult to cross safely by bicycle. We used to do this with our children, but this made us very much the exception as most people would not see this as a safe thing to do with their children. It's important for campaigners to realise that they are part of a self-selected group. Conditions like this are a reason why keen cyclists stop when they have children.

The example shown at the top of this blog post from Assen is on a relatively minor street with a slow speed limit and a significant but not enormous flow of vehicles. Those are the conditions in which  a crossing, if built to a high enough standard, can work well. However this Cambridge example is on a major arterial road, one of the busiest in Cambridge. This central reservation is too small in both dimensions. It does not slow traffic because the lanes either side of the reservation are too wide and it doesn't cause motor vehicles to change course, but the central reservation is also too narrow. Only one person can use it at a time and it can't be used if towing a trailer. It also doesn't feel safe because there is not much separation from high speed traffic. There's also no separate provision for pedestrians and neither pedestrians nor cyclists are prioritised at this crossing.

What's more, the speed limit here is much higher than that of the Assen example, at 40 mph (64 km/h) and this is a major arterial road into Cambridge so there are usually far more cars driving here than you find at the equivalent looking crossing in Assen.

When we crossed at this point with our children it was difficult to accompany them and cross the road safely. What's more, when I pulled a child trailer across this junction it didn't fit, so I had to make the crossing in one step.

It's an example of something extremely inadequate being installed in completely the wrong situation. The closest equivalents we have in Assen would be this or this.

Another view of the crossing of Madingley Road. It's similar to Huntingdon Road a little further North and many other roads in and around Cambridge. These are part of the reason why Cambridge's cycling is limited to a demographic group. View Larger Map

If your only reference to good infrastructure design comes from books, websites and looking at Google Maps, then it is very easy to misinterpret what is seen on the ground in the Netherlands. This is why it is important that planners from English speaking countries should see for themselves what good infrastructure actually looks like, and see it in the country which has the best standards. Referring only to what is in, for example, the UK can only result in copying from bad examples. It is to try to help to prevent this problem that we organise study tours.

See other examples of ideas "lost in translation", enabling of crossing the road, and perhaps most important, examples of what works in the Netherlands.

Reducing speeds in villages. Britain vs. The Netherlands

View Larger Map

When we were in Britain last October we drove from one of our parents to the other. It was an interesting experience being back on Britain's roads and making a long journey by car. One of the things we especially noticed after our absence from Britain's roads was how attempts had been made to limit speeds on roads through villages, but that they were inadequate. Speeds remained too high, and conditions for cyclists and pedestrians remained unpleasant.

The example above is of the A153 entering the village of Coningsby in Lincolnshire, and that's the example I'll use in this blog post. There are hundreds of villages along similar roads in the UK. but this is the one by which I stopped and took some photos:

Dangerous British example: Cycle on the road through a pinch point with 40 mph (64 km/h) motor vehicles.

The national speed limit of 60 mph ( 100 km/h ) applies along most of the length of the A153. On entering the village this falls to 40 mph ( 64 km/h ). A reduction in speed is encouraged by signs and a central reservation which doubles as a space for pedestrians to cross the road, though there there is nothing other than grass verge to walk on if you reach the other side of the road.

The A153 has no parallel cycle or pedestrian path. Anyone who wants to travel the 4.5 miles between the next village, Mareham-le-Fen and this one has to use the road. Many journeys are made between villages separated by this sort of distance in order to shop, use sport facilities, go to school or to commute. Coningsby is a desirable destination from Mareham because there are more shops and other facilities in this larger village. However, because cycling along here means being overtaken by vehicles travelling at 100 km/h, very few people would consider it. We stopped for several minutes to take these photos and no cyclists or pedestrians were seen. Everyone who was making this journey made it by car, van or truck.

Where there are two vehicles heading in opposite directions, there is very little room for a motorist to overtake a cyclist.

A few metres past the 40 mph speed limit signs there is a central reservation. It is narrow and does not require drivers to divert much from a straight line. Many vehicles are still travelling in excess of the speed limit when they reach this point. Calls can be made that drivers should slow to well below the speed limit when passing a cyclist inside the pinch point, but they won't be heeded. The result is that anyone on a bicycle will be passed extremely close by a motor vehicle which arrives in the same place at the same time. This does not make for a pleasant or safe experience when cycling. Alternatively, the cyclist can "take the lane" and attempt to force motorists approaching from behind to brake sharply, but this also is doesn't make for pleasant or safe cycling and causes resentment amongst drivers.

This design of road, and this design of traffic calming, is lethal. What's more, given the high speeds that remain through the village, it doesn't even result in particularly pleasant conditions for those who live there.

The reason why this particular feature of the road grabbed my attention was that a few days previously I'd pointed out something very similar in concept to the study tour group from Vilnius when they visited us in Assen.

If you had heard only a description of these two roads and not seen the physical reality then they would probably sound like almost the same thing. However, they are not the same in practice. Here is the "equivalent" traffic calming design in Assen:


Grotere kaart weergweven

The Witterhoofdweg has a speed limit of 60 km/h ( 37 mph ) before the signs and 30 km/h ( 18 mph ) through the village. This is the speed limit through most villages in this area. A third of the Dutch road network now has a speed limit of 30 km/h or lower.

Safe Dutch example: Speed limit is 30 km/h (18 mph) and cyclists have a completely separate cycle-path rather than riding through the pinch point with motor vehicles

The central reservation is much larger than the British example and requires drivers to change course quite dramatically as they drive around it. You couldn't drive through here at the speeds at which drivers in Britain routinely enter Coningsby.

The reservation is 4.5 metres wide, meaning there is ample space in which to wait to cross the road even with a loaded bicycle. On the other side of the road there is a cycle-path which you may well want to reach. Now how on the left side of the photo you can see the three metre wide cycle-path which continues the entire length of the village, even though the speed limit on the road is 30 km/h. At junctions with side-roads in the village, the cycle-path has priority. This results in a continuous, convenient and stress free experience for cyclists.

Looking in the opposite direction we get a good view of the cycle-path as it enters the village. The complete separation of cyclists and drivers ensure that making cars swerve to slow them down doesn't in any way endanger cyclists passing this point at the same time.

For most of the distance from Assen the cycle-path is separated by too large a distance from the road for it to easily appear in photos taken from the road. This cycle-path is four metres wide.

At the opposite end of the village there is a similar traffic calming construction. Cyclists retain a very good degree of subjective and actual safety right through this village and out the other side.

Add caption

At the time when we took this photo it was a cold winter day in the Christmas holidays. However, there was a regular stream of cyclists, as there always is. When the schools are in session, this is part of a route taken by thousands of children each day who ride their bikes from villages to the South West of Assen into the city. Witten, where these photos were taken, is just 3.6 km from the centre of the city. However, this is merely the half way point to the next village, Bovensmilde, which is 6.6 km away - almost exactly the same distance as Mareham-le-Fen to Coningsby, and many people travel along here by bike from other villages considerably further away than that. Because the distance can be covered on cycle-paths, the experience will be pleasant and safe when doing so, and it's convenient to cycle, people cycle.

Written descriptions of these two traffic calming devices would sound the same. However, in reality they are different. Aerial views of both traffic calming features to the same scale:


Coningsby. The signs are above the top of this view, the central reservation is just behind the truck. No need to divert at all while driving through here. While there is space for a cycle-path, none has been built  - View Larger Map


Witten. The signs are very close to the central reservation (see shadows to the right), motorists have to divert from a straight line to cross this point. Cycle-paths lead in all directions, all separated from the road, some by a considerable distance - Grotere kaart weergeven

Now I expect some readers to point out that the A153 is a larger more strategic road than the Witterhoofdweg. They'd be right of course. But larger roads in the Netherlands have rather more care taken to preserve the rights of cyclists and pedestrians to go about their everyday business in peace, not less. A traffic calming feature like this simply has no place on a busy road like the A153.

In Britain, the same ideas have been used as in the Netherlands, but they are often applied in a much weaker way, and often in staggeringly inappropriate places. That is what the blog posts tagged "lost in translation" show.

Cycle access to two sporting facilities

In its proposals for the Olympic Park in London, the London Cycling Campaign has produced some very nice glossy looking computer mock-ups of their vision for this enormous new sports facility.

On behalf of the cyclists of London, The LCC is asking for three metre wide bidirectional cycle-paths for routes past and through the facility.

Assen reality. A 3.3 m wide
cycle-path leads to a small
sports centre in a new suburb

In the second picture, the bidirectional cycle path looks barely two metres wide. It is also not clear how the guy in black is supposed to make a safe right turn at this junction to head towards the stadium.

Last year, the LCC was pushed by its membership into asking for Dutch style infrastructure. Unfortunately, they still don't really understand what they are asking for and are still not asking for anywhere near enough. This has not stood in the way of making demands which are often rather inadequate or of producing glossy pictures to illustrate those demands.

I think it's instructive to compare with a typical small sports facility here in Assen, which is itself a fairly typical small Dutch town. Other sports facilities in this city and across the country are served in much the same way.

Cycle-path past the same new suburb's sports centre. 4 metres wide and well separated from the road. No problems here with making turns. Note that the road, with a single lane in each direction, is one of just two entrances by car for a development of 9000 homes. There are many routes by bicycle.

Comparison table:

	London	Assen
Population	8 M	67000
Pop served by facility	7 billion. The Olympics is an international event.	9000 homes eventually in this housing development
Path width past facility	3 m, subject to negotiation	4 m
Path width inside facility	3 m, subject to negotiation	3.3 m

It's not just in new developments in the Netherlands or in Assen that cycling is a normal way to reach sport facilities. I took this in 2007 outside a local swimming pool in Roermond, a town in the south of the country. Britain is still planning for lower a lower cycling modal share in new developments than the Netherlands was planning for thirty years ago. To achieve change, campaigners in the UK need to have higher aspirations.

More later on how the LCC still doesn't really understand what "Going Dutch" should have meant.

A year later...
The Olympics has been and gone in London, and the mess left behind in the Olympic park area doesn't even slightly resemble anything the Dutch would build or what was shown in the promotional video. See Hackney Cyclist's blog about it.

Having low aspirations like the LCC and other British campaign groups, does not result in progress. Rather, it helps to keep the UK "40 years behind".

Yes, there's someone walking their dog by bike in the second photo. This is not unusual in the Netherlands. Will "Love London, Go Dutch" result in the same happening all across London ?

Want to know more about the differences between the UK and the Netherlands ? We've lived in and ridden many tens of thousands of km in both countries. This gives us a unique insight which we condense into three days of study tour.

Lessons for Bow Roundabout from an older junction design

you

An aspiration for London

Several bloggers have covered that London is considering changes to the very busy and lethal Bow roundabout. Their website says that they are "redesigning cycle facilities at Bow roundabout, East London, to improve safety for cyclists."

I first saw this image a few minutes after returning from the centre of Assen. As it happens, on our most direct route to the centre of the city, I pass a junction which looks remarkably similar to a mirror image of what is being proposed in London and I thought I had to write about the similarity.

Real life in Assen. At first glance an almost
exact mirror image of the Bow proposal.

However, these two junctions are not as similar as they look. The junction in Assen works because proper cycle paths lead into itn and because it's on a relatively lightly used street. This area is nowhere near so busy as Bow roundabout. The raised kerb between the cycle-path and road protects cyclists at the junction instead of disappearing just before it.

The Assen junction solves problems which the London junction will suffer from - notably the ability of drivers to intimidate cyclists and to turn across their paths. The design in London requires drivers to turn left immediately after the traffic lights, crossing the route of cyclists, in order to reach some destinations. Cyclists in London are also encouraged to take up position at the right in a wide bike box depending in order to turn across the motor vehicles to make a right turn.

London's junction actually has two sets of traffic light, virtually guaranteeing a red light for approaching cyclists in a vain attempt to make sure any bikes in this location get away before the cars. Assen's junction completely removes all conflict.

The Assen junction is not part of a roundabout. At no roundabout in Assen are cyclists expected to mix with motor vehicles. No Assen roundabouts have lanes on road. Not one of them include a bike box. Not one of them puts cyclists in a position such as is proposed in London.

I don't much like advanced stop lines (aka "bike boxes"). Cyclists filtering through traffic to reach a bike box can find themselves an unpleasant situation on the wrong side of turning vehicles when the lights change. They can be subject to intimidation by drivers behind them, and upon reaching the bike box a cyclist can find that it is already full of cars or motorbikes. On a small road with few motor vehicles, they can just about work. On a multi-lane road like this, there are far too many points of conflict where cyclists and drivers will have to cross each others' paths and they should not be considered. It's a world away from sustainable safety principles which remove conflict and makes roads self explanatory in order to reduce the chance of collision.

Bow redesign includes plenty of scope for conflict between cyclists and drivers "sharing" a giant roundabout together.  Not only the routes but also the speeds are different, leading to many points of conflict.

Bike boxes are still sometimes seen as aspirational in other parts of the world, but far from being an ideal to aim for, they're actually one of the least effective measures that can be taken for cyclists. Bike boxes are increasingly uncommon in the Netherlands. I'm happy to say that we don't have any bike boxes in Assen. Therefore, the junction which I'm comparing with is different in many ways. However, it's the closest thing I can find locally to what is being proposed in London.

And that brings us to perhaps the most important difference between these two junctions. While the mega-city of London sees it as aspirational to install a badly designed junction like this on a roundabout on an incredibly busy and complex junction to give cyclists a very slight advantage on a route which is for some reason called a "cycling superhighway", plans are afoot in small towns right across the Netherlands to remove older infrastructure like the Assen junction and make further improvements to remove conflict and give cyclists more convenient routes. This is happening in the Netherlands even on small junctions like this.

Bike boxes are not something which should still be part of new designs, especially on busy junctions. Rather, they're an idea which both campaigners and planners should be looking beyond.

Lessons still need to be learned even from what will soon be removed in the Netherlands, so I've documented some details of the junction in Assen below, showing why this junction, despite its age, actually works quite well:

Cyclists stop 13 m ahead of drivers. Click photo for larger size

Fundamentally important is that paths taken by cyclists and drivers on the junction in Assen do not cross. There is no conflict here at all, and that's why it's safe. Only cyclists can make right turns and only drivers can make left turns at this location (cyclist left turns are at the previous or next junctions which drivers can't use in the same way):

All conflict is removed at this junction (some appears slightly later on, but it's certainly not comparable with Bow roundabout)

The video shows how the junction works in practice:

Drivers cannot turn right, but
cyclists can.

This junction works for now, but its days are already numbered. Work on re-opening the canal starts this year, and very soon this short stretch of road will be dug up and replaced by a modern bridge. What's more, cyclists in the future will be able to make left turns at this location, but that will still be possible without any conflict (see later updates).

Back in London, it is positive that TfL seems to be thinking about cyclists. We have to hope that their proposal of a redesign in the face of criticism is a sign that a positive change has taken place within the organisation. However, the proposal that they've put forward is inadequate.

People feel relaxed enough to cycle
through "no hands". Will this be true
at Bow roundabout in London ?

Where transport planning is concerned, London seems to be stuck 40 years in the past. This has to change, for the benefit of everyone.

It's been shown more than once that not only cyclists but also drivers benefit from the building of cycling infrastructure and higher rates of cycling. No-one in Britain benefits from the low quality of infrastructure being installed in the country.

Exactly the same problems arise in the Netherlands as in the UK, however the approaches taken to deal with them are very different. In the Netherlands, cyclists are not put into the firing line. Practices here are very much more advanced.

We run infrastructure Study Tours here in Assen and Groningen to demonstrate how the infrastructure in this part of the world works to keep cyclists safe and make cycling popular.

If anyone from Transport for London is interested in seeing a very different way of designing cycling infrastructure they might like to book a tour. Avoid confusion. Avoid wasting money and time on implementing second rate dangerous designs. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel.

Update July 2013
The junction in Assen featured in this blog post, a rare surviving relic of older design, is to be replaced and updated in the next few months.

Very sad update 13 November 2013
This junction in London was changed in the way that the city said it would and since that time it has claimed another life. There is a protest ride tonight (but note that London Cycling Campaign's suggested fix is very far from what is really needed). Before London can become a truly safe place to cycle it has to do a lot more than fix just one junction.

Please TfL, send someone. We can show you how to create proper safe cycling infrastructure which works for everyone.

Update July 2016
The old Assen junction featured in the video above has been completely rebuilt and it is now possible for cyclists to make a totally safe conflict free left turn across traffic at the new junction. Please read a new blog post which includes a description and video of the new junction design.

Read more posts about Advanced Stop Lines ( Bike Boxes ). Also note that one of the most important interventions with regard to traffic lights in the Netherlands is enabling cyclists to avoid them altogether.

Boston's strange "pedestrian" zone. How a British town has made even a pedestrian zone serve motoring

We visited Britain a few weeks ago. Small British towns are very similar to small Dutch towns, except with regard to what has happened in them over the last forty years. I've picked one as an example, though much of what is written could be applied to nearly any British town in comparison with a similar Dutch town:

Boston in Lincolnshire is a small town with a population of 35000. That's just over half the population of Assen where we live. While Assen was originally a monastery in 1258, Boston claims to date back to a monastery as long ago as AD 654. Both places certainly share a long history, and many changes over the years. Both are now regional centres to which people travel from out of town in order to shop, to study or to work. For many centuries, Boston had significant trade with continental Europe and the town was influenced by European ideas. Boston has a particularly fine windmill sited next to a canal (the Maud Foster Drain).

Boston is so similar to a Dutch town that Wikipedia notes that it "was used by film makers during the Second World War to represent the Netherlands when the real thing was not available for filming."

There are a few pedestrianized streets in the centre of Boston which look like this:

"Pedestrianization" in Boston.

By way of contrast, this is what the pedestrianized streets in the centre of Assen look like:

"Pedestrianization" in Assen (see before and after photos).

In Boston, bicycles are banned

It's a very similar layout. In both cases, the "road" has been narrowed so that pavements (sidewalks) can be made wider. In both cases, different paving has been used than usual in order to make the difference between this and a normal street more obvious.

In Assen there are many bikes and
cycling is encouraged.

However, there is one big difference. In Boston you are banned from cycling through these streets while in Assen you are encouraged to do so.

Of course, any place which bans motor vehicles has the potential to be a quieter place for people to enjoy. But Boston actually runs scheduled bus services through the "pedestrianized" area every few minutes, and when they come through they generate a remarkably irritating warning sound which you can hear from the video:

Note that this video has explanatory captions which do not appear on a mobile device. You must watch on a computer to understand the video. Afterwards, watch another video which shows how the similar looking streets in Assen work very differently in practice.

This "pedestrian" zone seems somewhat a misunderstanding of what a pedestrian zone is. It also is somewhat a missed opportunity to make cycling more attractive.

Of course, the centre isn't the only difference these days between Assen and Boston. Boston still looks in other ways like a typical British town with, despite its small population, quite remarkable amounts of motor traffic using roads which are surprisingly large, surprisingly busy, and which direct this traffic right through the centre of the town.

Cycling to the centre of Boston requires using the same roads. Pedestrians walk behind barriers and have to cross those roads using multi-stage crossings with huge delays.

View Larger Map

I've cycled along this road (I sometimes cycled to my in-laws from Cambridge when we lived there), and I can tell you that it's no more pleasant than it looks. While people who live in the suburbs of Assen cycle with very small children on their own bikes to the centre of the city, that's not what people do in Boston. People who cycle in Boston do so despite the conditions, not because of them. In Boston, like other British towns, cycling resembles an extreme sport. Roads like this, without any cycling facilities, do not encourage mass cycling. It's not the same as cycling to the centre of a Dutch town like Assen.

Overwhelmingly, what Bostonians do to get about is to drive their cars. It's an easy choice to make. People may get stuck in traffic jams, which can be a problem even in small towns like Boston, they may have to pay to park (which is about as expensive as in Assen) as well as for petrol and the upkeep of their cars, and they may well complain about these costs. However, when the infrastructure looks as it does in towns like Boston, and good alternatives are not provided, then people will carry on driving anyway almost regardless of the cost as this is still seen as the least bad option.

The huge amount of car parking provided even very close to the start of the "pedestrian" zone also means that anyone who tries to cycle here will have to take on a large number of motor vehicles as they do so:

View Larger Map

To me, this is an interesting contrast. Boston used to be part of Holland in Lincolnshire. I wrote before about how similar this area is to the Netherlands. None of the usual excuses about hills and other nonsense apply at all. The people are the same, the landscape is the same, their transport habits were once the same. The only real difference now between a British town like Boston and a Dutch town like Assen is the infrastructure. That is what explains the very different patterns of transport seen now between what were once very similar towns. Forty years ago, Assen and other Dutch towns looked a lot like Boston, but in Dutch towns, a civilizing second revolution took place.

Boston encourages driving, as well as some public transport usage. The town makes walking and cycling relatively unpleasant. The result is that people overwhelmingly drive. On the other hand, Assen encourages cycling, due to offering direct and pleasant routes for cycling. The result is that people cycle for 40% of their journeys.

For Boston to reduce its car dependency and be more welcoming to cyclists requires the same kind of transformation to be made as was made in the Netherlands. It is time that British streets started to look like modern Dutch streets. Boston people could cycle just as Dutch people can. In fact, archive footage shows that before the roads across the whole country were dominated by cars, when people cycled more than they drove all across Britain, Boston's population cycled in huge numbers.

See also pedestrianization in the centre of Hoogeveen, another town of a similar size to Boston, and how pedestrianization is handled in a suburb of Assen. It's of interest that the idea of running buses through the pedestrian zone was pushed through by the council in Boston even though it unpopular with many of the people. I think sometimes the public transport companies in Britain have far too much influence. I'm reminded of a council meeting which I was part of in Cambridge a few years ago at which a councillor stood up and talked about how "cyclists undermine the bus service" and that this was a reason not to provide good cycle access to a proposed Park and Ride site.

I cycle, so you could cycle too

Many existing cyclists in other countries make statements of the form "I cycle, so you could cycle too".

There's a lot of emphasis on riding "vehicularly", on gaining speed to get past junctions, on training people to avoid common problems. These are fine survival techniques in an environment which is hostile to cyclists, but they are not a way to make cycling a normal means of transport for the masses. Those with a desire to cycle, who are fearless enough and strong enough will continue to do so, while those who are more easily scared away from cycling will never start in such conditions. Cycling needs to be something other than an extreme sport to make the majority of people see it as something for themselves.

On the way home recently I found myself behind a rather elderly gentleman who was making his way slowly through a village near here by bike:

Explanatory video captions are displayed only if the video is played on a computer and not when played on a mobile device
You'll also see how children had met friends on the same cycle path. The infrastructure makes this possible. No-one has to be a "road warrior" to cycle. Parents don't worry about the safety of their children. Older people also see cycling as a perfectly reasonable way to get around.

Compare and contrast with this video made by someone who says "you can ride your kids to school" in Bristol:


It's laudable that this parent has taken great care in teaching his son to ride so safely as possible given the conditions. In the UK it's quite exceptional for an eight year old to cycle to school, even with a parent "just behind and out a bit to offer some protection and direction if needed" precisely because of the conditions in which this cycling would have to take place. Most parents simply don't feel that this is a safe thing to subject their children to. Meanwhile, just over the North Sea here in the Netherlands the average age for a child to go to school unaccompanied is about 8 and a half.

So what explains the difference ? The infrastructure ! Britain's streets are not subjectively safe. This is why attempts to train people to cycle are not working. It's also why in that second video you don't see other children cycling to school, older people cycling, nor indeed many other people riding bikes at all. It doesn't look much like any video of a Dutch school run by bicycle.

You are a member of a self selected group
Campaigners often ignore the reasons why they are cyclists while the majority of the population are not. It's very simple, those who cycle now in low cycling countries are by definition members of the easy demographic for cycling, made up largely of enthusiasts and relatively fit young adults, while those who do not cycle are from different demographic groups who are not naturally given to cycling especially if it involves risk.

Cyclists in most countries are an out-group. To change this, it's no good to say that conditions are OK for you. You need to reach the people who are not part of your group and you need to tackle the reasons why other people do not cycle.

We are here to help. Our cycling study tours
demonstrate how the Netherlands made
made attractive to the whole population

Different people have very different needs for safety, and in particular, subjective safety. People who are scared to cycle now, will remain scared to cycle unless conditions are made very much better, to grow the modal share past the usual easy demographics and to include people who are more difficult to attract to cycling requires not just a little more, but for the standard of facilities to increase exponentially.

Click for more on out-groups.

A "magic" roundabout ?

The Crap Walking and Cycling in Waltham forest and As Easy as Riding a Bike blogs have both recently posted interesting critiques of the "Magic Roundabout" in York ("spin over substance", "Putting some paint around the circumference of a roundabout does precisely nothing for cyclists", "Would you want to send your child to school on cycling infrastructure like this?"). Elsewhere it is described as a formidable obstacle for cyclists.

Here it is from the air:

Courtesy of Bing Maps. This design has similarities with the worst roundabout designs ever used in the Netherlands but little in common with the safest roundabout designs.

The CTC wrote about it in 2003 (page 6 here), saying much about the "continental style" of this roundabout and implying that it was influenced by the Dutch by referring to CROW documentation from the Netherlands (amongst others) as being an inspiration. On the Magic Roundabout, cyclists are encouraged to use a 1.2 m wide on-road cycle lane which goes all the way around the outside, and on one entry point they're expected to use a cycle lane of the same width sandwiched between two lanes of motor traffic.

Comparison with a Dutch roundabout
For a cyclist, the supposedly "continental" style "Magic Roundabout" of York looks nothing at all like a real roundabout as seen over here on "the continent" in the Netherlands. This second example is a typical Dutch roundabout, chosen simply because it's an example close to our home, but which is of the safest design used in the Netherlands. It should appear at a similar scale on your screen to that of the above example from York:

Note that in Assen cyclists do not ride on the road around roundabouts, but have completely separate paths. Read more about this roundabout, which is a good example of the safest design in the Netherlands.

These aren't particularly busy roads, but that doesn't mean that cyclists aren't better off away from them. There is no need to ride on the roundabout itself at all. Cycle paths around this roundabout are 2.5 m wide where single direction and 4 m wide where bidirectional.

We ride this way regularly as it's part of the most direct route to the city centre (see the whole journey from which this is a part ). A video made when riding past this roundabout also looks nothing like the video from York:

Read more about a truly safe Dutch roundabout design

Approaching and riding past this Dutch roundabout involves no conflict and no drama. No-one has concerns about riding here themselves, and no adult has concerns about their school age children cycling past this junction. This is just as well because many go past here in order to get to school. This type of infrastructure contributes to the high cycling rate of Assen, and as similar roundabouts are found right across the country, to the high cycling rate of the Netherlands as a whole. What's more, this is also extremely efficient for a cyclist to use. You never have to stop when riding in this direction, and rarely in the opposite direction. In my view, this is truly a "magic" roundabout because so far as cyclists are concerned, it's almost been made to vanish.

Guess which one won an award ?

Caption is from the Transport Initiatives website. But
this dangerous design should never have won an award.

Unlike the York roundabout, the example in Assen didn't win any awards. No-one said that it was a novel idea which "should be copied by other engineers around the world." (just a few days after this blog post was published, that link was password protected - I guess someone in York reads this blog). No consultancy company still refers to it as an example of their award winning design. For the Dutch, this is nothing but a normal roundabout. In any case, people don't seem to be quite so keen on handing out awards for things like this on this side of the North Sea.

The problem with things like the Magic Roundabout in York is that sometimes the hype gets out of control. It may well be a safer design than the previous junction, but it's a missed opportunity. It could have been so much better, but as so much hype and praise is heaped upon the roundabout it's difficult for other people to notice this. The hype is still believed. Cycling England referred to it quite positively, there have been proposals to copy the "Magic Roundabout" elsewhere in the UK, similar ideas are published as guidance in Australia. The BBC recently said that the "British roundabout" might be conquering the US, and a much hyped example like this could well be held up as a better than average design to copy.

It is often difficult to counter the opinion of an "expert". However, it seems quite clear that in reality the Magic Roundabout shouldn't be an example which is copied. Planners who want to do the right thing for cyclists would be better advised to look at Dutch examples instead.

The Assen roundabout used as an example in this blog post is not unusual. Another post details every roundabout in Assen. Every single roundabout in Assen uses a better design than the "Magic Roundabout" in York.