Cycling revolution

Being a cyclist makes you see the streets differently but being a landscape architect offers a completely new view of the city.
Anna Sieczak

Cycle revolution – an article featured in the Landscape Journal – Autumn 2020, Landscape: Green Recovery, by Landscape Institute.

The article presents an overview of how our relationship with cities changed in the context of COVID-19 and how various cities in the UK and Europe responded to the increased number of cyclists during the first lockdown. Text introduce an argument for the Green Recovery with Green Cycling Infrastructure.

The Journal can be accesses here . For Cycle Revolution check out pages 19-22.

You can read the article directly here, or download it as a PDF for offline reading or read it below.

The article:

Cities are an immense ” laboratory of trial and error, failure and success in city building and city design. This is the laboratory in which city planning should have been learning and forming and testing its theories.”
Jane Jacobs, ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ (1961).

The last few months have tested, among other things, our relationship with the city and how we travel within it. Governments and local authorities were forced to apply temporary institutional measures in an effort to stop the pandemic: widened pavements, temporary bike lanes, car-free streets or speed limits – all happened rapidly. This rapid shift forced us to re-evaluate our relationship with the city.

53% of people appreciate local green spaces more since the lockdown (1),

100% increase in weekday cycling and 200% increase during weekends, compared to pre-COVID-19 levels (3),

60% fall in air pollution in parts of the UK (4).

Cycling during the lockdown, new LTN Lambeth.

We have had the opportunity to look closely at the places we live in and, while we were looking, we were also listening, lingering and rethinking. The new normal we saw was one of the streets as places with people walking and cycling, of clean air and local green spaces appreciated. We experienced the cities without cars, perhaps for the first time, wandering around our neighbourhood, discovering new routes and local green spaces.

Oyster Wheel view from Box Hil, loop 8l.

There are a few reasons cycling has become more prevalent during a pandemic:

to avoid public transport,
to enjoy the beautiful weather, and
to take advantage of the empty roads.

It is not cycling that is dangerous but the environment in which we cycle.
Change the environment, take out the risk, and people will cycle and walk.

Empty of cars, the streets have been seen as safe to cycle. This perceived safety also allowed less confident or first-time cyclists to combat their fear and anxiety. Perceived safety is a critical factor in the pattern of changes in human behaviour.

Empty streets and bollards separating the traffic lifted two main barriers that stop people from cycling:

the structural barrier (vehicular traffic on the roads and lack of safe, segregated bike lanes) and
the emotional barrier (the feeling of discomfort, the lack of safety, and lack of representation).

Isabelle Clement. Wheels for Wellbeing Director, urban handcyclist. Using one of the improvements in Lambeth.

More “women, older people, disabled people, people from ethnic minority groups and people at risk of deprivation” are cycling now or consider cycling(5). With an increasingly diverse cohort of people who cycle emerging, cycling becomes visually accessible to people of different races, genders, classes, abilities. Seeing other people, just like us, is encouraging, and gives the message that “I too can cycle”(6).

In Europe:

Paris implemented the quickest measures, supported by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, elected this year for the second time. Her motto was “fighting for a different vision of the world – a world that takes care of our most precious resources: the air we breathe, the water we drink and the places we share.” Paris has become a “15 minute city”, where people rely on active forms of transport, with 50 kilometres reserved for bicycles, including the famous Rue de Rivoli, and 30 pedestrian-only streets (7) .

Milan is transforming 22 miles of local streets with bike lanes, wider sidewalks and lower speed limits, allocating space for more people on streets and embracing the 15 minute city concept at the centre of the postCOVID recovery(8) .

Interestingly Amsterdam and Utrecht, two long-established cycling cities, have integrated their COVID-19 response into long-term strategies, such as Utrecht’s Healthy Urban Living strategy (based on UN 2030 Agenda of SDGs) (9). The Dutch have just carried on with their cycling, as the cultural shift and systemic change (legislation and streetscape design) happened back in the 50s and 70s.

In the UK:

Tactical, temporary, social distance barriers.

London offers two examples of grassroots cycling initiatives, both very different and both born from a passion for cycling.

BikelinesLND (10) proposes a segregated and direct network of fast cycle routes to the city centre from Zone 4 and beyond, organised along the colour-coded routes of the Underground network to make them legible and easy to navigate, plus cycle parking. “The network of meandering configurations allows buses, taxis and delivery vehicles to flow around one another and make contact safely with the kerb without bringing them into conflict with bicycles.” The proposal aims to accommodate high use during peak hours (11) .

Patterns of arrangement for BikelinesLND, diagram.

The Oyster Wheel is made up of eight cycle loops around London, with each of its “spokes” finishing at Tower Bridge. The circular routes are using the Sustrans and Quietways networks where possible, and focus on health benefits and exercise, while enhancing the Green Belt and increasing our contact with nature(12) .

The lockdown resulted in the rapid implementation of long-term programmes, like the Streetspace for London project and the Railton Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) (initially planned for 2023)(13).

In Tower Hamlets, the Skew Bridge on Old Ford Road was closed for cars and open for active travel as part of the Liveable Streets Scheme developed before lockdown, meaning it was now possible to test the project’s aims: improved road safety, air quality, and reduced noise pollution(14) .

According to Transport for London (TFL), 57km of new or improved cycle routes have been created in London, with the aim of 450km of new cycleways by 2024 (15). Although there are voices of opposition, generally the public approval of these changes is high:

64% in support of the temporary provision of new cycle lanes, or wider existing cycle lanes, to aid social distancing

57% in support of the permanent changes (16) .

In July, the Prime Minister announced £2bn for a ‘cycling and walking revolution’ in England, a new policy plan for cycling and walking (17) and a review of ‘The Highway Code to improve road safety for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders’ (18). This was perhaps influenced by the Dutch ‘Presumed Liability Law’, where the larger vehicle is always responsible in the event of an accident, every road user is obliged to look after the vulnerable, and ‘All motorised traffic has to give way when turning left or right to people on bicycles.’

Reducing traffic and introducing the cycle line improved life of all residents.

Five principles are fundamental in the creation of inclusive cycling space in order for them to be safe, and be perceived as such. Cycleways must be “Coherent, Direct, Safe, Comfortable and Attractive”, as set out in the Local Transport note 1/20 on New Cycle infrastructure design (LTN 1/20) published on 27 July(19) .

Coherent
- ^{Cycle routes should allow people to reach day to day destinations easily in a way that is easy to navigate, intuitive and obvious.}
Direct
- ^{Cycle routes should be more direct, than the routes available to motor vehicles. Limit the stop/starting, giving way at side roads, or diversion away from the direct route.}
Safe
- ^{As well as being safe, the infrastructure needs to feel safe.}
Comfortable
- ^{Quality maintained surfaces, proper widths and favourable gradients, reducing conflict between road users.}
Attractive
- ^{Cycle infrastructure should contribute positively to the urban realm, and naturally be attractive to use, avoid over use of signs and markings.}

The section of the CS3 in Tower Hamlet was improved in early 2020: SUDS, trees and mixed pollinator friendly planting, part of Liveable Streets scheme by LBoTH & Project Centre.

Combined multifunctional active travel and green infrastructure, provides benefits to local communities and the whole city. Integrated greenery with suitable tree planting does not just create a ‘pleasant route’, it also has many measurable benefits and functions. It can:

Create habitats and enhance biodiversity
Provide CO2 storage and save CO2 emissions
Improve air quality – lowering N02 and PM10 pollution, filtering fine particles pollution
Manage rainwater – SuDS, cleaning, storing, infiltrating, etc.…
Have a cooling effect – reducing urban heat effect
Promote physical activity – walking, wheeling, running, cycling, etc.
Benefit physical health – reducing cardiac disease, strokes, and asthma due to improved air quality
Benefit mental wellbeing – reducing stress, anxiety, depression
Create stronger communities, as well as age-friendly and inclusive neighbourhoods(20)

Trees provide shade and cool down the asphalt.

The lockdown tests on cities have provided us with evidence that the current city and transport infrastructure design, centred around cars, is no longer valid, and that the rapid change is possible. Inclusive street design for active transport, green infrastructure – 15-minute cities and well design green spaces – are the changes that are necessary to create resilient cities and combat the climate emergency. The lockdown allowed for these approaches to be implemented and tested, and their success should put active transport and green infrastructure at the heart of the Green Recovery.