Author’s Foreword: Cycling on the Cusp of Greatness
I, like most professional transport planners, providers and researchers of my generation, have grown up thinking that cycling, though worthy, is of small significance compared with the great questions of cars, traffic and public transport, or the universal significance of walking.
Too many people in the UK feel they have no choice but to travel in ways that are dangerous, unhealthy, polluting and costly, not just to their own wallets but also to the public purse. Urgent action is required to address Britain’s chronic levels of obesity, heart disease, air pollution and congestion if we are to catch up with other countries in the developed world.
Objectives. We compared cycling injury risks of 14 route types and other route infrastructure features.
Methods. We recruited 690 city residents injured while cycling in Toronto or Vancouver, Canada. A case-crossover design compared route infrastructure at each injury site to that of a randomly selected control site from the same trip.
Almost all locomotor animals respond to visual looming or to discrete changes in optical size. The need to detect and process looming remains critically important for humans in everyday life. Road traffic statistics confirm that children up to 15 years old are overrepresented in pedestrian casualties. We demonstrate that, for a given pedestrian crossing time, vehicles traveling faster loom less than slower vehicles, which creates a dangerous illusion in which faster vehicles may be perceived as not approaching.
Bicycling in cities is booming, for many reasons: health and environmental benefits, time and cost savings, more and better bike lanes and paths, innovative bike sharing programs, and the sheer fun of riding. City Cycling offers a guide to this urban cycling renaissance, with the goal of promoting cycling as sustainable urban transportation available to everyone.
London has a long way to go to achieve the Mayor’s objective of a cycling revolution. Only 2 per cent of journeys in London are made by bicycle. This falls short of other UK cities like Bristol, Cambridge and Hull, and it is significantly less than the Netherlands – where 26 per cent of journeys are made by bicycle – and Copenhagen, which sees 36 per cent of work and study-related trips cycled.
