Paint only cycle infrastructure kills 10% more people than doing nothing

Sir Chris Boardman, Active travel Commissioner at Active Travel England recently spoke at the Active Travel Cafe about what has been achieved since the organisation was set up.

The key messgae that he gave, and one which several people picked up on, was that painted cycle infrastructure kills 10% more people than doing nothing at all. On the other hand, any politicians who are brave enough to implement good quality cycle routes are invariably successful in achieving real change, and getting more people making local journeys on foot or by bike.

One of the first studies into the effectiveness of painted cycle lanes was conducted in the Lancaster area, and published almost 15 years ago. It is now four years since a quantitative study conducted in London found that advisory cycle lanes increase the changes of injury to people riding bikes by one third. Lancaster, like many other places has effectively run a quarter of a century long experiment into how effective painted cycle infrastructure is.

Unfortunately, the failure of these line paintings to either improve cyclist safety or increase levels of cycling has been no deterrent to councils continuing to pursue the approach that has always failed to be effective at what they claim to want to achieve.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results” – Albert Einstein

You can find a recording of Chris Boardman’s summary of what Active Travel England have achieved so far on YouTube