Potholes on Britain's roads. Some things never change

I read a while ago that Britain's roads now have a pothole every 120 yards. I can believe it, given the state that the roads seem to be in over there. Now that we're accustomed to Dutch roads, British roads which appear on the TV always look rather badly maintained.

This is a regular topic on British cycling blogs, and the stories keep coming up. There were claims over the last year that London's potholes increased markedly over winter and that there could well be in excess of 2 million nationwide. That article points to the high level of motor dependence in the UK as a reason why the country suffers so badly from potholes.

It's clearly a big problem, but is it being addressed ? Rather, there seems to be a problem of people trying to talk themselves out of having to fix these problems. What actually counts as "a pothole" in British roads ? Gloucestershire says that a hole needs to be "the depth of a "golf ball" (1.6in, 40mm) and the width of a 'large dinner plate' (11.8in, 300mm)" before it is regarded as needing to be repaired, while Suffolk says "unless the defect is on a minor road, when it must be about the size of a "dustbin lid" (23.6in, 600mm) to warrant urgent action."

The terrible quality of surfaces is yet another problem for cyclists in the UK, who almost always have to "share such roads" with a lot of motor vehicles. There are documented examples of riding through potholes causing death to cyclists, and also of swerving to avoid them having the same effect. When not lethal, injuries can be extremely unpleasant and painful, and result in claims against councils. I was lucky enough never to fall due to a pothole in the UK, but nasty jarring bumps when riding on busy roads did nothing to enhance my cycling.

And what's happening about it ? Well, in London funding for fixing potholes has been cut.

Here in Assen (and I think it's pretty much standard Dutch policy as I've seen it elsewhere), defects which occur on the roads due to winter conditions are patched up even before the ice has melted. That's what you see in this photo from our local newspaper (from last winter, that's how long ago I started this post.

However, the city also has a policy of renewing whole road surfaces before problems occur. There is a rolling programme where road (and cycle path) surfaces are resurfaced every few years - and this isn't only a skim over the top but involves digging down and replacing what's under the surface as well. When this is done, the work is synchronized with the gas, electric, telephone and other companies to prevent it being dug up again soon afterwards.

Cycle paths of course don't suffer from the same degree of damage because they don't have heavy vehicles on them. Most are exactly the same as before winter, and of course nice new smooth surfaces like this remain nice and smooth.

Why isn't the same thing done in the UK ? Why are the roads in a mess ? It's not a new problem. John Lennon wrote way back in 1967 about there being "4000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire".

The photo at the top, of a large pothole on a British road, comes from the Guardian article. As it happens, someone who I used to work for also just blogged on potholes, from a totally different perspective.

The worst cycle path in Drenthe revisited

At the end of last year, our local newspaper produced a list of the worst cycle paths in the province.

This news story caused a reaction. A list of 41 plans have been drawn up, of which 38 will be executed. Seven of these plans are on the list produced by the news paper. The province is putting in a million euros and an additional two million are coming from other sources to improve these recreational cycle paths. The problem cycle paths are almost all part of the knooppuntennetwork of recreational routes.

The work to be done includes replacing existing asphalt surfaces, and changing asphalt to concrete. The concrete surfaces, a new one of which is on the left, are especially wonderful to cycle on.

I quite like finding something slightly less smooth sometimes, but actually it is very pleasant to have conditions like this even on paths in the middle of no-where.

Don't forget that we organise cycling holidays here. Going along the "worst cycle path in Drenthe" is optional, but actually it's rather nice already, and now we know it is to be improved.

See a later post about improvements to cycle-paths in Drenthe.

There are several other posts about Drenthe, the "Cycling Province" of the Netherlands, where we live.

Of the 41 plans, 3 stand on a reserve list, and will be taken care of only if one of the others turns out to be problematic at the moment.

Cycling vs. driving

Note that the explanatory captions on this video are only visible on a computer and not on a mobile device. If you watch on a mobile device you will not understand the video. Since I made this video, the cycle-path along the canal has been completely resurfaced to a very high standard.

I made this video a few days ago, showing the first four km of my commute by bike next to the route which I'd have to take if I drove to work, or indeed if I insisted on cycling on the road which I'd use to drive.

The map shows the bike route in red and the car route in blue. The five sets of traffic lights which are on the car route are shown with a black background. The white background traffic light is on the bicycle route, but this defaults to green for bikes (all three of those include similar maps showing bike and car routes to different destinations). That single traffic light is the only which exists between my home and work 30 km away. However, if I was to drive then after coming off the motorway in Groningen there are several other sets of traffic lights waiting for me before I get to work.

Cycle routes are more direct than driving routes. That's the case whatever direction we set off in. This is about the best possible case for driving, but cyclists are still prioritized such that it's possible to come close (and perhaps "win" if parking at the far end is included).

I've featured several examples before of where cycle routes are more direct than driving routes. There are also many examples of where Dutch cyclists get to dodge traffic lights on this blog.

Unfortunately, the video is rather small inside the blog page. You may prefer to watch it directly on youtube.

When drivers stop and open windows

In other countries it usually doesn’t mean a lot of good when a driver stops for a cyclist, lowers his window and starts ‘a conversation’. But this is the Netherlands. The other night I was waiting at a traffic light at a nearby but unfamiliar junction. Some road works were in progress. There I was, in a small side street waiting to turn left on a big arterial road into the city. It took a real long time! Way too long as it was cold, raining a bit and there wasn’t much traffic. Not even on the arterial. Just one car was waiting there to turn left into the side street where I was standing. When that car got green the driver made the turn but suddenly stopped as he got passed me. He lowered his window and raised his voice to speak to me. “Sir!” Slightly confused I looked at him; what could he have to say to me? I was just a lonely cyclist waiting for the light to turn green. “Have you pushed the button?” My surprise could be read from my face and before I could think of a response he continued. “It’s because of the road works, sir. You have to push the button now. If you had, you would have gotten green before me.” Clearly this friendly man knew the junction better than I do, including the green phases. He must be one of the few residents here. So I thanked him and after he assured me “it happens to many people sir” he continued in his big dark blue executive style car. I dismounted and walked back to push the button I had overlooked. Sure enough, within seconds the light turned green and I could also continue home. It’s great to live in a country where there is a lot of mutual respect between drivers and cyclists. Not very strange when everybody can be either one. But I must admit, the level of consideration from this driver was remarkable, even for the Netherlands.

Population density vs. cycling rate for a range of cities

This is another of those myths and excuses that I've covered before, but just keeps on coming up. i.e. that the Netherlands has a high rate of cycling because Dutch cities are especially dense. Some campaigners make a lot of noise about high density being required to achieve a higher cycling rate or lower car use. Actually, there is not much of a correlation between cycling rate and density.

As you'll see in the plot above, it isn't true that cities with the highest population densities have the highest cycling rates. Rather, you'll find that Dutch and Danish cities have the highest cycling rates, whatever their density happens to be, because cycling in them there is a more pleasant experience because these cities have invested in cycling infrastructure in order to make it pleasant. Subjective safety is very important.

The belief that the Dutch live in remarkably highly densely populated cities is just a myth. Assen, where we live, has just 780 people per square km. That's not only significantly less dense than New York, but also less dense than relatively spread out American cities such as Portland (1655 people per square km).

New York makes a great example. Over 10000 people live in each square km of what is a very compact city for its population, yet for all the recent hype about growing cycling, the cycling rate remains extraordinarily low by international standards: Just 0.6% of commutes are by bike in that city. Conditions may be slowly improving, and it's a very good thing that they are, but it's still not yet a place to look to internationally as a success story. They're a very long way from the point where all types of people feel safe to cycle for a large proportion of their journeys.

Dutch cities need cycle paths like this
precisely because they are not dense

Much to my amusement, some Dutch people believe the same story about density. i.e. that they have relatively densely populated cities. I was once told this as part of a presentation about Groningen, the density of which is actually just 2300 people per square km. Even the capital of the country, Amsterdam, has just 3500 people per square km. The highest density city in the Netherlands is Den Haag with 5900 people per square km, but Den Haag does not have anything like the highest cycling modal share for a Dutch city. Quite the reverse, in fact, as in a presentation to us on a visit a few years back, the cycling rate there was described as "quite low".

To summarize, population density has little to do with cycling rate. Even within individual countries there is little correlation. You'll see that less densely populated Portland has more cycling than more densely populated New York, that Cambridge people cycle more than Londoners, that Bremen does better than Berlin, and that Groningen has more cycling than Amsterdam even though the densities of each of the higher cycling cities in those pairs is lower.

At this point, it's traditional for some people to respond with comments about average journey distances being so much longer in whichever country they live in. However, I'm afraid that doesn't really hold water either. While the mean distance is skewed due to the maximum possible journey distances being greater, the median for everyday journeys does not vary as much as you might imagine. Even in the USA, every-day journey distances are limited by time more than by the actual distance and 40% of all journeys are under 2 miles in length. The longest journeys may not be practical by bike, but Americans rarely choose cycling as a mode of transport even for the shortest journeys.

By contrast, longer cycle journeys are easier to make in the Netherlands. We find this from our own experience. Places that seemed "too far to cycle to" in the UK are often closer together than we remember them being, and people make the same and longer distance journeys here by bike without a second thought.

The reason for the vastly higher rate of cycling in the Netherlands is not population density, but policy which support cycling, effective campaigning, and successful infrastructure design.

For those who prefer a scatter graph:

The cycling rates for cities with stars after their names are the lowest on my graph, but they're all actually exaggerated relative to the other cities in the list. For these cities I could find only figures for "commuters" and not for all journeys. That the local authorities should choose to publicise this figure instead of one for all journeys is itself an indication that you don't see a lot of school children, parents with children, or pensioners on the streets of these cities. Where there is a healthy cycling culture, commuters are a minority of cyclists.

Attack on critical mass in Brazil

An atrocious incident, whatever one's view of critical mass.

1 March update: If you want more news, The Urban Country has good coverage of what has happened since - as well as some rather unpleasant reader's feedback underneath the article.

Also I recommend Peter Miller's take on "What makes the news and what doesn't".

The importance of direct cycle routes

One of our readers drew our attention to a video that shows a cycle route in Rijswijk which is in effect a suburb of The Hague. It shows a road where cyclists have to make a detour while motorised traffic can go straight on. The man in the video calls this a daily annoyance. And he is right. Most cycle routes in this country are as direct or (more often) more direct than routes for motorised traffic. In this case (see picture below) the green line (about 100 meters/yards) would be the logical route. There is ample room for a cycle path there, but curiously cyclists are required to take the route represented by the red line. This includes going up and down and even an extra level crossing of a light rail line that would otherwise be crossed on the overpass. There is a shortcut (red dots) using the pedestrian stairs. But all in all the red route is at least double the length of the desired green route.

It is clear from the video that this man is not the only one who feels this is wrong. Many cyclists find a short cut by riding over the grass. The city council doesn’t like that but instead of tackling the problem by making the cycle path more direct, they put up a fence to protect the grass. The fence is of course consequently damaged. Another option is to ride against traffic on the opposite side of the road. Which is not a good solution either.

But it could be fixed: a bridge in this road (just left of the picture and seen in the beginning of the video) is due for maintenance. The man in the video urges the city to correct the mistake while they’re changing the bridge.

As can be seen on the picture, the rest of the cycle routes (on the other side of the road for instance) are direct and up to standards so it is most unusual to have this strange situation. It does make clear that cycle routes must be direct, people don't settle for less and rightly so.

The city of The Hague, third largest in the country and the seat of national government has a bad reputation when it comes to cycling infrastructure. One of my older videos shows an example of shared space gone wrong in the center of the city. David (while still living in the UK) has visited The Hague on a study tour of the Netherlands. The cycling experts in the city confirmed they know they are doing below average. This reflects in the ‘low’ cycling rate of 22% of all journeys. But The Hague is working hard (see picture above) to catch up with the rest of the country.

Link to Google Streetview