A glimpse of a better future (where are we heading to after the pandemic ?)

Suddenly it seems that nearly everyone can see, hear and smell the benefits of fewer motor vehicles. Stories are appearing from all around the world about clear skies, fresher air and being better able to hear bird song. The corona virus lock-downs have brought us more peaceful streets, fresher air, less noise. Fish are seen to have returned to rivers, insects appear to be more numerous. Tourists no longer dominate historic cities. Stress levels are down (non corona related stress, at least).

Fewer cars

Most people alive now were also alive when there were half as many cars.
Many were alive when there were a quarter as many, or even less.
Your country is almost certainly similar.

Here in the Netherlands, car usage has approximately halved due to the corona crisis. This has made headlines. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember we've had no traffic jams caused by traffic for nearly a month. It's been described as an historic drop, but actually we need only go back about 30 years to find a time when this level of car ownership and use was normal. i.e. what we consider to be a relatively quiet situation now isn't actually extreme at all - this is something that most people alive now took for granted when they were younger. Indeed, it wasn't seen as a benefit back then because we were too busy looking at the problems which existed already due to this level of car usage. People had already started taking to the streets to protest about the effects of excessive motor car usage much longer than 30 years ago. The "historic low" level of traffic which we have now was seen by many as rather an excess when this was "normal", and there are people alive now who protested against the dominance of cars when they were less than a quarter as many cars in use as we think of as "normal" today. i.e. less than half of what we have during this "historic low".

At the time of writing, more than 120000 people have already died due to the corona virus. That's a terrible death toll over the last four months and all of us would of course like to see an end of this virus. However this terrible death toll is nothing in comparison with what is seen as "normal" due to cars. There have been more than a million deaths annually due to car crashes for some years now, and in addition four million or so people die each year die due to air pollution, a good proportion of which is also due to motor vehicles. To solve the problems due to motor vehicles, we need far fewer motor vehicles. Most people in the world already live without cars and it's not difficult to be one of them.

Fewer flights
Another thing which people have commented on extensively is that our skies are now spotless because there are fewer vapour trails due to aircraft flying overhead. Of course there is a difference, but again it's not as extreme as many people imagine. In March 2020 there were about half the number of flights that there were in March 2019. A halving sound quite extreme, but the number of flights doubles approximately every 20 years, so there are actually lots more aircraft in the skies now than there used to be.

I used to know what they all were...

Most people alive today were used to seeing far fewer aircraft than are in the skies now, even during this crisis. When I had a childhood hobby of aircraft spotting there were less than half as many aircraft for me to spot as are flying now during this crisis.

So with aircraft too, this dramatic change has actually meant that we have only returned to a time when the problems with aircraft were already apparent. People were already protesting about noise and pollution from aircraft when there were fewer of them as are flying right now during this crisis.

The current level of air travel, during this crisis, remains far too high. It is not sustainable. And it's not just air travel. Moving from one mode to another mostly just means a similar level of emissions from a different mode. That is not sustainable either. We will survive without holidays this year, without work trips. To solve the problems due to travel we must continue to travel far less.

Reduced oil production
The oil producing nations have agreed to an historic 10% reduction in their production in order to prop up prices. Note that this actually only takes the rate of oil production back to what it was about ten years ago.

People have protested about environmental destruction due to oil companies for decades longer than this and at times when their production was very much lower than is the case now. One particularly high profile case of a protestor who was executed was in 1995 when the rate of oil production was around half of what it was at the beginning of this year.

The oil companies have not reduced their output in order to try to save us from the inevitably destructive environmental effects of their product, they are merely trying to prop up their own profitability. The best way we can fight against this is to try not to buy their product. To solve the problems due to fossil fuels we need to go as far as we can to stop using fossil fuels.

Who really needs greener vehicles ?

Watch this excellent documentary about bullshit jobs

The subject of "bullshit jobs" has been discussed quite a lot over the last few years and some people are right now discovering that their 'important' job is actually either not quite so important after all, or in some cases an utterly pointless waste of time. This crisis has shown us who the real essential workers are. It's also shown us who we don't miss much if they don't go to work.

There is a realisation now that the lower level of car traffic due in large part to cutting back on the bullshit commutes used to travel to bullshit jobs is beneficial for everyone. But another thing that we've seen is that rather than getting in the way of "essential" commuters, some of the other vehicles on the roads (e.g. ambulances, tractors, trucks and vans) actually provide truly essential services such as keeping us healthy and providing us with food and other supplies.

The realisation that we do need food, we do need (some) goods, but we don't actually need nearly so many commuters demonstrates something important: we've not only been placing emphasis on the wrong workers but we've also been putting the majority of our efforts at greening transport into the wrong vehicles. Building electric vehicles is a resource intensive and polluting industry. Instead of using the limited resources available to build so many electric cars, trains and buses as possible to enable people to continue to travel excessively we should all along have been looking to green the essential vehicles (ambulances, tractors, trucks and vans etc.) while we encouraged people not to spend their time travelling regularly back and forth on commutes. Some of us have of course been saying this for a long time now...

Tackling emissions and improving our quality of life fit together and both can far more effectively be achieved by reducing the number of motor vehicles than by merely substituting the latest examples of what the motor industry wants to sell as a slightly greener alternative to the already greatly over-used motor vehicles which already exist.

At present we see that existing road infrastructure has become more welcoming to cyclists because there are fewer cars. While we can design infrastructure to maximise safety around cars (e.g. the safe roundabout design), it's always best to remove the cars. No roundabout or traffic light actually exists for the benefit of cyclists and pedestrians. They all impede cyclists and pedestrians while they attempt to reduce the danger of motor vehicles.

How much more pleasant could our towns be if we went further down the path of giving more space to people by taking it away from unnecessary motor traffic ?

Reducing carbon ?

We need a much more rapid downward slope in emissions than the
side-effect of the corona virus will result in. It's not even close to enough.

A small carbon emission reduction looks likely this year due to the virus. But at best this will be very small and at worst there may be no reduction at all. The likely outcome is that this year's emissions will end up around 3% lower than last year's emissions. We might think this small reduction will help, but over time this will merely look like another year in which we did not act. It is unfortunately not even close to the 18 percent per year steady decrease that we need to keep our planet in a condition where human life is supported.

Meat and travel
It is highly likely that COVID19, like so many other human illnesses including swine influenza and avian influenza, bovine tuberculosis, Ebola, BSE/CJD, and very many other diseases, was transferred from animals to humans due primarily to people raising, killing and eating products derived from those animals for food. The disease was then spread around the world in a very short period of time because people travel so much.

So this world-wide pandemic, like so many previous disease outbreaks and just as we expect for future pandemics, was caused by meat and travel. Meat and travel. Also amongst the biggest contributors to global warming.

For the sake of ourselves, our children, our children's children, if we want to avoid disease or merely keep this planet's climate such that humans can continue to live here we need to limit our consumption of meat and dairy products and reduce the amount we travel.

Keeping up with the Joneses ?
Will people still feel a need to "keep up with the Joneses" if they no longer see the Joneses ? Could the virus trigger a change in thinking and reduction in pointless consumerism ? Will the rich people who now buy far too many clothes, electronic gadgets etc. still feel a need for those things if in the future they go out less ? Over consumption by the richest 10% of the population (this probably includes you, dear reader) is one of the other great drivers of climate change and another of those things which needs to change.

What future shall we choose ?
There is no herd immunity against climate change. There is no immunisation, no easy cure. While we're all talking about COVID19 now, the biggest problem facing us all last year was climate change, it's still the biggest problem this year and it will remain the biggest problem next year and after we have solved the problem of this virus.

There is currently much discussion about an exit strategy from the virus and about how we will "get back to normal", but a return to a "normal" which is similar to that which existed a few months ago would not be any more sustainable now than it was before and will not in all ways be better than the situation which we have now. The death rate from the expected effects of climate change due to "normal" behaviour will be far higher than what we currently have from the virus. We of course need to do what we can to tackle this virus, but let's not jump straight back into a situation in which we return to the smog, noise and road deaths which we had before. A better future world is possible. Our future doesn't have to be a continuation of the past.

The richest 10% of the people on this planet consume wildly
too much relative to the poorer people on this planet. Top
ten percent salaries begin at $13700 per year. If you are
reading this then you are probably one of the elite.

Outside of the direct and unpleasant effects of the virus itself, we also now have before us a glimpse of what a possible better future for all of us could look like. We need to grasp the positives and build upon them, creating high quality and low stress conditions for local transport by bicycle and by foot while encouraging people not to make the longer and more polluting journeys, especially those which lead nowhere except to a high stress but perhaps also completely unnecessary job. We need to change our society so that we do not emphasize the most pointless aspects of that society, for it is the pointless jobs, pointless commutes, pointless vanity and pointless greed which have got us into this mess. We need to consume less and be happy to do so because the alternative to doing so is far more terrible than this virus.

Some of the same solutions work for both the virus and climate change. But not all. We need to go much further in limiting our excessive consumption but while the negative effects of climate change could be far more destructive, they are also in many ways less cruel. For example, the climate places no demands on our social behaviour and we do not need to isolate ourselves from nearby neighbours and friends in order to live in a sustainable way. All we need to do is live within our means, i.e. within what is possible with the resources available on the planet we share. We need to learn to live in a way which is possible for the entire population of this planet, without some people demanding a far bigger slice of the pie, a higher standard of living than is possible for everyone. Let's start now, by consuming less.

Please don't forget about developing nations
At present much of our concern is about our own nations. Many of us are worrying mostly about other relatively prosperous people who are likely to have access to health care and who probably have enough to eat, and who have the luxury of being able to isolate themselves. Not everyone in the world has such an easy life as we do in the developed world and I fear for the effects of the virus in the nations where people are not so well cared for. At this time, if you can, please consider donating to development charities who can help those who are not in the top 10%. They didn't spread this virus but they are likely to be the worst affected by it - another unfortunate parallel with climate change.

Will this be remembered as the summer of "corona blue" skies, a brief moment when the air was clear and we could breath more easily, or will we return to what has been seen as a "normal" level of pollution in the near future ?

Trivia which demonstrates how long effects of health crises last: Because I lived in the UK during the time of the BSE/CJD health crisis of the 1980s/90s I am not allowed to donate blood in the Netherlands. That applies even though I didn't eat meat so I'm a long way from being a high risk donor. People who lived in the Netherlands during that time frame and who did eat meat can give blood in the Netherlands. I could find myself receiving their blood donation even though Dutch people are not allowed to give blood in the USA for the same reason that I can't here and this is true even though the USA had its own cases. Such restrictions often have more to do with national exceptionalism than logic, this being a factor which also contributed to many Western nations including the Netherlands apparently thinking initially that they'd somehow be immune to COVID19, leading to slower responses and much worse outcomes than in several Asian nations where the disease was taken seriously earlier.

A car crash so quiet that we didn't know it had happened

On Monday morning there was quite a serious car crash just 70 m from our home. We didn't know about it until later in the day when it was reported on the local news. This may seem like an unlikely story, and you may wonder how it could be possible that we would miss such a thing so close to our home, but this actually makes a good example of how successfully Dutch residential areas are insulated from the effects of major roads, even when they pass nearby.

The crashed car, by the closest bus-stop to our home. Photo: RTV Drenthe.

The huge road on which the crash took place. The car in the photo above is in the same position as the bus in the photo below.

Our home is on the left of the Google Maps measurement tool, the crashed car was on its right.

The road on which this crash occurred is the ring-road of Assen. This has a 70 km/h speed limit (43 mph), this being the highest speed limit that you will generally find is allowed on a road within a city in the Netherlands. The relatively low speed for what is not far off an urban motorway does of course help to keep noise levels down, but you'll also note that the photos above show a noise barrier alongside this road. The barrier is extremely effective at reducing noise, and also makes it next to impossible to see the road. This is why it was possible that we didn't even know the crash had happened until later in the day.

Cyclists are often unaffected by crashing cars

The cycle-route skips past the traffic
lights and goes nowhere near the road

The cycle-path which we use to ride into the city is visible on the image from Google Maps above. It passes almost exactly under where the crash occurred so cyclists who were riding here even as the crash occurred may well not have noticed it happening, and will not have been put in danger.

By using this tunnel, cyclists not only cycle in a safe and almost entirely noise free environment but also skip past a set of traffic lights.

The tunnel and noise barrier between them reduce danger for cyclists, reduce noise and also reduce how often cyclists have to stop on their journeys. These factors add together to make cycling more pleasant and relaxing and also to offer the prospect of faster and shorter journeys if you travel by bike.

Measuring noise levels - how effective is the barrier?
It's quite straightforward to measure the effect of a noise barrier if we have the right equipment. The photo on the right shows my SPL meter measuring the sound level in our front garden, a mere 50 metres from the road. The glimpse of blue in the centre top of the photo is as much as we can see of the noise barrier, which is otherwise completely invisible due to trees. My meter barely ever registers any noise here. Set on the lowest possible range of 60 dBA, the needle very rarely moves from the -10 dB setting due to traffic noise, indicating a level which barely ever rises above 50 dBA. Birds in trees nearby make a subjectively louder sound than traffic noise. 50 dBA is the sort of level sometimes described as being equivalent to an "average home interior" or "moderate rainfall"

My SPL meter barely moves
on this side of the barrier

By comparison, on the other side of the barrier I have to adjust my meter's range so that it is not overloaded by the sound. When standing there, the meter often shows figures of 82 dBA or higher as I am passed by cars, and can peak higher yet for buses, trucks and motorbikes, so it would appear that our front garden is at least 30 dB quieter than the road-side.

The inverse-square law does not apply
Readers with a physics or maths background will probably have thought of the inverse-square law by now. According to the inverse-square law, you would expect that a ten times difference in distance from the source of a sound would bring a 20 dB difference in sound level, which is a good part of what I have measured. However, you have to be careful with that assumption in this case. The inverse-square law applies only for measurements in a free field and with a point source.

Noise from aircraft travelling overhead is attenuated according to the inverse-square law because these conditions apply, but when considering noise from motor vehicles on roads we usually have neither a free field (airborne sound bounces from the road more than it propagates through it) nor a point source. A busy road with many cars on it (such as during rush-hour when I made my measurements) more closely approximates to a line-source than it does to a point.

Noise from roads is so pervasive in large part because it is not attenuated by distance to the extent that you might hope it would be.

Besides, if you need further evidence of the effectiveness of the barriers, I should point out that my meter still measures only slightly over 50 dBA even if I stand very close to the quiet side of the barrier, when my distance from the noise source (cars on the road) is only about double that of standing on the noisy side of the barrier.

Barriers also reduce air pollution
It has been shown that air pollution from motor vehicles is also reduced in the local immediate downwind area behind noise barriers. This is due to the pollution being lifted to a higher level where it is blown away more quickly. We breath cleaner air as a result of the noise barrier.

And help to encourage neighbourlyness

Children play on our street because it's
quiet and traffic free, This is normal
in Dutch residential streets.

This is all part of creating a pleasant residential environment. Research has found that streets which are quiet (both in terms of through traffic and noise) lead to better relationships with your neighbours.

Quietness is not unusual in the Netherlands
On our study tours we demonstrate the surprising quietness of Dutch residential areas and also how even motorways with vehicles travelling at 130 km/h (80 mph) now cause comparatively little noise nuisance.

Take a look at the other side of the road
The other side of the main road has a through cycle-route which is protected by the same kind of wall.

A new noise barrier

I've written previously about how noise barriers are used to make sure that residential areas are not spoiled by the noise which comes from motorways. The combination of quiet road surfaces, lower speed limits near residential areas and noise barriers is very effective.

However, noise isn't only a consideration for residential areas. Drenthe has many large natural areas of heath and forest and these also can be spoiled by noise.

Our local TV station covered the story of a new noise barrier being constructed along the side of the A28 motorway. It will be 5 km long, and protect the nature area known as the Dwingelderveld.


The red line shows the position of the new noise barrier. No-one lives close by the western edge of the motorway in this position, so this barrier is not to protect homes from the traffic noise.

It looks a little ugly at present, and has required chopping down some trees to make space for the noise barrier. However, this damage won't last for long. The section of the noise barrier by the forest will itself be masked by trees so that it is visually in keeping with the forest. The section by the slightly hilly heath area will be covered in the heath plant, and landscaped so that it also is nearly invisible.

There are many radio-telescopes in this area. This telescope was once the world's largest and this place is now the centre of the current world's largest radio telescope

The Dwingelderveld is one of ten Stiltegebieden, or "silent areas" in Drenthe. However, measurements taken in 2005 showed that 2/3rds of the time, sounds could be heard, and that the main cause was the A28 motorway. This is what led to the new barrier being planned and built, because otherwise the area could no longer be considered to be silent.

This radio-telescope is in the Dwingelderveld. I've been there a few times. Read newer blog posts about the Dwingelderveld.

Road noise and the Dutch cyclist

This video had explanatory captions visible on screen but youtube removed that facility. While traffic noise exceeds 90 dBa from right next to the road inside the noise barrier, ambient noise from the motorway is 50-55 dBa on the cycle-path at the closest point to the motorway, which is quieter than children playing further away and also quieter than slow cars on the access road. It's unmeasurable by the time I am a hundred metres from the motorway.

Noise pollution contributes towards a great number of different health problems. Noise from roads is a very common source of noise pollution. In some places it dominates the outdoor landscape. However, this does not have to be the case.

Motorways in the Netherlands are quite remarkably quiet compared with those in other countries. It is often possible to stand just a few hundred metres away without being aware that you are near a major road.

This has been achieved by use of special quiet road surfaces and noise barriers. Also, speed limits can be lower on motorways where they are near residential areas. This reduces both noise and air pollution from motor vehicles close to where people live.

In the video I measure the noise levels on and near a motorway. Right at the side of the road, figures of 90 dB(A) and above were quite common. However on the other side of the noise barrier, just 20 m away, figures of 50-55 dB(A) are normal. That's within the range of normal conversation and quieter than the noise made by a child in the park a much greater distance away. A little further away again, about 100 m from the road, it is much quieter and my meter can no longer measure anything at all.

How does this relate to cycling ? Riding a bike on a noisy road, whether or not it includes on-road cycle lanes, is always going to be a relatively unpleasant experience. The noise of motor vehicles close by will always reduce the subjective safety of cyclists. Cycling thrives where cyclists are kept apart from all effects of motor vehicles, including their noise.

Update later in the day
This is the location where I made the video:

View Larger Map

This is another road, the ring road of Assen, which has a 70 km/h speed limit and noise barriers:

View Larger Map

This road has a 50 km/h speed limit and noise barriers against the side of the road which is residential:

View Larger Map

Such barriers are not at all unusual. There are others around the city.

You may also be interested in the works of the Noise Innovation Programme, who have produced reports on such things as "State of the Art Acoustic optimisation" of roads. They also concern themselves with noise from trains and marshalling yards. I once worked in an office situated close to a very noisy marshalling yard in the UK, so it was interesting to read that piercing curve noise actually can be reduced, though we were assured at the time that it could not.

There are several other blog posts about noise, covering different aspects, and giving other examples of treatments as well as links to more information. Also there are blog posts showing Stiltegebieden or "Silent Areas" near Assen. These are places just a short distance away where you usually can hear nothing but birds and insects, and the sound of other cyclists passing. It wouldn't be possible if road noise had not been tamed.

Source of the noise
Note that the noise from cars shown in this video is almost entirely due to tyres wearing on the road. It's not produced from the exhaust pipes of cars. This is why quiet asphalt is effective. It's also why electric cars are not a solution to the noise from cars. Engine noise was already insignificant for any moving car. Reducing it does not reduce total noise pollution from moving cars, and stationary cars make no noise anyway.

Comparisons of typical noise levels of different things are here. I don't get to use my decibel meter often. The last time it came out of the cupboard was to test bells.

Road noise, cobbles and smooth asphalt

The red line to the West of the city is the motorway. That
which runs from the South to the North East is the railway.
Another blog posts shows the noise levels at the location
of the upper blue cross

The noise map on the left shows noise levels in Assen. From the 1970s onwards, research lead to several generations of quieter surfaces for Dutch motorways so that the noise pollution from them is less than it could be, and that it does not spread widely. There are also lower speed limits on Dutch motorways where they pass near residential areas, and barriers alongside them to block the sound.

The red cross on the noise map of Assen is the position of noise barriers featured before on the blog. The blue crosses are where we've stood with people on Study Tours to demonstrate that while the A28 motorway (the main motor vehicle route North-South) is the noisiest road in the city, you can still be remarkably near to it without having to raise your voice to be heard. This is actually a remarkable difference from the thunderous roar which is normal for people living near some British motorways, though as you can see on the map, they are still a greater source of noise than anything else.

However, noise is also used in another way. While motorways have been made quiet, many residential streets do not have these super smooth quiet surfaces. Many of them have rather rough cobbled surfaces as shown in this photo. It's traditional, and looks really nice.

Such a surface is also noisy to drive a car on. I have never seen anyone say that it is deliberately kept this way, but it is interesting that in the Netherlands if you go on a long journey in a car then the road noise inside the car is relatively low compared with the noise inside when you come off the motorway and drive much slower on residential roads. The opposite problem occurs in other countries, and is sometimes pointed out as a reason why drivers might speed when they come off the motorway - because they've become used to the noise level while driving faster.

These cobbled streets are often on cycle routes. Cycle routes on roads frequently don't follow the same line as car routes. Rather, these "shared" roads have very few cars on them, because the roads have 30 km/h speed limits and the direct through route is only usable by bike or on foot. Often one way restrictions applying only to motorized vehicles are used to make sure that a cyclist using a back street won't see motorists competing to also use it as a through route. "Rat-running" is virtually eliminated.

Forcing drivers to take different routes to the direct routes taken by cyclists is a way of keeping cyclists safe from drivers without cycle paths.

However, because these cobbles are rough, they're not the best surface for cycling on. There is now a new type of cobble, as shown on this "bicycle road" in Assen (A "bicycle road" formally allows cycles in preference to drivers).

These special square edged cobbles have the aesthetic of the traditional type, but they give a smoother ride, nearly as smooth as asphalt or concrete. This bicycle road forms the most direct route into Assen from a new suburb (as seen here and here). The special cobbles are a little more expensive, but considered to be worth using because they keep the historic centre of the city looking good, while also giving cyclists a better than average, more comfortable, surface on which to ride.

In the past, cycle paths in the Netherlands were surfaced with cobbles, and sometimes these were not pleasant to ride over. Replacing older cycle paths is a continuous process and many have now been resurfaced. Modern surfaces are either very smooth asphalt, as in this photo, or concrete.

It's not uncommon for cycle paths alongside a road to have a smoother surface than the road itself. This is the case for a good part of the route between here and Groningen, where the cycle path is concrete while the road is asphalt. The concrete surface offers not only smoother riding, but also lower rolling resistance and higher speeds for cyclists vs. riding on the road. You also see this done quite deliberately in the countryside.

I had always assumed that the cobbles were laid down by hand until I saw this (but having started here talking about noise pollution, I recommend that you turn your computer speakers down before playing this video):


The noise map comes from this remarkably comprehensive website about traffic noise.

Not stopping at red traffic lights

Here's a great example of where Dutch cyclists don't have to stop at red traffic lights.

The first photo shows a road junction between our home and the city centre from as close as I usually get to it.

Instead of stopping at these red traffic lights, cyclists have a cycle path which goes through an underpass, making cycle journeys quicker as well as more pleasant than they would be by stopping at the lights.

The cycle path is four metres wide and there is a separate pavement for pedestrians just over 2 metres wide.

The second photo shows what the road looks like. There are five lanes in one direction and two in the other at this junction. Not really a very pleasant place to cycle... but you never have to cycle here so it doesn't matter. Also note the noise barriers which, combined with the 70 km/h speed limit and quiet road surface, keep noise levels to a whisper for those who live near the road. This is also a bus-stop. The bus stop is built into the noise barrier and provides somewhere dry to wait for a bus.

Here's a video showing riding through the tunnel, how you get from the bus stop in the second photo to the cycle parking for the bus stop on the other side, and the cycle path which parallels the main road:

Explanatory captions on this video are visible only if you view it on a computer and not on a mobile device

This is the road which we avoided having to cross by using the tunnel:

Grotere kaart weergeven

There are many examples of where Dutch cyclists get to dodge traffic lights.

My bike is the one in the cycle parking which has lots of plastic bottles in the rear basket, left over from the kid's halloween party. They're there because there is a deposit on them and I'm on the way to the supermarket to return them for the deposit.

For good neighbours, live in a quiet, car-free street

A study about living in quiet vs. busy streets written by Joshua Hart confirms previous results in the USA:

This says that "people who live with high levels of motor traffic are far more likely to be socially disconnected and even ill than people who live in quiet, clean streets."

I suggest reading Joshua's own blog entry, or the report itself published on the living streets website.

Dutch residential streets rarely have this problem
Residential streets in the Netherlands are rarely through streets for motor traffic. As a result, they are usually quiet enough for children to play.

Where busy roads come close to residential streets, the noise of motor traffic can be reduced in many ways. Quieter road surfaces can be used, speed limits can be lowered, and of course you can reduce the amount of driving by increasing the amount of cycling. This requires that cycling is made sufficiently pleasant as a manner to make journeys so that people will opt for it themselves.

People on busy streets elsewhere who "largely lived in the back rooms of their houses and chose dark or black curtains to conceal the soot build-up from vehicles" are living on streets which are also hostile to cyclists, leading to a spiral of lowering life quality.

A Dutch solution
There are busy roads in the Netherlands too, but they rarely go right past people's front doors. These three photos show a busy road in Assen and the barrier which separates it from where people live.

The houses are behind a layer of trees as well as a noise barrier. So, walking from the houses through the barrier you will successively see these three scenes.

First there are trees to hide the barrier from the homes. The barrier itself is around 4 metres high and consists of tinted toughened glass at an angle to reflect sound upwards.

The road behind the barrier has a 70 km/h (43 mph) speed limit despite being a dual carriageway. It also uses a quiet road surface. Cyclists and pedestrians have other routes so that they do not have to share this road, nor be inconvenienced by having to stop at the traffic lights.

The result of this is that the motor vehicles on the road are inaudible inside the homes on the other side of the barriers, and extremely quiet even in the gardens of those homes.

People live in houses here with exactly the sort of social interaction described for "Light street" in the paper.

There is also another view of the same barriers, including video and a later blog post illustrates how the original main road in this location has been civilized for cycling.

Three types of safety

Separate from the main road, a family cycles together, side-by-side. Straps on the front child seat are not done up. Slightly older children ride their own bikes. No-one wears safety equipment. The child in the rear is fiddling with something but the parents have no concerns concerned. This illustrates Subjective Safety.

The Netherlands is the safest place in the world to cycle. This is sometimes put down to a "safety in numbers" effect, but actually the infrastructure design is the vital component and shouldn't be overlooked. A lot of people would like their own country to emulate the Dutch success, but often they don't realise what is needed.

I used to do cycle promotion work in the UK, travelling from city to city and talking to a great number of people about cycling. They all already knew that cycling was healthy, good for the environment etc. Many people would like to be able to cycle. The number one reason that the average person in the street would give for not cycling was "it's too dangerous". So, what did they mean by this ?

One of many four metre wide cycle-paths
in Assen. School run cycling.

There are three measures of safety, all of which have their place in Dutch bicycle provision:

1. Actual safety - How many km you can expect to travel before you're injured on your bike.
2. Subjective safety (sometimes called "perceived" safety) - Are you near fast moving traffic ? Is it easy to make a turn across traffic ? Do you have to cycle "fast" in order to keep up ?
3. Social safety - Is there a mugger around that blind corner ? Will I be attacked in the street if I cycle ?

Cycle campaigners and planners might interest themselves in the actual safety, and it's a good thing that they do. Cyclists should of course be as safe as possible. However, no-one really makes a decision on whether to cycle or not based on these figures. Actually, cycling isn't really very risky in most countries and these figures often feature in cycle promotion literature. However, they're not successfully convincing people to take up cycling.

When people make the decision about whether it is "safe to cycle", they generally mean the second and third of our three different types of safety: Subjective Safety and Social Safety.

Also, if they're making a decision for someone else - perhaps their child or their partner - these issues become even more important.

Mother and children. Having several
metres of separation from the road
is essential for a high level of
subjective safety.

How do you improve Subjective Safety ? Here's a partial list:

• Cyclists should never mix with high speed or high volume motor traffic. A third of all roads in the Netherlands have a speed limit of 30 km/h or lower, most 50 km/h (30 mph) roads provide cyclists with a segregated path, as do many 30 km/h roads with higher volumes of traffic.
• On-road bike lanes and cycle paths without sufficient separation from the road are not suitable with high speed or high volume motor traffic.
• Reductions in speed and volume of traffic always help. All residential streets and a third of the entire road network has a 30 km/h (18 mph) speed limit or lower.
• Fully segregated cycle paths provide a good degree of subjective safety but must be built to a suitable standard. In this area they have a minimum width of 2.5 metres if for single direction use and 4 m for bidirectional use. Paths for pedestrians are separate.
• Junctions should be designed to make sure that cyclists are not left out. Cyclists can be separated in both time and space from motorists to maximise both efficiency and safety.
• In many cases, cyclists avoid junctions altogether so they cause as little inconvenience as possible.
• In Assen, the new standards require that cycle paths which follow the line of roads are separated from them by 2.5 metres. Where this isn't possible you will find a metal barrier is used, to provide a feeling of subjective safety as well as actual safety from crashing vehicles.
• Where possible, cycle routes follow a completely different route to driving routes, which of course improves the feeling of safety further.
• Reducing the noise of motor vehicles by using quieter road surfaces and installing noise barriers between the road and cyclists helps.

In the countryside away from all
motorized traffic, our family, rides
in comfort,

For social safety:

• You should always be able to see out of any tunnel as you enter it.
• Blind corners on paths are not acceptable.
• Cycle paths should be wide to allow cyclists to move out of the way of other people who may be on the path.
• Good sight-lines are required and there should be no places to hide along a cycle route.
• A low crime rate and a good conviction rate are needed. Cyclists should not feel that the police do not take their complaints seriously. 
• Areas that are clean, litter free, graffiti free, where grass is mowed and plants are not allowed to overhang the cycle path have a better feeling of social safety.
• Cycle paths should be lit at night so that you can see potential muggers, obstacles on the path etc.

If subjective and social safety are improved then people will cycle. They will want to. and so they will do it.

To summarise... No-one will do anything that feels too dangerous to them. Everyone wants their child to be safe and their partner to be safe. That's why so many journeys which ought to be cycleable are made by car. There is no point in arguing with people's decisions, or ridiculing them. The person making the decision to use a car has made it for quite logical reasons. Their level of confidence about cycling in the conditions around you is not the same as your own.

What to do... If you want people who do not cycle to take up cycling, then the right thing to do is to campaign for or design in road conditions which make cycling into an appealing option. That is what the Dutch have done. Everywhere. It is the key to the high cycle usage and high cycle safety figures.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that subjective safety is a concern only for inexperienced cyclists. No-one suffers from cycling being pleasant. Steps to increase the subjective and social safety of cyclists lead to a better cycling experience for all. Experienced cyclists are less likely to give up cycling in a subjectively safe environment. It becomes a lifetime habit. People continuing to want to cycle on the road when there is a parallel cycle-path are a sign of failure due to low quality. Always set your sights high enough when campaigning or planning.

A British child being trained. Wearing
fluorescent clothes and a helmet to ride
in the gutter on a residential street
which is subject to rat-running

So, where do helmets and fluorescent clothing fit in ? For some individuals, wearing such a thing improves their own feeling of safety to the level that they will ride. However, these items actually do little to improve actual safety and can have a negative effect on the subjective safety of other people due to making cycling look dangerous. Where cycling has a high degree of subjective safety, as it does here, no-one wears these safety aids. Dutch cyclists are safer without them than cyclists elsewhere are with them.

For more on the same theme, perhaps this post is most suitable. There are quite a few other posts tagged subjective safety which show different aspects of what makes cycling subjectively safe and the result of it. Amongst the other things needed to make cycling attractive is to make cycling more direct, so there are a lot of examples there to illustrate that concept too.

Big picture vs. small picture subjective safety
December 2011 update: I've realised since writing the text above that many people have slightly misinterpreted what I meant. There are two types of "subjective safety".

The most important, "big picture", type of subjective safety is that of society as a whole which causes everyone to cycle. This is what my article is about and this is what causes Dutch people of all ages and social positions to find cycling to be a safe activity, even wearing black clothes on an unlit bicycle at night. Cycling in the Netherlands always feels safe. This leads to a very high modal share for cycling.

The other, "small picture", type of subjective safety is that which involves people using safety equipment such as fluorescent clothes and helmets when they cycle. While this may make it possible for a few individuals who are already interested in cycling to cycle a bit more and to feel safer as they do so, it is debatable whether this does anything for the overall modal share for cycling.

Some people argue that it is detrimental to the modal share if cyclists take up visible safety equipment to improve their own "small picture" subjective safety. I suspect that "big picture" subjective safety is barely altered at all by this. The issues that people who don't cycle can see and which put them off cycling are with street design, not with the clothing of existing cyclists.

All the photos are of subjectively safe cyclists in the Netherlands, except the last which is of a British child being taught "safer cycling" in Cambridge. He is riding too close to the kerb on an unsuitable bike, but wearing fluorescent clothing and a helmet. The child in the fluorescent clothing will probably give up on cycling within a few years, while the Dutch cyclists will in all likelihood keep on cycling through their lives because high levels of subjective safety make it a pleasant thing to do.

The children in the photo at the top are all tired. Why ? Because this family is returning from the last day of a four day cycling event. They've cycled at least 40 km per day as part of the event, plus however far it is between their home and the startplace in Assen. The object which the child at the back is fiddling with as he cycles is a medal.

Per km travelled, Dutch cyclists are 3x less likely to die and 4x less likely to be injured than those in the UK, 5x less likely to be killed and 30x less likely to be injured than in the USA (statistics found here, page 506). Read more about the safety of cyclists in the Netherlands. However, this doesn't tell nearly the whole story, it's actually much safer than that for Dutch cyclists who fit the usual demographic for cycling in other countries. Two thirds of all cyclist deaths in the Netherlands are of people aged over 65. Most of their lethal injuries come from single vehicle collisions. i.e. when old people fall off their bikes, old age sadly can be enough to do the rest. This effect is virtually unknown in the UK and USA because so few older people cycle.