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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

See the attached picture that I just took. I remember a debate about the quality of stands some time back. But as I don't drive or ride a bike I've forgotten the issues. Any thoughts?

Tags for Forum Posts: bike stands

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IMO there's a lot wrong with the stands along Green Lanes, that were chosen solely or largely for aesthetic reasons. Months ago, the Council said that they'll be replaced.

Thank you for the links Stephen. It is obvious for me that Berlin puts in more care, thought and imagination into bike stands and London could learn from Germany's greater commitment to cycling. 

Germany is not a good template for London to follow. We don't need to learn from a second-rate cycling country like Germany when the Netherlands can teach us all we need to know to get ages 8-80 cycling in safety.

And you don't have to go all the way to the Continent to find the answer to the bike parking issue on Green Lanes. A neighbouring borough has the ideal solution:

http://www.cyclehoop.com/february-2013/hackney-the-first-uk-council...

Why not gather and consider valuable ideas, practice and experiment from anywhere at all, Grant?  About anything.

Doesn't this top nation / top dog / top [wo]man stuff shut out potential learning from most of the world?

While Berlin's mode share of 13% is impressive for a big city, this would doubtless increase massively if Dutch best practice around uniform quality and density of the cycle network was applied. Harringay's mode share for trips to work by bike is 7% but I wouldn't consider it a place to gather ideas about cycling for other places in the borough (e.g. Alexandra, 1%)!

Why would you want to copy Berlin when you can copy somewhere that has a mode share across the entire country of double that? A country who's best practice is so effective that the roads are safe enough for one third of primary school children to cycle to school (half of those independently). If you don't plan for best practice, compromises are made and you end up with something not fit for purpose. And that just means more generations of kids who can't (or, more accurately, who's parents won't let them) travel independently, with all the associated negative health and social impacts that brings.

I actually think part of the problem is spending far too much time and effort 'gather and consider valuable ideas, practice and experiment from anywhere at all' rather than just getting on with what is proven to work. We know what works, what's currently lacking is the political will to make it happen.

Actually, I wasn't going to reply at all to your comment. As I don't usually take much notice of blogs, generally written by people who haven't lived in the place they are writing about for long.

I prefer to base my ideas on the official Berlin Bike maps: Blue routes, International; Red routes, National; Green routes City wide. http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/verkehr/mobil/fahrrad/radrout...

Towards the end of the last century, the last government wanted to mark something for the Millennium.

One of the things they considered was a national bicyle network that would have been used by ordinary people, whose benefits would have been widely felt and would have lasted.

I for one would have preferred to see the billion or so pounds spent on that, rather than on the London-centric, white-elephant edifice known as the Millennium Dome.

Yep, and the failed London Cycle Network is about to get a rehash as TfL's 'Quietways'. Current proposals mainly seem to consist of a few signposts, without doing anything to actually improve safety and comfort.

That link doesn't work for me unfortunately. But I'm not sure what can be inferred about conditions on the ground in Berlin from lines on a map. After all, this map shows us that London has had a wonderfully comprehensive network of cycle routes since 2004:

http://www.londoncyclenetwork.org.uk/uploaded_files/library/documen...

Haha, when did you last cycle in Berlin Grant? I did yesterday and can assure that the lines on the map mean what they say. No, not perfect, but certainly a lot better to what you have outside your door.   You have to admit, that blog is pretty lousy.

@Grant, you maybe should know, that Clive and I (well I think he does too) like to 'agree to disagree'. I suppose I should have typed the *irony* button too.

Shall we get back 'on theme now'?

I don't doubt that Berlin is a better place to cycle than London - but that's not exactly difficult! I'm sure you took my LCN comment with the irony intended.

Happy to get back on topic!

I hope the police took note of the trim and paintwork left in your image, even the first letter of a GB number plate, from what I saw afterwards, red paintwork, honeycomb spoiler grill.

Has anyone asked the Council about possible CCTV?

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