Cycling between the traffic: mobility, identity and space, Justin Spinne
Cycling between the traffic: mobility, identity and space
Justin Spinney sets out why cycling and driving should be treated differently
Cycling in London is firmly back on the agenda in a drive to ease congestion and pollution, and encourage a healthier population. But this substantial recent increase in cycling is not without problems. Cyclists’ uses of streets often contravene road traffic laws and ignore the spatial prescriptions of kerbs, lane markings, junction signalling, one-way systems, bike lanes and pedestrian areas. The spaces that planners and engineers have traditionally created for cyclists are very different to the spaces that cyclists are creating for themselves. After decades of urban design and highways engineering favouring the private car, the urban landscape has become polarised in its separation of cars and pedestrians; cycling currently inhabits a nuisance grey area in between. As a result the unique capacities of the cyclist have increasingly become conflated with those of cars, leading to inappropriate design.
Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork with London cyclists and in-depth interviews with local planners, engineers, cycling officers and activists, this article moves beyond simplistic and sensationalist readings of undesirable cycling practices as the actions of pathological risk takers and criminals. Instead it calls for a more nuanced understanding of cyclists’ uses of space arising from the experience of cycling. Much of cyclists’ apparently inappropriate use of space can be explained by the significant differences between official conceptions of cyclists’ needs and the many experiences created by cycling.
The state of planning for cycling
Morning commuter cycling in London increased by 50% in the period 2000-7. Alongside this is a renewed interest in designing for cycling with Transport for London committing to an annual investment of £75 million in cycling projects and the completion by 2010 of the London Cycle Network Plus (LCN+) - a 900km network of cycle routes spanning 33 boroughs. Recent efforts to reshape car-dominated urban environments to accommodate the movements of cyclists better, include Advanced Stop Lines (ASLs) - a junction treatment which provides a space for cyclists in front of vehicles, and a London-wide program to remove unpopular one-way gyratories.
In-between identities
Engineers and planners attempt to create spaces which keep traffic moving, but in doing so they standardise the movements of a range of vehicles with diverse capacities, including cars, lorries and bicycles. This standardisation results in assumptions about the way in which vehicles and drivers interact with other road users, experience time and use space. These assumptions become embedded in the design and layout of road space. Thus the design of the urban environment still favours vehicles, and many cyclists can be seen to use spaces in unintended and inappropriate ways; but which more accurately reflects their experiences and capacities. Whilst cyclists are often demonised in the media and by government officials, I suggest the rationale for these reinterpretations of space is part of an effort by cyclists to feel less vulnerable and allow them to conserve energy through uninterrupted movement - taking advantage of the unique kinaesthetic and sensory nature of cycling.
Vulnerability
Cyclists, who are arguably as vulnerable to injury as pedestrians are expected to share street spaces with vehicles which pose a great threat to them. This design failure to account for the different vulnerability of cyclists vis-à-vis other vehicles often results in riders engaging in unlawful and seemingly risky practices, but which can enhance their own personal safety. One reason cyclists often give for disobeying traffic signals is that they deem this to be safer than obeying the signals; the pedestrian phase of a signal temporarily creates a safe space for the cyclist where they can cross a junction separated from cars. By pulling away whilst the light is still red, or crossing on a pedestrian phase, many riders argue they are aware of their own vulnerability by attempting to minimise conflict with other vehicles and injury to themselves. However, the current design of most junctions fails to recognise the different vulnerabilities of vehicles and cyclists and the ways cyclists might respond to these risks.
Human power
Cyclists, like pedestrians, move through the city under their own power. As natural Pythagoreans, wherever possible they move across the hypotenuse of a space rather than around its two sides, ignoring red lights and using the wrong side of the road. Aiming to conserve both time and energy, cyclists will seek out the shortest and flattest route to their destination. Unfortunately, in an urban environment which has been planned and designed around mechanical locomotion, human energy expenditure is rarely considered. Different street and traffic planning is needed when human effort becomes a significant variable (Parkin et al 2007).
For example, rather than ride at full speed toward a stop signal and then halt, cyclists will often slow as they approach the stop signal in the hope that it turns green. This strategy often entails riding near the white line and between lanes of traffic. Here the white line is no longer a division for the cyclist but a space – a gap – that helps to save energy by accommodating their slow but continuous motion. Many design features such as one-way systems, junction signalisation and give-way signs on side roads and junctions actively disadvantage cycling because they fail to acknowledge the human powered nature of the bicycle and the different uses of space that this entails. The number of times that a cyclist has to stop or slow down on a journey are important factors, which could be addressed through more appropriate policy and design (Bendixson 1974). Certainly there are signs that such deficiencies are being recognised and remedied, with one-way contra-flows for cyclists in one-way streets. However there remains little recognition that other aspects of the urban environment (such as the proliferation of signalised junctions) might also be deterrents to cycling because of the extra energy they require of the user.
Sensory dimensions
Often misrepresented as a form of instrumental mobility, cycling has also been marginalised as a social and leisure activity in the urban landscape. The same reductionist logic that framed the bicycle as a vehicle has served to exclude it from public and pedestrian environments because it legally belongs on the road, and therefore must be too dangerous to safely mix with pedestrians. Despite such exclusions, many riders re-interpret the use of road and public spaces according to their experience, as unlike the car driver, the cyclist is anything but static in movement. In a car the sensory difference between driving up or downhill is neutral; on a bicycle it is only too obvious. Thus some London riders find kinaesthetic pleasure in the work of riding up inclines like Grosvenor Place, whilst others take great pleasure in coasting down Shooters Hill in Greenwich or heading south over Waterloo Bridge on the way home from work. The nature of cycling means that spaces otherwise rendered homogeneous when travelling by car have widely varying characteristics.
Urban leisure cycling such as BMX and trials riding in particular have capitalised upon the multi-sensory aspects of riding, particularly the kinaesthetic - the feeling of movement within the muscles and of the motion of the body through space. Such practices actively promote these pleasures as the central reasons to ride. Areas around South Bank’s Shell Centre and Tate Modern are especially popular with riders who use ledges, verges, railings, benches and bollards to form an obstacle course to test their skill and balance. When ridden by a trials rider, the 4ft high plinth of a statue is no longer just part of the artwork, it now provides a physical and mental challenge. Similarly, the armrest of a bench no longer only facilitates relaxation; when engaged by a trials rider, it is a test of strength, balance and skill. Thus these design features take on a betweenness as their significance expands. At the same time as reinterpreting these elements of urban design on the micro scale, the performances of these riders fit well within the wider framing of the South Bank as a vibrant area of social interaction and street performances. Thus even though cycling may be not be part of Mather’s South Bank masterplan, unprogrammed activities can still proliferate and even enhance certain ‘loose’ spaces.
Implications for planning
But how can we address these tensions between the allowed and unprogrammed uses of space? Importantly, many planners and highways engineers are aware of the shortcomings in the treatment of cyclists and are duly frustrated. Some wish to be more radical in their design for cycling but are constrained by the legal framing of the cyclist and an increasingly pervasive risk-averse culture. What is needed first and foremost is a thorough re-imagining of the cyclist, recognising that cyclists have particular spatial needs because they differ from pedestrians and motor vehicles in their experiences of vulnerability, energy and sensation.
One recent mantra in urban design and highway engineering is the delineation of roads as ‘movement spaces’ for vehicles, and streets and plazas as ‘exchange spaces’ for pedestrians. Such prescription does little to alter the simplistic polarisation of road users as vehicles or pedestrians. Urban design requires a more nuanced and flexible approach; not all styles of movement are the same, and spatial prescriptions should acknowledge these complexities rather than ignore them in favour of a dominant style of movement. Another step towards finding a place for cyclists would be design standards that recognise road users’ varying levels of vulnerability and threat. Such an evidence-based index could group all forms and styles of mobility based upon the threat they pose to others and their susceptibility to harm, in order to provide design professionals with a more subtle tool to signalise junctions. Similarly, recognising human energy expenditure as a variable in design would be a huge step toward designing appropriate spaces for cycling. This includes recognising the sensory pleasure that particular spaces and environments could provide and using this as a way of encouraging non-motorised styles of mobility.
The current failure to understand cyclists’ capacities and needs relegates them to an ‘in-between’ status and denying them legitimate and distinct identities in suitably designed spaces.
Justin Spinney, Research Fellow, Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey
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1 Bendixson, T. (1974) Instead of cars. London, Temple Smith.
2 Parkin, J. Ryley, T., & Jones, T. (2007) ‘Barriers to Cycling: An Exploration of Quantitative Analyses’, in Horton, D., Rosen, P. & Cox, P. (eds). Cycling & Society. Aldershot, Ashgate.
