Y Safle

Caredig i Natur’s wrongheaded article about pedestrians getting off the pavement continues to exemplify the worst practice in blogging. Having allegedly closed comments on the blog, a selection of positive comments continue to be approved, whilst all negative ones are ignored. Also the writer has started deleting some of the comments they had previously approved! “Who controls the past, controls the future”.

The latest “pro” comment on the “closed” thread reads:

There was a school group using the path at 1.30pm today. The path was totally choked. I can’t believe they allow this. Someone needs to write to the Cambrian News and get the cycle path enforced.

This posted on 23 November at 17:16.

This comment is the most disingenuous – indeed downright dishonest yet!

I was in Plascrug avenue at 1.30pm and I know exactly what school groups were there. Indeed the group on the cycle path was the very same class that Caredig i Natur photographed and published without consent on his blog.

The pertinent fact that the commentator forget to mention is that all but one of them were on bicycles, as they were off to do their cycling proficiency training. No other school group used the cycle path at this time.

There was another school group at almost the same time. Perhaps the commentator meant them and not the cyclist. However, that school group was on the eastern non cycle path pavement. They were there learning to cross the road, and they crossed in pairs and then crossed back. Yes they will have crossed onto the pavement on which cycling is permitted. I presume Caredig i Natur would argue that children not learn to cross the road at this point but should instead be taken to a mor dangerous location instead.

Also Caredig i Natur’s refusal to clarify what we established almost immediately i s downright confusing people: That the path in question is NOT a dedicated cycle path, but is an unsegregated shared use cycle path and pedestrian footway. You cannot enforce the cycle path because pedestrians (who constitute 95% of traffic on the path) have every right to be there.

Caredig i Natur is the problem here. In refusing to post up the clarifications on this point, and refusing to edit or delete their article, they are perpetuating misinformation for their own ends. This is extremely dishonest of them.

Confirmation Bias is a mistake people make when thinking. Our natural penchant is to listen to people we agree with and not challenge our own assumptions. The result is sloppy thinking, but it allows us to feel good about our prejudices.

Caredig i Natur’s blog demonstrates this bias when they posted up a comment yesterday in the thread they claime dto have closed last week because “everything has already been said on the issue”[sic]

I used quote marks there, but actually what CIn actually said (after making a bunch of unsubstantiated claims) was:

Since this debate is about one particular aspect and everything has probably been said on it already we’ll call a halt to further posts from anyone unless they genuinely add something new

So it was with surprise that I saw that yesterday they approved this message:

RedFfred said…

I’ve come across this – you round a bend, bushes block the view a bit, slow down – and still nearly hit someone. I’ve see nthe kids walking there too, had a near miss once. The answer’s simple – the schools should walk children on PAVEMENT, that’s what it’s for, and the council should make it bicycle-only, and make that clear.

So what is the new information in this message that allows this commentator to comment when all comments were rejected pointing out that, in fact, the children already *were* walking on the PAVEMENT?

Obviously no NEW information. Instead, the blogger allows the pro comment with incorrect data through because it confirms his own bias, whilst he filters out and rejects all those messages that point out that the children in question were walking on a designated pedestrian footway.

So to RedFfred we say: we agree, the children should be left alone to walk on the pavement and cyclists need to think a lot harder about how they present their arguments and who they attack.

The Caredig i Nature blog wrote:

In a piece in the local newspaper a councillor, Paul James, claimed that ‘Inconsiderate cyclists [are] putting lives in danger’ (Cambrian News, 20 Dec, p4). The basis for the article was the claim that cyclists are zooming along one particular pavement which has railings on one side and houses on the other, and pedestrians coming out of their houses are in danger. Whilst we don’t support cyclists zooming along pavements and failing to pay due care and attention to other people around, the other side needs stating.

They go on to make a case that cyclists are at risk from motorists and seem therefore to suggest that riding on a pavement is okay as long as the cyclist pays attention and does not zoom along. Nevertheless cycling on pavements, except where they are designated cycle routes, is against the law and for good reason.

The pavement in question is extremely narrow with front doors opening out onto an area that would definitely put pedestrians at risk from cyclists. But it is not just that site at which such risks are felt by pedestrians.

Consider also the bridge over the railway at Plascrug avenue. Cyclists are asked to dismount at this bridge which is designated for pedestrian use only. Sadly many people ignore this instruction on a daily basis, despite the fact that collisions are not uncommon, and many pedestrians have been hurt in the past.

I captured this image of one of the more regular offenders. I should note that when he saw me filming him, he slowed right down. The following day someone complained he hurtled off the ramp of the bridge despite the presence of many school children:

the writer of the Caredig i Natur blog really really does not like cars taking children to school. To be fair he is not alone. Many people, including most of the parents in the cars, are not happy with the necessity of a daily school run. However, the blog writer is rather disingenuous with his use of evidence, so let’s shine the spotlight on his errors.

In one article he tells everyone to use public transport.

He links to the transport direct CO2 emissions calculator and says:

Private car transport is the least environmentally-friendly way to travel

But look at the assumptions he has plugged into that CO2 calculator to generate the graph showing large cars consuming way more CO2 emissions. He has calculated a journey of nearly 40 miles with a single occupant. To be honest there are really not many children driving themselves 40 miles to school every day.

So I have produced the more representative graph. I have chosen a more realistic 2 mile journey with 4 occupants, and this is the result:

So in fact for the average family school run, a small private car has significantly lower emissions than any other kind of motorised transport. Even a large family car does better than the bus, and comes in at the same emissions level as the train (assuming you have a train connecting your home and school).

Now my assumptions: 2 miles is about average in this area for the school run, but 1 and 3 miles produce almost identical results (more emissions, but the same relative emissions). I am comfortable that is accurate.

Not so firmly established is the number of occupants of the vehicles. However the CIN writer rages against primary schools in particular, and so parents must accompany the children so the minimum number of occupants is 2. 4 is actually extremely common, but there are also many vehicles with three occupants, and otehrs with more. Parents who share the school run may have up to 7 occupants in a private car.

Whilst I am comfortable with 4 in my assumption, we could find average occupancy is closer to 3. In this case the calculator shows the large private car rising to .3kg per person, worse than the train but still better than the bus. The small private car is still at the .1kg per person mark and remains far and away the most efficient means of motorised transport.

Now even though this is a rant against Caredig i Natur’s nonsense and extremely selective choice of facts, I feel duty bound to point out some assumptions in what I have said. It is clear that private cars have lowest emissions, but if a train or bus travels the journey in any case, doesn’t that mean that their pollution will be spent anyway? Shouldn’t we use public transport if the buses are already going our way?

And to that the answer is presumably yes. If the bus is already travelling the route we wish to follow, then we reduce overall emissions by taking the bus.

Of course most school runs do not start or end near public bus stops. Almost no school runs start and end near train stations. The moral here is we should not be fighting for better public transport. If we want to reduce emissions we need to do two things:

1. Encourage walking and cycling where appropriate.
2. Encourage smaller and more efficient cars

caredig i Natur will agree with my first point but he seems not to recognise there may be times when a motor vehicle is actually necessary for the school run. That is his silly assumptions blinding him again. But to more reasonable people, I think those two measures taken hand in hand could considerably help our environment, our wallets, our health and our quality of life.

The Caredig i Natur blog contains this choice piece of nonsense:

Unfortunately sometimes people don’t observe the distinctions. It is a common complaint from cyclists when pedestrians choose to walk on cycle paths instead of nearby pavement. One example that has been drawn to our attention recently is from Aberystwyth, where there is a route from Plascrug Leisure Centre to Plascrug Park (the route is called Plascrug Avenue – see image above) that has road, pavement for pedestrians, and a cycle path, which should keep everybody happy and safe.

What is wrong with this? Why would I call it nonsense?

Because in fact it does not have a cycle path. What it has is a pedestrian footway on which cyclists are permitted. I have checked with Ceredigion County Council on Friday and they confirm that this is a dual use pedestrian and cycle footway, and that pedestrians should not be excluded from it.

So the thrust of the article (that pedestrians should get off the cycle path) is nonsense. The pedestrians were there first and retain the rights they always had. What is more, pedestrians outnumber the cyclists by 20 to 1.

(The title is Welsh for “Kind to nature, unkind to people”).

In a recent badly thought out cyclists-against-the-world rant, the writer of the Caredig i Nature blog (we will call him CIN) said about Plascrug avenue, a route where he would like to ban children from using the safest route so that cyclists could be afforded exclusive use (and to which an anonymous poster said “Having a go at school staff for walking their pupils to and from the leisure centre along the safest route is not going to get my sympathy vote. “):

We disagree on the safest route and are unlikely to come to an agreement. So be it. In the interests of investigating further one of the Aberystwyth contacts passed that way a few times today. Amongst their comments they said:

“Twice during the day there was no traffic at all (well, one car at one point). Definitely not a main road. Only at one time was there lots of vehicles, and that was at school hoem time. Then it was chocker, with parents blocking each other in and dashing out impatiently when they could. It definitely felt like the children’s parents were the real danger.”

This “investigation” does not have the ring of truth. No cars at any point? I think I spend more time in the Avenue than CIN, and there are always cars. As for the school pickup time – yes the avenue gets full then because three schools disgorge onto the junction with Llanbadarn road, and a tail back forms every day. Nevertheless I do not recognise the “dashing out impatiently”. Only those illegally parked up by Ysgol Gymraeg do that (and thats a timy minority even there).

So in the interests of a somewhat more scientific poll, I have just conducted a traffic survey. I took my lunch at Plascrug Avenue (at the exact location the CIN writer photographed children on a school activity and published the pictures to the web without permission – against NSPCC guidelines).

Here are the results:

Survey period: 12.40pm – 13.10pm (30 minutes) on Monday 14 November 2011

The count is of the number of vehicles or people who passed my survey point. Thus it is a count of traffic at that point, not of unique people. Many vehicles will have been counted twice because they turned at the roundabout and came back (usually after dropping people off or picking people up). Likewise I saw many pedestrians travelling both directions. There were exactly 2 unique cyclists. One of these chose to ride on the road, and only one was observed cycling on the pavement on which cycling is permitted.

So let’s be clear about our results: Pedestrians are the largest users of the Avenue, but are closely followed by motor vehicles. The CIN writer wishes all those pedestrians to take a route that puts them in potential conflict with all those motor vehicles so that he, and he alone, can make use of the cycle path.

To be fair, at school leaving and arrival times, many more people ride bikes on that path. But then, none of them are complaining about all those hundreds of troublesome pedestrians.

Finally, CIN said:

As such it seems like the safest option would be to block off that whole road to traffic (apart from emergency vehicles). It is unlikely to happen though – imagine the outburst if people had to walk!

An outcry indeed as at least two families would have to remove their children from the school because the parents are disabled and cannot bring them any more. Many more parents would have to brave the bridge where a school child was run down by a cyclist who ignored the instruction to dismount and rode into her because she could not hear his bell (being deaf). But the biggest nonsense here is this:

If CIN thinks vehicle users should walk in the avenue, why does he not set an example and dismount until he is past all the people? Imagine the outburst if a cyclist was expected to walk.

You know, when you are just plain flat out wrong, blogs are a wonderful resource. You can make a wrong statement and if challenged and it looks like you are losing the argument, you can simply make a last reply and then close the comments! This is what Caredig i Natur’s writer did to me. The writer of that blog argued children should not use the pedestrian footpath on which bicycles are permitted because they have a perfectly good alternative pedestrian path across the road. I and others pointed out the alternative path was more dangerous, and I described the route. In his reply before “closing comments”, the Caredig i Natur writer wrote:

[In response to my saying the alternative route means walking around a roundabout which does not have a footway all the way round]:

Our contact said this isn’t true. There is a path all the way around.

I present exhibit A:

No pavement is available at the far end of the roundabout

Notice the lack of footpath. There are mud verges that can be used, but I was correct, there is clearly no footway all around the roundabout, and people coming around the roundabout are frequently observed walking on the road – especially in winter when the mud verges are permanently damp and uneven.

Note also that this route involves the children beginning their journey in the opposite direction to the direction they wish to travel!

The CIN writer continued:

Basically if the pavement was unsafe the council would not allow people to walk on it, or would put up barriers. It is easy to amplify dangers in our minds on emotive topics.

My response on the CIN blog was part of a chain that ran as follows (I paraphrase onlys slightly for brevity):

CIN: Children should not use the western footway as cyclists wish to use this unimpeded.
Anonymous commenter: You are not going to get my support for asking children not to use the safest route
CIN: It is debatable as to whether the western footway is safest

My response was to point out that CIN themselves had made the case that the greater danger to pedestrians comes from motor vehicles. Whilst the risks to pedestrians are small when walking around Plascrug roundabout and along the narrower eastern pavement that lacks the protections from motor vehicles on the other side, it nevertheless remains the case that the risks are higher. The anonymous writer was quite correct. CIN are asking children to use the more dangerous route, simply so that they may be afforded exclusive use of a footway that the council have confirmed is a dual use pedestrian and cyclist footway.

“the corner by Ysgol Gymraeg, they reach a point where inconsiderate and illegal parking by some parents at that school causes an obstruction that frequently causes vehicles to mount the pavement on the side the children will now be on.”

We are behind you a 100% there, but can’t see any way of doing anything about that situation.

The solution to this situation is to use the western footway which contains bollarded protection for pedestrians, and does not suffer this risk. Again, the anonymous poster was correct. The western footway, even with cyclists on – even with the deranged cyclist who shouts at pedestrians and motorists alike on an almost daily basis – is safer than the eastern footway

“On reaching the end of the avenue the children must now (to avoid the cycle path) cross the road at the car park junction and then cross the feeder road to Ysgol Gymraeg. Even then they find themselves sharing the cycle path with cyclists so they must now either walk on the road in the car park or cross the cycle path and walk on the muddy verge instead.”

Our contact said that is wrong. By being on the pavement the pupils would cross the road once, to Ysgol Gymraeg (and thereby avoid two crossings which they encounter if they stayed on the cycle path). The route you have listed would indeed be rather silly, we agree.

I present exhibits B, C, and D.

The cycle path veers right here but too late for pedestrians to gain any benefit from crossing the road

Here in exhibit B we see the cycle route veer away into the access road for Ysgol Gymraeg. The eastern pavement preferred for pedestrians by CIN is on the left. To avoid the cycle path pedestrians must stay on the eastern pavement to the end of Plascrug avenue. You also see the junction to Ysgol Gymraeg on this pavement. Notice that had Pedestrians used the western pavement, they could stay on the school side of this junction and avoid crossing the road here at all. At this point they would also be off the cycle/foot path.

“By being on the pavement the pupils would cross the road once, to Ysgol Gymraeg” is clearly wrong. If the children cross to Ysgol Gymraeg, they will again be on the dual use path.

So CIN is wrong again. Their solution is more dangerous and longer. Pedestrains must now remain on the eastern footway to the junction, or they can cross to the western footway here and proceed to the junction. In any case this is the first crossing I mentioned.

The junction. The dropped kerbs will be where children would need to cross. Notice the four directions of approaching traffic.

Having crossed one road, children must now cross a second

Exhibit C and D show the double junction children must now cross. This is the only way they can avoid the foot/cycle path. It is longer and has involved them crossing two roads. Children are taken by schools on these routes at the start and end of school session including lunch times, which are the exact same time that traffic on the route is at its greatest. I agree with the anonymous poster. You are not going to get my sympathy from forcing children off the safest route just so you can have exclusive use to a path that was not designed to be an exclusive use cycle path.

Finally here is Exhibit E: which shows the dual use cycle path and pavement running up to the leisure centre. You will notice that children, to avoid this path, must now either walk on the grass (muddy from October to May and other times) or else walk in the car park, at significant risk from reversing vehicles.

Notice the pavement is again dual use cycle path, so CIN want the children either on the road behind the parked cars or the grass area (muddy for much of the year).

Now Caredig i Natur say there is nothing more to say on this issue and to some extent I agree. It is plainly absurd to tell people it is better for all that people be excluded from a footpath that has remained a right of way to them for a hundred years or more, and they should use a more dangerous route instead just so a few cyclists can have unrestricted access to it. They have nothing more to say. I think therefore they should take down the erroneous article and issue an apology.

It is even more absurd because the number of cyclists is dwarfed by the number of pedestrian users.

I am a cyclist too. I sometimes ride this path, but I think it is crass, insensitive and frankly stupid to tell pedestrians that best practice dictates they no longer use the footpath. As long as cyclists behave like this, the green issues we wish to promote in a spirit of co-operation will continue to be ignored or mocked.

There is space on the avenue for an exclusive use cycle path. If CIN’s writer wishes to campaign for that in a cooperative and helpful manner, I would be right behind it. But as long as the blog remains whingy, disrespectful and unhelpful, I guess we must all just ignore everything he says.