Liverpool’s climate emergency chief decides to rip out pop-up cycle lane

Alessandro wrote:

I've emailed the councillor the following but not really expecting a reply to be honest. It's so easy to get disheartened by stuff like this and to think that nothing's ever going to change. Drivers (and I am one) always seem to get their own way in the end, especially with such short-sighted decisions like this. 

"I am shocked and disappointed to hear of your decision and support of ripping out the cycle lane on West Derby Road, a route that almost 100,000 people on bikes have been able to use in the past year alone. You say that you had the aim of "finding a way to create cycling provision, while retaining two lanes of traffic" and if that was not possible then it would be the end for the cycle lane. Please can you clarify why you chose to prioritise motor vehicles over bicycles and other forms of active transport in light of the worsening pollution, congestion and climate situation that we are currently facing? How do you propose that people on bikes, including children, now travel safely along that route? Mixing people on bikes with drivers has been shown to be dangerous, especially with far too many of the latter driving while under the influence of drink or drugs or distracted on their phones. 

This is a spineless, regressive decision that will undoubtedly lead to further congestion, pollution and injuries or worse. You had an outstanding opportunity to make a difference but, yet again, one of our elected representatives fails to make the bold decision to change things."

Well said that man!

Why is that 'a very sad day'?

Flintshire Boy wrote:

Why is that 'a very sad day'?

Probably because, like me, Boopop is conflicted about Boris and his support for cycling.  On the one hand, he's a congenital liar with no conscience, morals or guts and therefore abhorrent to any thinking person, but on the other he's pro-cycling, which I quite like.

Flintshire Boy wrote:

Why is that 'a very sad day'?

Along with eburtthebike's reply, I'd add that it's sad that Labour have never really prioritised active travel when it should be a non-partisan issue. My scepticism suggests that influential car lobbyists have been paying politicians for decades to prioritise building new roads and bury evidence that active travel is a much better return on investment.

hawkinspeter wrote:

My scepticism suggests that influential car lobbyists have been paying politicians for decades to prioritise building new roads and bury evidence that active travel is a much better return on investment.

Is there any evidence to support this, other than through already-declared records of members' interests and receipts? There are plenty people (e.g. ex-MPs) who could have revealed it. Perhaps it's just that cars/driving is what most voters prefer or aspire to - particularly the noisy ones when it comes to removing road space?

Duncann wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

My scepticism suggests that influential car lobbyists have been paying politicians for decades to prioritise building new roads and bury evidence that active travel is a much better return on investment.

Is there any evidence to support this, other than through already-declared records of members' interests and receipts? There are plenty people (e.g. ex-MPs) who could have revealed it. Perhaps it's just that cars/driving is what most voters prefer or aspire to - particularly the noisy ones when it comes to removing road space?

I haven't looked for specific evidence of car industry lobbying/bribing so I'm just guessing really. I'd say that it's difficult to properly assess voters' preferences as most voters are not aware of workable alternatives to driving (e.g. it's dangerous to cycle) and mainstream media have been pushing the ideal of car ownership for the last few decades - just look at all the expensive advertising for cars across all media.

Edit: Just done a very simple search and turned up this recent example (which is related, but not exactly what I said about road building): https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/15/car-industry-lobbied-uk-government-delay-ban-petrol-diesel-cars

Edited: Edit: Found this gem from 1974 (which again doesn't support accusations of bribery): http://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/25th-october-1974/23/road-lobby-strongest-claims-report

Here's an extra about the motor industry and jay-walking: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26073797

Edited: Edited: Edit: This is a more relevant study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629620300633

From a Labour point of view there are also the unionised car factories and road construction companies to consider.

As major Labour party donors I'm not sure they'd be too keen on car/traffic reducing policies.

Rich_cb wrote:

From a Labour point of view there are also the unionised car factories and road construction companies to consider. As major Labour party donors I'm not sure they'd be too keen on car/traffic reducing policies.

That's part of the problem.

As the motor industry has expanded, it's taken over developed countries (and is extremely keen on developing countries to expand their car usage) and that's been going on for so long now that they've got their fingers in lots of pies. Scale back the motor industry and suddenly, you're also reducing demand for steel, aluminium, glass, plastic, rubber etc.

The problem now is that do we prioritise existing adults' jobs or should we prioritise children's future health and well-being? As children don't get a vote, it's likely that they'll lose.

My opinion, and I'm guessing yours too, is that we should be prioritising future health and well being, not to mention a liveable climate.

As you said, our car centric culture has become so embedded that there are now a huge number of vested interests dedicated to perpetuating it.

We know that culture can be changed and I'm confident that when we finally reach the tipping point the change will be rapid but it's getting to that tipping point in the face of those vested interests that is the challenge.

FWIW I think the recent policies coming out of the DfT regarding cycling infrastructure are exactly what we need at this stage, they create very little in the way of headlines, and therefore very little backlash, but actually advance the active transport agenda quite significantly.

hawkinspeter wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

From a Labour point of view there are also the unionised car factories and road construction companies to consider. As major Labour party donors I'm not sure they'd be too keen on car/traffic reducing policies.

That's part of the problem.

As the motor industry has expanded, it's taken over developed countries (and is extremely keen on developing countries to expand their car usage) and that's been going on for so long now that they've got their fingers in lots of pies. Scale back the motor industry and suddenly, you're also reducing demand for steel, aluminium, glass, plastic, rubber etc.

The problem now is that do we prioritise existing adults' jobs or should we prioritise children's future health and well-being? As children don't get a vote, it's likely that they'll lose.

GDP, innit? GDP, and in particular its rate of increase, is taken to be de-facto a good thing. Which leads to all sorts of perverse incentives, like encouraging both parents out to work so that between them they can earn enough to pay for childcare (I digress).

We saw it recently when the politicians wanted everybody to return to the office (prematurely) so that, in particular, all the industries which exist purely to service the comforts of commuters could fire up again, regardless of the work done by those commuters being undertaken successfully at home.

It seems to me that the car-centric focus is a bit of broken window fallacy.

There's so much time, money and resources poured into getting people to sit in traffic jams and waste their time as well as harming people's health (both through inactivity and the resultant pollution). I can't help but think that if a good percentage of the population uses active travel where feasible, then there'd be less congestion on the roads and people would have more money to spend on other things, so the reduction in car purchases would surely lead to other industries getting a small boost. Additionally, once you reduce car usage, there'll be less requirements for parking facilities and hence a more productive use of land.

Voters are persuaded by the media which way to vote. The motor industry is the 2nd largest purchaser of media advertising space. 

Muddy Ford wrote:

Voters are persuaded by the media which way to vote. The motor industry is the 2nd largest purchaser of media advertising space. 

...with ads for cars even turning up from time to time on some cycling websites.

We need to bad car advertising like we banned cigarette advertising.

matthewn5 wrote:

We need to bad car advertising like we banned cigarette advertising.

I'd settle for a continual reduction in the maximum size & power of cars allowed for sale on the roads. I think there will be a significant benefit when cars can no longer be exciting toys or some sort of symbol of masculinity and are essential fit for purpose for utility only.

Making cars smaller/lighter and less powerful will also have direct safety and environmental benefits. And I say this even as a driver of a 2tonne 190bhp audi a6.

I'm looking forward to downsizing once I no longer need to ferry kids and all their stuff between home and university.

Duncann wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

My scepticism suggests that influential car lobbyists have been paying politicians for decades to prioritise building new roads and bury evidence that active travel is a much better return on investment.

Is there any evidence to support this, other than through already-declared records of members' interests and receipts? There are plenty people (e.g. ex-MPs) who could have revealed it. Perhaps it's just that cars/driving is what most voters prefer or aspire to - particularly the noisy ones when it comes to removing road space?

The last link (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629620300633) in my other messy reply, has some very interesting point regarding the design of over-capacity motor vehicles to appeal to as large a market share as possible and similarly, the design of car factories that are only feasible if they continue to churn out more than 85% of their capacity i.e. to turn a profit, they've got to keep expanding their customers.

Apologies for the length of this quote from that article, but it seems relevant

Quote:

3.2.2. The provision of additional road space

Beyond encroaching on existing road space, growing motorization is intertwined with the provision of additional road space. Road building typically requires large, expensive, state-funded projects [103,51], and thus considerable political justification and legitimization. We argue that five typical ‘strategies of legitimization’ [163,164] can be identified (Table 1). The first of these includes two apparently contradictory appeals to economic growth. First, the necessity for road building can be presented as arising from economic growth, as more economic activity means more car ownership and use, in turn leading to additional road space requirements. This translates to a neoclassical view of demand-driven welfare and utility expansion. The second variant sees road building as being required for economic growth, despite the weak empirical evidence on this relationship [165], [166], [167], [168]. In economic terms, this is a Keynesian argument of infrastructure and public investment stimulus.

Over time, the emphasis can shift between the ‘roads to accommodate growth’ and ‘roads to kick-start growth’ variants, depending on the economic climate [169], [170], [171]. These arguments are extremely effective, as they justify road building under any circumstances, and invoke economic growth, which is routinely considered a political imperative.3 As Reardon and Marsden [167] argue, linking economic growth, growing travel demand and road-building also tends to result in the ‘discursive depoliticization’ of transport policy.

The second strategy appeals to ‘popular consumerism’, which sees growing consumption by the public as inherently positive and worthy of encouragement [176]. This argument assumes that increasing car use reflects ‘consumer preferences’ and thus deserves to be provided for with additional dedicated infrastructure. This fits well with perceived electoral benefits of providing “a consumer-minded public with the public investment to meet their private needs” ([176]:99). This framing of automobility as an expression of healthy individualism can be particularly useful to justify public investment in road building in individualistic political cultures, such as American conservatism, which are traditionally averse to public interventionism [177].

A third justification is based on the idea that roads assist with regional development and the reduction of spatial economic inequalities, by facilitating economic growth in the regions in which they are built. The post-war British Labor Party, depression-era American governments, developing-world governments, and the EU have all used road-building in an alleged attempt to address spatial economic inequalities [78,176,178,179].

The combination of this more left-wing justification with the more right-wing appeal to popular consumerism is particularly powerful, as it means that road-building can be justified from across the political spectrum, and is thus easy to present as an obvious policy choice that has “transcended party differences, and instead (serves) the general national interest” ([176]:99). Road building and maintenance can thus come to be seen as a matter of basic political common sense, and a neutral indication of policymakers’ competence [144]. This means that many of the justifications for road building discussed here, despite being firmly in the repertories of the ‘road lobby’ (as discussed below), often do not even need to be voiced.

A fourth strategy of legitimization presents road building as the main solution to the problems generated by increasing motorization [176]. Here it is argued that new (and ‘better’) roads will reduce congestion (by providing the necessary space for handling traffic ‘flows’) and improve safety (through the segregation of different types of traffic, e.g. long-distance and local). Again, there is an element of circularity here, as greater road provision can result in increased traffic, through the mechanism of ‘induced demand’ [180], [181], [182], [183], [184], [185], [186], [187]. The resulting feedback loop – whereby more roads create more traffic, which in turn leads to calls for further road building – has been identified as a key driver of the self-reinforcing dynamic of car dependence [23,53,188,189]. This ultimately results in the exacerbation of the congestion and safety problems that road building was supposed to solve.

A final legitimization strategy is based on technical expertise: road network expansions are officially sanctioned to be in the general public interests (on a scheme-by-scheme basis) by experts applying appraisal methods that are considered to be objective and scientific [49]. Traditional transport planning approaches [3,16,23,149,153,190,191] and mainstream economics methods of appraisal such as Cost-Benefit Analysis often have a bias towards road building, for example when they disregard or underestimate induced demand, or privilege motorists’ travel time savings over environmental impacts and accessibility for all road users [9,185,[192], [193], [194], [195], [196], [197], [198], [199]]. In practice, though, these approaches and methods are often used to confer legitimacy to transport decision-making (on grounds of scientificity and neutrality), even when the decisions are taken mostly on other grounds [43,44,176,200]. This has become increasingly entrenched as the process of motorization has gained momentum, resulting in the establishment of relevant knowledge communities.

While various strategies are used to legitimize road building, certain economic interests stand to benefit from these developments either directly (from road building per se) or indirectly (from greater levels of car ownership and use). These economic actors, often referred to collectively as the ‘road lobby’, can lend a powerful voice behind the arguments discussed above. It has been suggested that countries that undertook particularly large road building programs, such as Germany and the US, owe this to the power of the local road lobby ([169]:169–170;[72]).

The road lobby can be defined as a "network of vested interests" bringing together the automotive, oil, road haulage, road construction, concrete, steel, insurance, and other industries, as well as motoring clubs [119]. It can act through formal advocacy groups, representing the alliance between different businesses and trade associations, and can influence policy by directly lobbying policymakers (which is often easy due to the fact that transport is typically not a major national election issue), or by shaping public opinion through media campaigns and the mobilization of political support [72,119,176]. While these are all important channels of influence, it must be kept in mind that governments’ inclination towards road building might also result from the objective situation of ‘state dependence’ [38] towards the car industry (and other related industries), as discussed in Section 2.2.

A key goal of the road lobby is to ensure that road expenditures are insulated from competition with other spending priorities, as well as from political scrutiny and the consequences of alternation of different parties in power [38,119,176]. This can happen when governments, for a range of reasons, earmark funds or adopt investment appraisal and decision-making procedures that are biased towards road building. In these conditions, outright lobbying may even no longer be necessary, as road building gains momentum and becomes entrenched into the workings of government.

To summarise from that long (but worthwhile) quote:

All of us will fry shortly after the entire planet is covered in asphalt [666]

Labour are happy to abandon progressive policies if negatively impact their vote. Johnson is good for a sound bite but it's increasingly obvious why he made a career as a political commentator not a political leader. He can't even persuade his own party to adopt policies to put active travel first.

I know that road well, and tbf it was an act of lunacy to put a lane in there, the next street up would have been far more suitable.  The lack of a follow up is a poor show though.