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I don’t know what is wrong at the moment, the work keeps coming. Unfortunately it’s usually annoying stuff like the health insurance asking how much we earn -for the third time this year. So todays post is a photo essay/copout, showing a fairly typical afternoon with the bikes…
Trusty steeds awaiting family. The Bafiets didn’t poop: that’s sand dumped on the drive for some reason. We were going to pick up Eldest Son from Circus School in the next town, so I’m hauling his bike and carrying Youngest Son on the Xtracycle, while Beautiful Wife has a go carrying Middle Son in the Bakfiets.
And away they go. The Bakfiets is heavy so it obviously goes faster than the Xtracycle downhill. That’s my excuse anyway.
Heading home, Middle Son now with me and smallest with Beautiful Wife as the way back is partly uphill. As far as I know there isn’t a single metre of dedicated bike lane in Ostfildern, and this is shared with pedestrians. It also becomes a gravel road in a few metres, but at least we’re away from the traffic to the right. Considering Eldest son has been learning circus skills for the last two hours, including tightrope walking and unicycling, he’s riding well.
The ‘big swing’: one of the best places in the boys current universe, and only accessible by bike or on foot. As an added advantage there are friendly goats to watch in the field alongside. What more could a small boy want? Perhaps a pack of chocolate dips, such as Middle Son is quietly finishing off in the on the swing.
Last part of the ride home on traffic free streets. Riding conditions like these are the reason we could get the bakfiets, as Beautiful Wife is very nervous about using it in traffic. Eldest son is a speck in the distance. Several parents in his school have remarked that he’s pretty fit compared to their kids. I don’t point out the obvious reason why this is: I find it’s not worth the effort.
We had to cross two slightly busy roads, but the journey was direct, straight, and 99% traffic calmed or traffic free . And this is Ostfildern, (“Four wheels good, two wheels baaaad”) so you can bet very little money went into making this happen. Most of the time we were on field roads, although to be fair they were signposted for bikes. A few improvements would be nice, like smooth surfaces on a couple of sections (Gravel is fine as a surface, but why the potholes?) and parhaps a set of lights on the crossings so we can stop traffic instead of having to wait in the centre refuge… sorry, a bit radical for Ostfildern there.
Ah, well. Beautiful wife is getting the hang of the Bakfiets and the boys think it’s the best thing since Christmas, so on balance I’m happy.
Time to fill in the form for the health insurance…
My goodness but its been a week since I wrote anything here.: as you’ve probably gathered it’s been a busy one. This week, Beautiful Wife decided it was time to master the Bakfiets, and that the best way to do this was to go out for the evening with me alongside on the Xtracycle. Even Ostfildern manages to have sufficient cycle lanes to avoid running along a road much, and we followed these to a restaurant in the next town.
Beautiful wife getting used to the Bakfiets.
Her verdict: great bike, but a bit of a pull on hills, and probably not good to ride wearing a short skirt. She also found it awkward to make corners in a hurry. This we discovered when we missed a turning and she had to do a 240 degree turn to fit into the cycle lane. This was in no was due to my bad navigation. Not at all. And the driver of the car following was very nice about waiting for us to manouvre. We made the restaurant comfortably and parked the bikes be the hedge.
Bikes onna date.
They are locked, although it’s not obvious. local bike thieves wouldn’t know that this is, let alone have a market for it, so we felt pretty safe, especially as we were sitting on the other side of the hedge. The meal was punctuated by overheard conversations like this:
“What is that?”
“Is it a bicycle?”
“Can’t be…”
The Totcycle blog, which for some reason I neglected to link to, has a report on their Kidical mass event which they held over the weekend. As far as I can work out this is an all-age family party involving bikes, but without the “in-your-face” approach of Critical Mass protests. They obviously had a Bakfiets-load of fun and will be doing it again. In fact, it sounded like so much fun, I’m thinking of suggesting it to the local cycling club as a way to get families on bikes locally. After listening to several local politicians making excuses over the weekend for not improving infrastruture, (More on this later) I think this more grass -roots stuff is more the way to go in future: maybe then they will take a bit more notice, but either way we will get more people cycling which is good for everyone.
It’s pretty safe too. The photo was taken early yesterday morning while taking a suprise bread delivery to my Goddaughter’s family for her daddy’s birthday breakfast. A car free road perfect for relaxed riding.
After a couple of years racing about on a wooden push-along bike, Middle Son is graduating to his first pedal powered vehicle. He’s doing it in fits and starts at the moment, and when I put out traffic cones for him to ride around he spends more time playing games with the cones, but we’re getting there. He’s learning quickly because Eldest Son, who is just off frame, is acting as a pace car, so he has a target and an example. On the flip side he’s used to me driving him about on the Xtracycle so I think he’s reluctant to give that up.
- Adventure Awaits
Meanwhile Eldest Son is spreading his wings, getting faster and more confident, and wants to ride, ride, ride, (so as a ‘Good Dad’ I naturally have to ride with him) He’s really embraced the ‘bike as transportation’ idea, and I think he gets a kick out of turning up to his activities by bike. He isn’t alone any more though: now the weather is warmer many children are travelling by bike, often alone, to visit friends or relatives, play, have fun, or go to children’s activities: we we have severe bike congestion sometimes with bikes in the stands, up the sides and all over the lawns People saw the weather and came by bike. This isn’t in Ostfildern I would add: it’s in the next town where there is infrastructure for bikes.
There are lots of other changes on the horizon: as well as the house move there’s other stuff that is looking exciting, and I’m itching to blog about, but unfortunately all the preparation and organising is taking time that I’d otherwise use to write, which is slowing my posting rate down a bit: watch this cliche.
Infrastructure = Bikes. Simple
Cycleway in the Black Forest: It's tougher than you think...
Hills are on my mind at the moment, specifically the one where this sign is planted between Neuenbürg and Waldrennach in the northern end of the Black Forest.
Cycling has a pretty meagre travel share in this region. It isn’t helped by variable quality of cycle paths, but a major obstacle is Geography, (To be more accurate, Geology, but if I’d said that you’d have switched off straight away) The Black Forest is a series of hills with deep gorges slicing through them. For various reasons of interest to geographers and virtually no-one else, this makes most villages are either long and thin in the valleys or small and round on the hilltops, with big with big gaps (and hills) between.
If you just look at this sign you’d think a cycle commute from Waldrennach to the larger town of Neuenbürg was a doddle at 3,8km, a nice easy distance for cyclists, on a road closed to vehicles. What it doesn’t tell you is this is 20m above Neuenbürg, and cyclists to Waldrennach have another 200m to climb. If you want to be the next Lance Armstrong (And much respect if you do) this is your ideal training route, but most of us aren’t really up for this.
To add insult to injury, the valleys can create winds: Geographers call these anabatic and katabatic winds and insist that anabatic winds are created when warm light air rises along the valley floor and up the sides, and on a really good day, make thunderstorms as well, while katabatic winds are cooler, heavier air blowing down at night. Cyclists call them all sorts of things and insist they are created by the presence of a cyclist by a malicious fate, so we’re riding into a permanent headwind. A similar meterological process causes coastal winds in the Netherlands, and as David Hembrow says, they are a major problem as well.
This shows the trouble with a ‘one size fits all’ approach to cycling: Faced with a 200m climb to visit grandma, very few people will use bikes even if there is perfect infrastructure all the way. (that said, a safe route along the valleys would be nice) The villages are so compact everyone walks except for xtracycle nutters like me who should know better. Bike lanes on narrow steep mountain roads probably aren’t practical, so how do you provide an alternative to cars here, especially as this is one place where some people will need cars for work? I reckon a combination is required: trains and buses that carry bikes (lots of bikes) at no extra charge, preferably with good connections from the valley to the hills, so the train along valley comes into station as bus comes into the forecourt, so passengers can change without waiting, rather than seeing their connection pull away as they arrive.
This is the same problem as we face. Ostfildern (Suggested motto: “Four wheels good, two wheels bad”) is about 170m above Stuttgart or Esslingen and there is almost no way around it. Stuttgart now allows limited bike transport on the Metro but you can only carry bikes on a bus off peak, which rules out commuting. Even if Ostfildern wakes up to reality and makes a decent cycle network, we’d still need to help people get up the hills before we have any chance of a cycling culture.
So what ways are there? I’ve already mentioned the rack railway in Stuttgart, but there must be other ways. Does anyone else know of low cost ways to get lots of bikes up monster gradients?
Yep, I’m afraid that the post I put up yesterday was an April Fools joke. Sadly, Ostfildern isn’t planning to invest in cycling in the future, even though most of the measures described are already being used within about 10 kilometres of here. Obviously my piece was a bit subtle- the local paper was less so, having a front page headline about the Mayor resigning over daylight savings time.
But if I’d posted the real news you wouldn’t have believed it either: Stuttgart and Ostfildern plan to build a new €200m bypass underground with junctions serving various villages and smashing their way through several nature reserves. The paper reporting this said that the Green Party were against this because it “May generate more traffic”. I think they “May” be right there.
But that’s Ostfildern: never mind that our dependency on oil is killing people and sending us headlong into serious economic trouble when the stuff runs out, and never mind that the rest of Germany is waking up to the idea that we can’t keep building more rat runs:, or that the Neckar valley has the worst air quality in Germany (Way over the EU pollution limit) mostly because of motor vehicles. Here in Ostfildern we’re going to need more roads, roads, roads, for our fast cars and trucks.
What a depressing thought. The next post will be a bit lighter, I promise.
In a shock announcement this morning the town mayor outlined an ambitious plan to create a cycling network in Ostfildern. This is part of a local economic stimulus package aimed at creating jobs and setting the economy on a sustainable footing.
The statement from the mayors office read: “It is becoming clear that giving cars priority simply reduces the quality of life for all, while encouraging people to use alternative transport forms has been shown to help improve living standards in towns, drive down healthcare costs and increase the profits of local businesses.”
Among the main measures are priority for bicycles at intersections, a marked cycle network running through all the parts of the town, red cycle lanes giving bikes priority on side roads, resurfacing existing routes between parts of the town, bicycle lockers at metro stations, and two bays given over to cycle use in the main underground garages.
Speaking at the presentation the Major said: “We realised that to continue with ‘business as usual’ would simply lead to more congestion, so we decided that we need to think more carefully about how we want transport and our lifestyles to look in 20 years time. ”
While the possibility of high oil prices and congestion were a factor the major said simple common sense had driven the programme: “For a tiny investment, we can accommodate far more people, and at a fraction of the cost of providing infrastructure for cars, while making life better for everyone. We want children in Ostfildern to be able to cycle to school without fear, and breathe fresh air, not sit in cars stuck in traffic or play indoors for fear of the fumes. It’s remarkable that this took so long.”
Work is expected to begin in Summer.
Bike as transport in Ostfildern
On another Father and Son bike ride last week we passed through the ‘new’ part of Ostfildern where there has been a bit more thought than usual given to making it for people and not for cars. It’s still not brilliant, but even with this token effort there are far more bikes. While some probably only go out every second weekend in summer, many are clearly used for daily transport, like this one, which had clearly just come back from a ride with the kids, maybe to the shops which are only a kilometre away.
This is the only part of the Ostfildern where there are segregated cycleways within the town, but to reach the shops in this planned and allegedly ’sustainable settlement’ you need to cross a busy road, and lock your bike to a railing or a hopelessly inadequate and often uncovered Sheffield stand.
Yet even this minimal cycling infrastructure, a few routes that are safe for children to ride on without adults supervising them, and a handful of places where cars have to drive slowly, and people ride for transport. The evidence is here, right in front of us, so when will Ostfildern start getting serious about cycling and see what some real infrastructure achieves?
Entrance to a 'Spielstrasse', with sign.
Here’s an experiment for anyone who drives a German car: on a level road, put it into first gear and take your foot off the accelerator. It should drive along at exactly 7km/h. (oh yeah: turn it on first)
This is because German towns have a network of ‘Spielstrassen’; equivalent of a ‘Woonerf’ in the Netherlands. On a Spielstrasse, everyone has the same rights to the space, cars going through must give way to people and to other cars coming from the right, and drive at walking speed: 7km/h. If you’re wondering where I got this useless information, I learned to drive in Germany and was informed many times of the dire consequences of speeding or running into a child (If you’re lucky the police catch you before the mob does) .
It’s a great system. Germans are usually pretty good drivers and most people drive at a maximum of around 10-15km/h, take care, don’t bully you and wait for pedestrians. On the other hand, because it’s a road, people tend to be aware of bikes and things so there’s very little conflict. They are great to cycle along because the boys don’t have to watch out for cars: we can ride three abreast, or practice learn about road cycling. We’re looking for a new apartment and one of the criteria is that is should be on a Spielstrasse if possible.
Junction on a Spielstrasse in our village.
Unfortunately, no matter how scientifically designers design a street, however many bumps they make or trees they plant, however much street furniture they artully arrange to make chicanes, or cobbles they lay to encourage people to drive slowly, someone is going to try and drive fast, and stuff anyone who gets in the way. The notion that their two-ton metal monster could probably do serious -possibly terminal- damage to a child who runs out of their home onto the street doesn’t seem to compute. It’s rare, but it happens, and when it does, the system falls down.
I guess this is on my mind because a town to the north of here has recently announced it is starting a ‘shared space‘ scheme instead of building a bypass. This is different to a Spielstrasse because it’s on the main road: there will be no speed limit, but everyone has equal rights to the road, so trucks must give way to pedestrians, and drive slowly enough to stop if they need to (and in Germany the blame is squarely on the driver if they drive into a pedestrian). I really want to see ’shared space’ work because it bucks the trend of sacrificing land, houses, children’s health, and anything else that gets in the way of speeding motor vehicles: it makes drivers slow down which driving less convenient, which is good for all of us because then less people drive. If it works, it could be a way of allowing pedestrians and cyclists back onto constricted village roads where motor vehicles currently rule, but looking at the way many drivers behave on our local roads, I wonder if the lack of barriers will make them negotiate or get more aggresive. Or am I being unduly pessimistic?
I’ll try and visit this scheme as it comes online, and post what I find.
[Since I posted this, Velochick has gone to visit the shared space scheme in Ashford, UK. She wasn't that impressed, although from her description the scheme isn't really true 'Shared space'.]
Sow roads, reap traffic
May 30, 2009 in Environment, General musings while dodging traffic, Germany, Ostfildern, Stuttgart, Transport, Trenchant comments about cars | Tags: Ostfildern | 4 comments
I’ve mentioned before that there is a harebrained scheme in the offing to lay yet more tarmac on the fields by our village, and last week there was an information evening where a local traffic planner was giving us details of what they were going to do. I naturally felt I had to go: I’m a local resident with children, I had a duty to both of my readers to blog about it and besides, there may be food
Some background may be needed here. We live in a fairly small village just outside of Stuttgart which happens to be between an Autobahn to the south and a port and industrial centre to the North. There is a bypass to the east and west, but we still have a lot of traffic through the village (about 13500 cars and 1500 trucks every 24 hours). Almost everyone wants a bypass because they believe it will ‘finally’ solve the problem. Like the last one was supposed to. And the one before that. It never does because traffic expands and contracts to fill the available space. Naturally the Strassenbauamt (Road building ministry) are aware of this but keep quiet about it.
While almost everyone wants the bypass, no-one wants it going past their house, and I don’t blame them. So now there is a new scheme being proposed by Stuttgart. They are offering to build a nice new road under the village to connect to one of the existing bypasses. This will take the traffic well away from the village and the noise, and no-one will have their view spoiled.
This is marsh gas. Absolute, 100% unadulterated cobblers. Anyone capable of walking erect should smell a king-sized rat when Stuttgart offers to build something for Ostfildern. Why would a city offer to spend taxpayers money on an infrastructure project in another administrative district? The answer is geography. There’s a major intersection of north-south and east-west autobahns, to the South West of Stuttgart used by a lot of traffic, but also a lot of traffic from the North-west going to the South East. This traffic has to curve around three sides of Stuttgart and climb a major hill. For about 20 years the Strassenbauamt has been quietly working on a plan for a bypass to the east of Stuttgart avoiding the hill, and it’s a section of this road that will go under our village. In other words, the road isn’t a bypass for us, but for Stuttgart, under this village.
Unfortunately, they’ve done their spin well: the notion is fixed in people’s minds that we need a bypass.
The economy is now going fast down the toilet, and the transport industry is going with it. As the majority of the traffic is cars, and about half of that is internal traffic, we could reduce traffic in the village simply by making less parking spaces and more bike infrastructure, because traffic expands and contracts to fit the space available… but I’m being rational, and using science which isn’t going to get me anywhere in this debate.
Not that any of this matters, because despite the huff and puff, no-one has yet committed to the €20-30 billion that this white elephant will cost, so I suspect it’ll be a while before any diggers turn up, but rest assured the Strassenbauamt is out there somewhere, building pointless roads to link up their fantasy network…
Freiburg looks ever more attractive…