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[email protected] · October 13th 17, 05:55 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
08:37:43 on Fri, 13 Oct 2017, remarked:

I live on what is allegedly one of the busiest cycle routes in the UK
and it's incredibly noticeable how usage drops when the weather is
less than clement.

Because of this I'd seriously argue that a modal shift to cycling is
impossible - you still have to dimension the transport infrastructure
for those bad days, and if you've just taken a chunk out of it to
accomodate the cycle lane then for periods of the year (e.g.
"February") you're actually making things worse, not better.

Sorry, but that is as ridiculous as saying you will drive even though 10%
of the time traffic will be so bad that you will be seriously late to
work. Non-trivial rain occurs as commuter time well under 10% of the
time. It isn't that hard to get good cycling raingear either.

Look at Cambridge commuting if you don't believe me.

One of the driest parts of the country.

It's the times of day that are important. The tendency not to rain at
commuting times is national. But we are talking about Oxford, not
Manchester. It isn't much wetter than Cambridge.

Traffic is

catastrophically

worse on wet days but that makes cycling even more advantageous in
travel times.

As long as you don't mind turning up at work drenched.

Do you cycle to work? How many times has that happened to you? In over 25
years working for Pye/Philips/Simoco it happened to me less often than the
number of fingers on one hand. And that's in either direction. On the way
home, recovery is simple anyway.

--
Colin Rosenstiel