“I (…) have come to the conclusion that it will take a few generations yet.”
You mean, well after the oil has finally ran out, you’ll have your share of segregated structures? come on.
“Come on guys, you are on the same side – kiss and make up. Both arguments are correct, you are disagreeing about different things.”
Sorry: no. Not on the same side by a long stretch. I once thought that, but I am older and wiser now.
“to say that CTC are anti cycle path is wrong.”
Ah, ok. so the CTC is wrong, then?  I was hoping so much from them…
“If Britain built cycle paths like the Dutch then we would welcome them with open arms. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen here. I am an engineer,”
You are an engineer?!!! Then you should bloody be well aware that it is plainly impossible to create any significant amount of segregated structures “dutch style” of any quality and real use value without massive expenditures, enormous damage to the cities and dubious results. Putting it in short: it is impossible, period. If you are not aware of that you are not applying properly your engineering training to the issue.
“and there are a few of us who design good quality cycle infrastructure that is as quick and safe to use as the road,”
Do we have to take your word for it or can we have links to pics of them, please, with tags to google maps? I am sure I’d find interesting things in them to comment in my blog:
http://bicilibre.wordpress.com
“it is a travesty to describe British converted pavements as “cycle paths”. Most are worse than having nothing at all.”
Oh, yeah? and what, in your qualified engineer’s opinion, is the reason for that? Are all british engineers, your colleagues, a bunch of incompetent and clueless morons? do they design awful “cycle paths” because they hate cyclists? are they just malevolent in general? What do you think is the reason for this systematic bad design and construction? I mean: there _must_ be a reason, right?
“Where there is a pressing need for a segregated cycling facility it is invariably refused”
And what are precisely, in your view, the criteria that define that “pressing need”, I beg you? I presume that you, being an engineer, have a clear definition of where and where not a segregated structure is needed?
“We aren’t anti-segregation, but we need to put a stop to these awful, damaging facilities and to start tackling the root problems (uncontrolled motor traffic growth).”
Oh. Something we can agree on… But tell me: do you think the segregated “facilities” would be needed at all if the root problem (as you name it) were really tackled? Doesn’t it occur to you that the construction of these segregated “facilities” (both the “good” and the bad ones) is in fact a stratagem to make it look like we are progressing without actually progressing at all?
“We Brits would not dream of telling the Dutch how to provide for cycling”
I, for one, would be happy if the Dutch just stopped being patronizing with the rest of us about the “Dutch cycling” and “Dutch structures”, telling everybody about “amsterdamizing” our cities and such bullshit. The “Dutch model” is polluting the policies in the rest of Europe as you yourself have shown so eloquently and as we are seeing in the bike lane horrors springing up all over Spain. It is high time we put a cycling sanitary belt arond the Netherlands, tell them to get their segregated cycling structures in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as a vestige of a dissapearing civilization, and start looking for somewhere else for ideas to promote cycling in _this_ century.
The “Dutch model” is a dead end. It is time to go back to reality.
P.S. I will post this comment in my own blog. If you want to discuss further, please do it here. I may choose not to answer (or be banned from doing it) here.
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