The reason I quit walking and cycling, this year is the same. I don’t feel safe because of road works that aim to seperate cars from cyclists, without addressing the key issue of traffic density.
Highlight:
I cycled 2700km, ran 945km, hiked 89km and walked 890km this year. A year earlier I walked 1670km, ran 247km, cycled 5300km and hiked 403km. I am not negative out of ignorance. I am negative due to chronic exposure to danger.
Some series, like Last of the Summer Wine, follow people going on local walks and getting up to mischief. We often hear of people that love to go for walks on the weekend. The issue, as traffic density increases is that the local walks that were along quiet roads are now along busier and busier roads.
At the same time, when road works block one road traffic is diverted along secondary and tertiary roads. Recently a very important road was shut to traffic entirely. As a result of this closure a route that was once an agricultural road, reserved only for rural roads was used by a Transport Public de Nyon bus as well as a French car from Ain. What was meant to be a quiet road, exclusively for farmers, by being metalled, became a short cut for local buses and commuters.
Normally there is water where I walked yesterday. At first I walked along the stones, where it was dry. After a moment I decided to take off my shoes and begin to walk through the mud and sediment. In so doing my feet sank as deep as my ankles. The mud felt soft and squelchy, and cold.
I removed my shoes because I was wearing my cycling shoes, and because I have speedplay clips I didn’t want to get them filled with mud, which I would then have to make an effort to remove.
In an ideal world, we step out of our home and we go for a walk, like they did in The Last of the Summer Wine, and we socialise, and see local people. During the pandemic we could step out of the house, and go for a walk, without worrying about traffic, and without automatically taking the car.
When lockdowns ended, and the dependence on cars came back, so the local walk was degraded by the increasing frequency of car use. Eventually rural roads along secondary paths became unpleasant so new routes had to be found.
Yesterday evening I was playing with Strava heat maps, and especially with my own walking heat maps. In looking at the heat map I see deep red marks along the rads that are currently blocked by road works. You might ask “So what, who cares?” The answer is, of course, that I care, because with that critical bit of road being toxic it means that for an entire year my walking pattern is destroyed. Three months last year, and then at least nine months this year.
Two days in a row I participated in activities that pushed me physically. On sunday it was a 60km ride with 900m of climbing and a 25km/h wind and the next day it was a 9.4km walk which is pushing my endurance further than usual. I found myself thinking that I should participate in hikes because hikes are easy. I’m used to walking. Walking and hiking were my specialities.
By cycling on Sunday, despite the wind, and running on Monday despite the fatigue I pushed myself, and I remained true to my word. I saw on Whatsapp that the group that organises sedentary activities were complaining about no-shows in activities that involve sitting, drinking and talking.
The biggest improvement you can make to walking and cycling mobility is to avoid having cyclists, and pedestrians blocked by car traffic. This can include traffic lights but also busy roads where it is impossible to cross. If you’re on a walk, or a bike ride, and you get blocked by cars, then the temptation is not to walk that route, or walk a shorter distance.
Millions are being spent to make roads more cyclist and pedestrian friendly but they’re making changes that look good on paper but do nothing for cyclists and pedestrians. Between a village and a town they spent two months to add a pavement on one side, and a cycling/pedestrian path on the other. It should have taken a week. It took ages, and the net gain for pedestrians and cyclists is cosmetic, rather than useful.
Yesterday I went for two walks. The first walk was after lunch because I had something to drop off at the post office. Usually I would have printed the label at home, rather than doing this walk. I desired to go for a bike ride but the chore was more important. In the process I learned something.
If you need to print something, you can go to the post office, and via an app you can print the label for a package there and then. You can then send the package, without dealing with a person. It’s quick and efficient. It’s thanks to speaking with a person that I learned this.
For two years they worked on a motorway bridge. For two years they cut down trees, added tons of soil, and then widened roads for cars. Never during that time did they consider that people might want to walk along the most direct route from A to B.
More recently I have been walking into and out of town and for a while I had to walk on a dirt path. I had to avoid heavy machinery, large puddles, and cross the road on a busy road several times.
I often walk between towns and villages and in so doing I notice how overwhelming cars have become. If you walk from a village to a town, you have to contend with busy roads. These busy roads are often like deep rivers. Sometimes you need to wait for several minutes before you can cross. At other times you notice that cars see you at a crossing but they don’t slow down in anticipation of your wanting to cross.