From utopia to hell in 10 minutes

[abendgules]

This weekend Robert is away and I'm entertaining myself grocery shopping and assembling shelves. Doesn't sound like much, but it feels very different when Robert isn't here because he typically takes the lead on these things, and I don't rush to discourage him.

The nearest Sainsbury is a bit of a trial because it's uphill both ways, so to speak - a long slow hill between me and the shop, on a busy street. There's no real alternative route; no bike paths, no park routes. It's Kingsbury Avenue or nuthin'.

This part of London is definitely not as used to cyclists as Hackney is; the Sainsbury's has regular parking, handicap parking, parents of young kids parking and motorcycle parking...but no bicycle parking. With a HUGE parking lot. Stupid.

The last time I got plain bare wood shelves at IKEA the shelves were already assembled - it was just a matter of grabbing the least knotty ones and using big hex bolts to attach them to the uprights. Here, my Argos bare wood shelves arrived as two long skinny heavy packages of wood slats and a whole lotta screws - even the shelves needed assembly, waaaaay more work than I banked on. Whoops.

So late in the afternoon I decided to test the local Screwfix shop and see if I could get more Philips head screwdriver heads for the power drill, which might speed up assembly. The shop turned out to be a bit like Argos, or Lee Valley Tools, where you write down your order number and the staff go find it for you.

I'd braced myself to be nice to male staff, who would smile indulgently about a woman wanting tool advice. I swear they breed retired hardware store men just for Lee Valley.

I was delighted to find the middleaged staffer advising builders in the shop was an Indian woman with a broad London accent. The staff behind the counter were 20-something black women; there were no men staff in sight. Noone batted an eye, I didn't hear even a hint of doubt in their abilities. It was awesome.

The hell was cycling back from the shop. Apparently holiday traffic on suburban streets is even worse than regular traffic; there's less of it so drivers feel entitled to go faster.

In the course of the trip there and back, 10 mins each way, I was
- passed as I was approaching a narrowed roadway (concrete island for pedestrians) 3 times
- passed on the roundabout once
- honked at twice, while riding in primary position (close to the middle of the lane)

This is after riding in Hackney for years, and never being honked at once.

The thing is - the road is evenly surfaced, *except* for the bits directly in my wheel's path where the sewer covers, patches and divots are. It's genuinely safer to stay in the middle.

But the risks people were taking just to get ahead of me were breathtaking. I was shocked, because the traffic is much more sedate on weekdays.

I'm seriously considering keeping my fistful of keys in my right hand, so every bonehead who passes me gets a scratch in their paint. Jeez man, you were way too close!

The longer I cycle the more militant about better road design I get; well designed roads keep drivers and cyclists from conflicting over space. Increasingly I think the real solution is the Dutch and Danish one, where you consciously put the cyclists first because you can get so many more people on the road with bikes compared to cars - and cut the emissions in half, or more. Copenhagen shows you can do it successfully, by choice, and not sacrifice the life of the city.

(The Dutch chose to too, but it's long enough ago that most people don't realise it was a choice, and assume it's always been that way.)

I'm intending to write the local counsellor and tell them I'm voting strictly on the cycling space issue in this ward. This borough is shockingly far behind other parts of the city on cycle space, with acres of room on roads for bike lanes and separate facilities.

It would be easy to improve the cycle options here - I can see some easy wins north and south of my flat. The really ugly obstacle is Staples Corner, where Edgeware Road crosses the north circular and there's precious little provision for either cyclists or foot traffic. But north of that, you could make a huge difference.

Comments

[m-nivalis.livejournal.com]

I had no option but Argos shelves when I lived in Dublin, so I fully understand your pain (I think I broke down and called my mother to have a proper rant).

And the British cycling "culture" deserves its own rant - even in cycling friendly Oxford I'm shaking my head over the lack of common sense facilities I'm used to from Sweden. I hope you can do something to make you councillor improve matters.

[suelet.livejournal.com]

As someone who used to assemble Ikea type shelving for a living, a wee bit of hard soap on the screws makes things go a lot more smoothly (pardon the pun).