In many ‘car-centric’ cities around the world, drivers still think they own the whole road – with cyclists merely unwelcome interlopers. So how do you go about changing this mindset?

Looking around at our streets, it’s startling when you first notice it: like waking from a dream and forgetting where you are. A moment of disorientation as your eyes make sense of the shadows and see the room for what it is.

After that, it’s unmistakable: our streets are not our own. From the parked cars that line the roads to the traffic that speeds along them, in many of our cities we are second-class citizens if we’re not inside a motor vehicle.

The incident in which TV presenter Jeremy Vine alleged he had been intimidated and assaulted while riding his bike on a west London road is not uncommon but it is a reminder of just how deeply we are in thrall to the motor car.

Research on drivers’ attitudes to cyclists has shown that people in car-centric countries such as the UK sometimes don’t view those on bike and on foot as “proper” road users, and at times treat them as if they shouldn’t be on the road at all.

This isn’t the case everywhere: some countries, and their cities, prioritise those who walk and cycle when they design their streets. Cycling or walking in the Netherlands is a joyful experience – infrastructure caters for walking and cycling, and drivers respect those outside of cars.

Cycling UK’s campaigns and communications coordinator, Sam Jones, believes part of the difference is in attitude: that while people grow up cycling in continental Europe, and continue into old age, “in countries with a problem of car dominance it tends to be younger, or middle-aged people, cycling”.

In car-centric countries cycling is often viewed as a sport for young-ish, healthy people (often men), rather than a mode of transport for all demographics, so it’s perhaps not such a stretch to conclude a cycling trip is considered less important than a car trip. Shopkeepers’ resistance to bike lanes on the basis only drivers spend money – also untrue – is another illustration of this.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Walkers and cyclists cross the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, where many of the city’s car-centric policies were redrawn under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty

As Cycling UK’s road safety and legal campaigns officer, Duncan Dollimore, puts it, people pass their driving test as teens, and don’t always adapt their driving as roads become busier with more cyclists whose behaviour they may not understand. Cyclists are often seen as an “out group”, making it easy to attribute many of the problems on the road to them.

Walking charity Living Streets’ head of policy, Tom Platt, says that whether we walk, cycle or drive regularly, “the way the street is designed makes people react in a certain way when they’re in a car. It gives them cues”.

Cues could be anything from guard rails on pavements giving the impression that “this is a car space, keep off”, to splayed junctions encouraging people to drive into residential roads at speed.

A classic example of how these cues affect our behaviour is the school run. A generation ago, 70% of people in England walked to school; now it is less than half. “People walk less and cycle less; that gives an indication that they don’t feel safe,” says Platt.

Living Streets’ research suggests the aggressive crush of motor vehicles outside the school gates is the main reason people drive their kids, rather than walking or cycling with them, each day.

Edinburgh is one city that has recognised this, trialling car-free streets outside more than 30 schools in a bid to encourage walking and cycling, and reduce congestion and pollution. The results have not yet been published, but if successful it could usher in permanent “school zones” and encourage other cities to follow suit. The benefits of walking are many and far-reaching, from health to business investment in walkable, and therefore desirable, areas.

Narrow escapes can be enough to put people off. Participants of the Near Miss Project claimed to experience several close calls with cars on a single day cycling, and project author Rachel Aldred reports a feeling of “systematic disregard” for cyclist safety and comfort from motorists, traffic engineers, designers and policymakers.

We get what we plan for. A key underlying aim of street schemes is often smooth traffic flow. Even if an engineer wants to prioritise those on foot or bike over motor traffic, it disrupts planners’ computer models, making such change difficult if not impossible.

This gives us a walking and cycling infrastructure that is often meaningless. For instance: pavement cycle lanes that are simultaneously inconvenient for cyclists and intimidating for those on foot, or three-stage pedestrian crossings that only suit those quick enough to cross before traffic gets the green light again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A cyclist in New York. It’s an important symbol to see a bike lane or a sign with a picture of a bike – it means something,’ says Eben Weiss. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty

One could argue much of our street design is directly at odds with the needs of the people who use those streets.

Some cities are trying to change this bias, though. New York saw a rapid proliferation of bike lanes under Michael Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor, as well as the introduction of the hugely popular Citibikes.

The New York blogger and author Eben Weiss says the city’s new bike lanes legitimised cycling, telling people “this is something you can be doing, and should be doing.”

“It’s an important symbol to see a bike lane or a sign with a picture of a bike – it means something,” he says. “I started seeing lots more cyclists. And pick any street where they have built an actual protected bike lane. If you’re just walking down that street, it makes a huge difference when cars aren’t encroaching on every inch of the space. You can see around the corner when you’re trying to cross the street.”

In New York “yield collisions” are being investigated, and driving into someone when they have the crossing priority is now a crime. In a city where less than 50% of households own a car Bloomberg tried to introduce congestion charging but the idea died in the state capital, Albany, where many more people drive.

Much of America’s car-centric thinking goes back to the early days of the motoring in the country, and has much to do with how we view and talk about different road users today.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Weiss says: “When cars started to take over every city in America, people were getting creamed out there. Cities were trying to impose speed limits or ban cars, and the auto industry weren’t having it.

“Part of what they did was a propaganda campaign depicting a ‘jaywalker’, which I guess back then was slang for idiot. So they came up with this idea of a Jaywalker, this hapless moron who walks into traffic and gets hit, and it’s his or her fault. Now it’s part of our language.” It’s now illegal to “jaywalk” in the US.

“Now we have this thing in this country where the road doesn’t belong to you. You have this brief flickering window, when you have the walk sign, to run across the street for your life, and then anything that happens to you is your problem,” he says.

“We have been so successfully trained to linguistically and legally insulate drivers. I guess we have the auto industry to thank for that, they did a great job making it possible for you to drive at all times with no consequences.”

Many believe this language is key when it comes to prosecution of dangerous drivers, or lack thereof. “There is still the automatic victim blaming and lack of investigation on the part of police when a pedestrian or cyclist gets hit by a driver,” Weiss says. “It’s enough for the driver to say, ‘They came out of nowhere’. The police tell reporters, ‘It looks like the cyclist ran the light’, and that’s it.”

It’s not all down to police, though. “There’s so much working against all of these people. After all these years, the attitude is, ‘Call it an accident, let the civil courts take care of it’. So your only recourse if you get hit by a driver is to hope that driver has insurance and file a civil suit, get some kind of settlement.

“That is the problem and that is the thing that’s not really changing, that’s why with the advocates there has been this big push to stop using the word ‘accident’.”

Attempts to “educate” or tackle the problem by focusing on the vulnerable road user is another symptom of that bias but, as Living Streets’ Platt puts it: “If we want to make streets safer we need to tackle the source of the problem.”

“People will always make mistakes,” says Platt. “We need to reduce speeds, rather than making campaigns that tell people to be careful. We need to think first and foremost about how the street works for people.”

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To change that culture is not easy, but more cities are dipping in a toe. Toronto is in the early stages, and its growing pains are familiar. It’s a city recovering from the late Rob Ford, the mayor who said it’s a cyclist’s fault if they are killed, while ripping out a bike lane to save drivers two minutes. Now, improved bike lanes and bike boxes, which give cyclists a visible refuge at traffic lights, are being introduced. The city is growing fast and, like in London, planners have recognised cycling as an efficient way to relieve pressure on full-capacity infrastructure.

Toronto resident Phillip Cates believes the city’s early bike lanes created “dangerous road conditions for cyclists and angered motorists”. Although the later iterations, he says, are improvements, as with most North American cities the car-centric culture, wide, straight roads and big cars are still at odds with safe cycling and walking. The move away from a “windshield perspective” is thanks to senior Toronto politicians who commute by bike, and a supportive mayor in John Tory.

Which suggests what many of us already know: political leadership is needed to prioritise people in cities. Like the Leicester mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, former London mayor, Boris Johnson, and the ex-New York mayor Bloomberg, we need politicians with relevant powers who recognise the benefits of walking and cycling – and are willing to stand up for them.

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