Hi vis, low priority

Last week a headline appeared in Cycling Weekly:  “Hi Vis, Low Priority”.  It didn’t mean what I first thought it did.  The article referred to comments by Chris Boardman that cycling safety campaigns shouldn’t focus on getting riders to wear hi vis and helmets, but should prioritise improving infrastructure and road safety – the things that really matter to people who actually cycle.

But my first (mis)reading of the headline was that cycling has in recent years become a high-visibility issue – but that making provision for cyclists in town planning is still a low priority.  This phrase really summed up something that has been at the back of my mind for a while now.

Cycling is no longer silent.  Discussion of cycling now seem to proliferate in the national press and TV;  large-scale group rides and mass demonstrations are frequent;  it’s vocally supported by a number of high-profile politicians;  images of bikes and cyclists seem to adorn every other advert and trendy shop window display.

But we’re still rarely seeing this very public presence turn into meaningful action.  Motorists still kill and injure cyclists with near impunity; roads are still designed for cars;  the existing cyclist infrastructure is poorly designed, and often difficult or confusing to use.

Why is this?  I wonder if part of the mismatch between words and deeds isn’t due to the very fact of its visibility.

Perhaps if an issue is given a media prevalence that is publicly perceived to be ‘punching above its weight’, then it can seem like a fad;  a fashionable bandwagon for politicians and others to jump on, rather than a serious issue of urban mobility.

Meanwhile, the cycling sociologist Justin Spinney has suggested that the new-found fashionable image of cycling is likely to put off people who don’t see themselves as part of the hipster milieu.  Similarly, the imagery of the ‘proper’ cyclist is usually of an attractive, athletic, white person in their twenties – something that is bound to suggest that only a certain type of ‘conforming ‘ body is able to participate.

The way that cycling imagery is further deployed in advertising – TV ads of mythical loft-apartments with fixies perched elegantly in the corner of the room;  organic cafés displaying quaint Pashleys with wicker baskets from yester-year – is also likely to feed into a notion of cycling taking on connotations as an upper-middle class lifestyle accessory, rather than a cheap and convenient way of getting to work.

Maybe the very fact that cycling has assumed this type of reified visibility is likely to put off.  It’s not an everyday, normal activity – it’s become a ‘thing’.  A particular activity, with a peculiar sub-culture (supra-culture?) of special rituals, clothing, apparatus.

There seem to be parallels here with parts of the environmental movement, and certain strands of liberal feminism, where campaigns are able to make a big media splash about eye-catching issues, but where meaningful progress to improve the lives of those worst affected by climate change, poverty, inequality etc, still appears to be some way off.

I do think that raising the profile of these issues is still important in bringing them to the attention of policy makers and the public.  But maybe there’s still more work to be done at tackling the knotty issues that lie beneath the glossy surface of publicity and good intentions.

Cycle Superhighways opposition

TfL are currently consulting on the two new Cycle Superhighways, dubbed ‘Crossrail for Bikes’.  They will go far beyond the existing Cycle Superways – criticised by many for being merely ‘stripes of blue paint’, failing to prevent vehicles encroaching and even parking on them.  The new ones will be fully segregated lanes for bikes.

However, London First, a lobby group representing the interests of a number of businesses in the capital, has been vocal in questioning whether the new CSs represent the best approach to improve cycling, and criticising the consultation process for lacking clarity.

But the lack of information on precisely how traffic flows will be affected, didn’t stop London First airing their views on their website and elsewhere in the media before the data had been released.  (Stats on the implications for journey times, have now been released.  TfL’s models indicate that a whopping 1 min 26 secs will be added to the average road journey on the East-West route, while the North-South route will add an even worse 2 min 43 secs to drivers’ commutes.)

I first heard about London First’s stance through a colleague who works for a major London employer.  He was concerned they took this stance despite him being in favour of Cycle Superhighway – and fact his organisation as a whole making a public statement backing the scheme.  I appreciate that member organisations such as LF don’t have the opportunity to consult all their members on every single issue – and also that large organisations are very complex, and probably don’t have a person whose job it is to decide whether they’re in favour of this or that local policy, or are even available as an identifiable point of contact.  But it does rather suggest that LF didn’t go to huge lengths to take all their members’ views into consideration in this case.

London First’s actual comments aren’t completely appalling unreasonable.  They read as a measured request for greater clarity, better consultation, more consideration of the bigger picture and not just cyclists.  But the trouble is they just seem to support the status quo.  I never hear of them expressing public concern over other road developments for fear that pedestrians or cyclists might be adversely affected.  To me it smacks of a group that isn’t viscerally and irrationally opposed to cyclists, but have a vague idea that motor traffic should just be prioritised because it’s normal.

I absolutely agree with LF when they say that all road users should be considered in the CS proposals, not just cyclists, and that the knock-on effects should be carefully weighed up.  I don’t have any animosity towards cars, buses, drivers, or anyone else on the roads – especially since I’m frequently a person on a bus, in a car, etc.

But to me it’s not enough to oppose the scheme, covering these comments with a blanket statement that “London First has long supported better cycling and pedestrian facilities in London”, if you’re not suggesting alternatives.  Of course no one actually opposes better cycling facilities.  (Well, maybe a couple.)  But the tricky bit is how you then go about putting policies and infrastructure in place to manage the limited space available in London for everyone to be able to get by.

Other than a general view that the new Cycle Superhighways could in principle reduce overall congestion (despite pockets of increased journey time), and improve public health, cut air pollution and carbon emissions, I honestly don’t have amazingly strong or nuanced views on the scheme.  But I do look forward to seeing further proposals, and hope that any lobbying from big employers takes into account their own commuters, and presents positive solutions rather than shutting down debate.

‘Working’ infrastructure isn’t enough – it must be consistent

Road reviews

A review of Cycle Superhighway 2 (‘CS2’) appears in the latest edition of London Cyclist magazine.  CS2 is the Barclay-blue cycle lane passing through East London that has received so much negative attention recently, through its arguable role in the deaths and injuries of a number of cyclists over the last couple of years, most recently including a death at the notorious Bow roundabout a couple of weeks ago.

The first thing that struck me about this article was the very fact that I was reading a ‘road review’.  This is a new genre to me.  I’ve read reviews of gigs and films;  plays and comedy acts;  I even once had an idea for a spoof protest-review website (or maybe Indymedia already has that covered?)  But never a review of a road.

However, four full pages were dedicated to describing the nuances of 1 mile of road.  We’re guided through the effects of different facets of its design and implementation on its usage by different vehicles, its safety, and its general practicality.

Peter Walker also reviewed a different section of CS2 in a video for the Guardian, in which he strapped cameras to his head and bike, and boldly ventured out into the wilds of Mile End, narrating his near-misses with lorries as he went.

Click here to play Guardian video

What troubles me is that reviewing this road should be niche, and weird and boring.  But it’s not.  It’s vital, and real, and there’s a lot to say about it.  The point is that if a new road for cars had been built here, we wouldn’t be having these discussions.  We wouldn’t need to.  The road would simply have been built, cars would travel along it from A to B, and there would be nothing further to discuss. 

Instead, with bike lanes, there are multiple oddities built into the design that must be actively navigated by anyone simply trying to travel along it.

CS2:  selected quirks

Bow roundabout is governed by a special set of traffic lights that are phased differently to normal lights.  There are three traffic light poles:  one just before the entrance to the roundabout, one right at the entrance to the roundabout, and a final set on the island of the roundabout (bearing a written notice underneath, ‘Cyclists stop on red’).  Cyclists have to somehow know that the first set of lights is for cyclists only, and is phased differently to the other sets of lights, which are for both cyclists and cars.  The second two sets of lights are all phased together, as part of the same signal.  Hence the written sign telling cyclists to stop at that set of lights, even if the immediately preceding set has been green.  Confused?  Me too.

About 10 metres onto the roundabout, there’s a section that until about a month ago began marked as a bike lane, went up a short ramp, and then dropped off a 6 inch kerb back into the roundabout after about 5 metres.  Previously, cyclists needed to know they must avoid this trap by staying on the roundabout.  Now, conversely, they’re expected to re-know that they should join this section of bike lane and follow it round.

Along the A118, the bike lane is carved into a 6-inch valley that scoops behind bus stops into the pavement, instead of out into the road.  This design is very unusual in Britain, so it’s unexpected until the last minute.  Then, because of the high kerbs, you’re unable to do anything but follow the route along, whilst suddenly being on the alert for pedestrians walking out from behind the (partly opaque) bus shelter between the two ‘halves’ of pavement.

The last oddity I’ll mention (there are many) is the photo below, in which the yellow arrow apparently indicates the legislated means of turning right.  It’s completely beyond me how anyone is supposed to second-guess at the last minute that you’re supposed to make a right turn by:

1. Slowing to a near-standstill, to turn sharply left up a narrow patch of dropped-kerb.
2. Mounting the (unmarked) pavement.
3. Doubling back on yourself to a nearby pedestrian crossing.
4. Re-entering the road via said pedestrian crossing.  (While the pedestrians are standing still and the traffic is moving? Or while the pedestrians are using it and the traffic is waiting at the lights (and has hopefully stopped where it’s supposed to)?)
5. Using the junction – which we now know is controlled by traffic lights that we wouldn’t have previously paid attention to as we passed them – to cross the main road.

Photo: London Cycling Campaign

The need for consistency

These design features aren’t necessarily poor or dangerous in themselves.  Each may conform perfectly with their own internal logic.  But this isn’t enough.  Infrastructure needs to be consistent. 

Cyclists can’t be expected to navigate every 50 metres of road space on the lookout for clues as to how they’re meant to be using the space.  And drivers and pedestrians won’t be stopping to calculate afresh how they’re meant to be interacting with each new and unique point of interface between the cycle lane, the road and the pavement.

Meanwhile, on Friday I went to a die-in outside TfL’s headquarters, to join a protest about the infrastructure failures that are making London’s roads dangerous for cyclists.  On my way there I had to pass through several police blockades that were diverting traffic to close the road for the demonstration.  When I emerged from one junction, I was confronted by the scene in the photo below.  Cars were diverted left and right, while cyclists were confusingly sent through the gap between two ‘bear right’ signs, indicated by the red circle.  In subsequent road-blocks, we were sent between two portable no-entry signs.  The police weren’t directing anyone, they just assumed that cyclists would know that the road block had been established for them to go to the demonstration nearby.

Permeable police road-block

For me, this was emblematic of a lot of cycling infrastructure.  It requires you to be telepathic.  It requires you to know the rules, but always second guess them because they don’t always apply.  It requires you to break rules when you’re required to bend around a system not designed for you, but conform as soon as the authorities demand it.

Cyclists can’t maintain both of these conflicting roles – and mindsets – simultaneously.  Policy-makers must decide which one they would like us to adopt.

Responses to recent cyclist deaths

I started writing this afternoon about the deaths of 5 cyclists on London’s roads in the last fortnight.  Soon after I began, I heard news of the 6th.

In the wake of this spate of tragic incidents, many have aired about their views on the causes of this problem, and many have sought to address how we can reduce the risks of cycling in the city.  But what do the responses of these individuals and organisations say about them, and about our culture as a whole?

Politicians

Boris Johnson, the so-called ‘cycling mayor’, said on 14^th Nov, “You cannot blame the victim” – before doing just that, stating that “When people make decisions on the road that are very risky – jumping red lights… in a way that is completely unexpected by the motorist and without looking to see what traffic is doing – it’s very difficult for the traffic engineers to second-guess that.”

Never mind that no one’s suggested that the victims had run any red lights, or if they had, that this might be related to their deaths.  No:  the standard ‘balanced’ response is that you shouldn’t point the finger at any one group – it must be that everyone is partly to blame.

But within this apparently equal ‘sharing’ of blame, note how cyclists are blamed en masse, for a collective culture of running red lights.  When motorists are criticised, it is only ever for single lapses of judgement by individuals, not for problematic collective cultures of driving.  No one ever says “Bloody HGV drivers, always driving carelessly and killing cyclists and pedestrians” – and rightly so.

Interestingly, a Green Party GLA member, Darren Johnson, responded to the mayor’s comments by explicitly accusing Boris of victim-blaming:  the first time I’ve heard a politician use this language in the context of cycling.  (It’s something I’ve written about here and here.)

Andrew Gilligan, the mayor’s cycling czar, avoided these ugly scenes by reminding us that funding is in place to deliver improved infrastructure in the near future.  This is promising not just on the basic level that these improvements will hopefully improve safety.  It also indicates a degree of awareness that this is not simply an issue of atomistic, individual road-use behaviours, but a broader question of urban planning policy.

This being said, we still continue to see newly-built roads and bike lanes that are dangerous, difficult or impossible for cyclists to use – whereas it’s unthinkable that a new road would be approved if it was impassable for cars.  It would appear that despite the best intentions of some politicians and planners, lessons are still not being learned.

The media

Media attitudes to cyclists seem to have softened in recent times.  Although vitriolic bike-hate pieces still appear in right-wing newspapers, general coverage of the cycling deaths has been sensitive and supportive of finding solutions.

The Times argued for HGVs to be banned from the city centre during rush-hour.  The Guardian ran with a highly unusual and potentially provocative image on its website to bundle together three articles on this story – a lorry encroaching into bike lane.

Also noteworthy was the Guardian’s publication on Saturday of an interactive map of national cycling injury data on cycling injuries.  As an aside, I wonder why this otherwise excellent piece in Saturday’s Telegraph appeared in the ‘Telegraph Men’ section (“Expert advice and sharp opinion for the modern male”)?

However, similarly to Boris Johnson’s attitude, the desire for ‘balance’ seems to dictate that the press must still constantly invoke the ubiquitous figure of the ‘cyclist who jump red lights’.  Furthermore, in some cases – notably a story today by LBC (which was amended mid-afternoon, and toned down somewhat) – cyclists breaking the law become conflated with those who don’t wear hi-vis, and especially those who don’t wear helmets.  (These conflations and criticisms are – as one might expect – repeated with a vengeance below the line.)

It doesn’t seem to matter that there’s no law to wear hi-vis gear or a helmet.  Or that the same people complaining that cyclists don’t wear hi-vis, are the same people who assert that the cyclists in any case rendered themselves invisible by recklessly riding into HGVs’ blindspots.  It doesn’t matter that if you get squashed by an HGV or a bus, a helmet is not going to save you.  The moral outrage caused by this wanton self-neglect seems entirely founded in indignation.

The police

The Metropolitan Police responded to the deaths by stopping cyclists who weren’t wearing helmets or hi-vis, and boasting about it in a two-part tweet featuring a photo of a queue of cyclists waiting to be allowed to continue their journey.

They were asked by Twitter user @PrimlyStable what law they used to conduct these searches, but hadn’t bothered to reply at time of writing (8 hours later).  According to another photo they tweeted later this evening, they also seem to have stopped cyclists who were wearing helmets and hi vis, so the logic of their approach is unclear.

The LBC article mentioned above initially stated that cyclists were fined £50 for not wearing helmets or hi-vis – neither of which are unlawful.  This report was amended later in the day (so I now can’t link to them).  I’m curious to know whether the police did indeed fine people unlawfully, or whether LBC simply reported it wrongly at first, or if the original piece arose from an over-zealous police press-release.  I’d also be interested to hear from anyone stopped and fined, to hear precisely what the official police line was, and what exactly they did.

The police also stopped HGV drivers, and apparently issued various fines for faults in the vehicles.  But the whole tone of their approach is strongly suggestive of an institution that sees cyclists as an alien presence on the roads that must be managed, rather than cycling being a normal and legitimate means of transport.  This is reflected in the facts they choose to mention in this press release from earlier today, which provided an update on the status of the cyclist killed in Whitechapel on 13^th November.  Whilst the driver is described as being treated for shock, a spiteful closing sentence records that the victim wasn’t wearing a helmet.

********

A series of deaths sharing a number of common features within a short space of time has led to numerous individuals and institutions taking a broader view of risk in urban cycling, rather than simply blaming careless cycling behaviour.  It’s called into question urban infrastructure, transport policy, and a range of other societal factors.  However, we continue to see victim-blaming and prejudice informing attitudes towards cyclists.

I hope that attitudes continue to shift towards cycling being perceived as a routine and acceptable mode of transport, and that urban planning decisions begin to take seriously the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, not just motor traffic.  Only then can we mitigate the worst effects of the risks of urban cycling, and try to prevent further incidents like those of the last two weeks.

The (re)gentrification of cycling

A striking image occupied two full pages of the Evening Standard last week.  It featured a cyclist adorned with every possible ‘cycling visibility’ bauble you could imagine, and then some.  It was reminiscent of a cartoon I once drew to illustrate the proliferation of bike safety merchandise – except that this photograph managed to contain accessories that didn’t even feature in my exaggerated doodle, including some contraptions I’d never seen before.  

Marketisation

The piece brings into the mainstream the idea of cyclists as a new consumer market – and a high-end one at that.  The subtleties of different types of bike lights are no longer the sole domain of backroom bike-shop geek-talk:  57 varieties are now brought to us alongside a column that compares youth-restoring face creams.

This reinforces the idea that hi-vis bicycle clips are no longer enough.  High-end bike clobber is no longer the preserve of the elite lycra-clad men who think nothing of cycling 80 miles on a Sunday afternoon.  It has now become a staple for anyone who wishes to use the roads.  A minimum requirement to avoid moral opprobrium for endangering your own safety, both in conversations with friends and family, and collectively in the popular press.

Furthermore, this marketisation of bike gear means that – as with all other consumer markets – the bar is continually being raised, with an ever-increasing diversity of products that must be purchased, at increasingly high costs.  The expansion of the range of products also means that an increasingly outlandish culture is being created, which moves potential riders further and further away from appearing ‘normal’.  Who wants to go around looking like Robocop, with the weird head-torch bike helmet in the picture above?

Part of me even feels that the spectacular nature of the appearance of the modern biker-rider shares something with the ever-more sinister uniforms of police forces and armies.  Seeing the terrifying pictures of the Taiwanese army’s new Hannibal-inspired autumn range, I couldn’t help but think they resembled a cross between a BMX-er and a bike courier, only wielding a gun.

Outsider clique culture, and professionalisation

But more subtly, this entry requirement also manifests itself by making people feel that they just ‘don’t belong’ on a bike or on the roads.  That they lack some kind of ‘official’ status, which would presumably arise from some combination of experience, skills, expertise, or simply ‘looking the part’.  Rachel Aldred, a sociologist of cycling, found in her research that many cyclists she interviewed stated that although they regularly ride a bike to get around, they don’t identify as ‘proper cyclists’.

The group of people who are perceived as holding this ‘official’ status themselves end up representing a psychological barrier to others joining their gang – rather than cycling being perceived as something anyone can do.  This isn’t helped by the stereotypical image of the cyclist – reproduced in the Evening Standard image above – which is that of someone young, athletic, attractive, affluent, and usually white.  (Though adverts in recent years do at least seem to be moving away from the assumption that cyclists are all muscular, lycra-clad men.)

As well as informal pressures on cyclists to conform with trends in clothing and equipment, there are calls for helmets to become mandatory, for some minimum level of training, for all bikes to be insured, and even for bicycle number-plates.

A culture of increasing specialisation, professionalisation, and bureaucratisation of cycling mirrors trends in many other areas of society.  Professionals such as lawyers and doctors used to practice over a whole range of areas;  it’s now extremely rare to find ones who work on more than one highly specific field.  It’s become a cliché that journalism used to be a trade you could enter after leaving school at 16 and making the tea at a newspaper;  these days, hacks pretty much need an Oxbridge degree and a trust-fund.  And speaking of making tea, it’s increasingly difficult to even find work in cafés without having formal barrista training.

So, as cycling becomes increasingly marketised, its visual culture becomes increasingly alien from ‘normal’ people;   those who are considering starting have an increasingly large gap of knowledge and equipment to overcome;  and those who already participate in it and want to continue must turn over an increasingly amount of their attention (i.e. time and money) to keeping on top of developments in the field.

Cost and inequality

The problem isn’t just that the culture of cycling is being made more cliquey.  The rising financial cost of keeping up with all the necessary apparel is also creating a very real barrier to participation.  A bike light that costs £125?  Seriously?

The cultural and financial burdens of modern urban cycling are surely no coincidence.  The link between the recent modishness of cycling among the young professional classes descending upon Britain’s metropolitan centres has played a large part in the ability of manufacturers and retailers to bump up their costs so drastically.

I recently bought a new bike for £850 (which I couldn’t have done without the government-subsidised cycle-to-work scheme my employer fortunately participates in).  This is almost double what the same model cost about four years ago, and almost triple the price my housemate recently paid for a small second-hand car.  Even old second-hand bikes now command £150 – £400, particularly if they have desirable ‘vintage’ (meaning ‘made in the 1980s’) steel frames.  About 8 years ago, they’d have cost more like £30.

Contrast this with the bike’s image in Britain until recently – the means of transport of the person who can’t afford a car.

Another recent article in the Evening Standard featured a former gang-member slamming the lack of government investment in youth services in working class areas.  He strikingly singled out Boris bikes as emblematic of the state prioritising middle-class interests.  Boris bikes were cheaper than buses until January of this year, and could in many ways be portrayed as a great leveller of access to transport, and cycling in particular (albeit their condensed distribution in central London and its most affluent suburbs caters towards the city’s wealthier inhabitants).  However, cycling has now become so strongly associated with middle class culture that for many it has come to represent a source of tension between the perceived interests of the political classes and those of the disenfranchised urban populace.

A little bit of history repeating

This trend of the last 10-ish years isn’t a sudden post-script to a history of salt-of-the-earth working class cycling though.  Carlton Reid has noted that penny farthings in the 1870s were “The red Ferrari of the age”.  It was only later that they became the mainstream, cheaply available method of transport that saw my grandfather ride one each morning to the factory where he worked.

In cycling’s new costliness and social status however, we seem to be witnessing a disappointing return of Victorian-era phenomena to the present day – in common with welfare arrangements, tweed and rickets.

More cyclist victim-blaming

This afternoon I met a friend of a friend, and we discussed her experiences of driving in London, having moved here from China a couple of years ago.  I sympathised with her nightmarish experiences of driving lessons involving the enormous roundabouts in the part of East London where I grew up, and related to her feeling unconfident in navigating London’s often hectic streets. 

She then told me that she’s failed her test four times – but in the same breath, added with outrage that two of these failures had been due to cyclists.  I raised my eyebrows.  It seemed harsh for a driving examiner to fail her for a mistake that was someone else’s fault, though I can imagine a learner driver not having the experience to deal with out-of-the-ordinary situations and panicking.

She elaborated on her story.  The first time she failed, it was because she was asked to pull over when she was in front of two cyclists.  When she indicated and slowed down and, she incorrectly anticipated that they would undertake, and waited in the middle of the road for them to do so.  Instead, the cyclists just waited patiently behind her for her to pull in.  She ended up stationary in the middle of the road, for which she was failed.

I asked what the cyclists had done wrong.  Her response was that if they hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have failed.

In the second story, she overtook a cyclist on a relatively quiet road.  The examiner soon afterwards asked her to take the next left – which she immediately did without checking her mirrors, cutting up the cyclist who was now just behind her, and who she’d now forgotten about.

I asked how the cyclist was to blame for her cutting in front of him without looking.  Her response was that he should have used a different road.  I said, ‘What, the other London roads, with no cars on them?’  To which she responded ‘yes’, going on to say that on a policy level, “They” shouldn’t be permitted on “Our” streets, to enable the roads to be safer overall.

I didn’t ask her any further about why she used the words ‘them’ and ‘us’, or about her use of the possessive ‘our’ – why she thought the road belonged to her, but not to cyclists.  But I was quite sarcastic in pointing out that she blamed the cyclist for her driving test failure, even though it was her behind the wheel, and furthermore it was she who nearly killed him.  However, she remained adamant that the cyclist was at fault, and that she had done nothing wrong.

For her, the idea the cyclist must have been the one in the wrong seemed closely tied to the idea that cyclists somehow don’t belong on the road.  This gave her the right to drive exactly as she pleased, as cyclists are permitted to ride there by the good grace and patience of the car drivers who legitimately inhabit it (ie her).

The explicitly espoused views that car drivers are the natural owners of the road, and cyclists are in an ‘other’ category that has no rights either as traffic or as human beings, seem to be heavily connected, and remain prevalent among London road-users.

The segregated city: beating the boundaries

The city is full of boundaries.  Messages about the space we are inhabiting, telling us where we are allowed to stay put, and where we should keep moving;  where we can and can’t enter, and under what conditions;  messages about how we should behave once inside. 

Sometimes these signals are obvious – a fence with a locked gate tells us we are not meant to enter somewhere.  Some signals are more subtle – a change in the texture of the paving tells us that we are moving from public space to private property, where our legal rights are very different, dictated by the landowner instead of a democratically accountable council or government.  These messages are sent out by urban infrastructure like radio waves, and continually reinforced in our minds by the behaviours of those we see around us.

And they are indeed messages:  not accidents of construction, but actions carefully considered  by town planners, architects, corporations, local authorities, etc.

We now rely on a complex web of signals and signposts to guide our interactions with the city, and with each other.  Road markings, traffic signs, positioning of kerbs and speed humps, bollards, railings, fences, walls, the  design of junctions and roundabouts, phasing of traffic lights;  anti-skateboarding devices, anti-pigeon devices, anti-youth devices that emit a high-pitched noise, benches designed to repel homeless people;  anti-climb paint;  positioning and availability of facilities such as street lamps, public toilets;  the design of buses and bus stops, and the layout of their routes.  There is even an example of a town in Essex that painted yellow lines on the pavement to guide where people should walk.

These layers of mediation between our inner thoughts and our external environment have the cumulative effect over time that we stop making decisions and relating our judgements to our direct experiences of the place and our memories.  Instead, we check the signals.  Or rather, we don’t stop thinking altogether – but our thoughts maybe lack nuance, and our ability to critically interpret and respond to new situations is diminished.

Our diminished ability to think critically about situations leads to our becoming isolated from other people in our immediate surroundings.  People stop being individuals, and become specimens of a given category.  When we drive along the road, we’re looking out for drivers in front and behind us, checking to see if they’re indicating, whether they’re speeding up or slowing down, performing pre-determined movements that imply particular patterns of behaviour.  We’re not thinking about what that person is like;  what sort of day they’re having;  how they’re feeling;  etc.

And fair enough – if we spent all our time wondering what the driver next to us was going to have for dinner, I’m not sure it would help our driving.  But I still think it’s important to note the trade-off that we make in this process of dehumanisation.

Our removal from other road-users is all the more stark in relation to people in different categories.  People on the ‘other’ side of the boundaries that mark up the city.  For example, if we travel along the road in a car, we are not only bodily separated from the outside world through the physical fact of the car’s shell.  We also a gulf apart from pedestrians inhabiting the parallel dimension of the pavement.

The visual language of the division between the road and the pavement is powerful enough that we are able to drive along and see people on the pavement in a completely different category to those driving the car directly in front of us.

We’re aware of those pedestrians in our peripheral vision, but as long as their body-language doesn’t indicate they’re about to make a mad dash into the road (into our world, colliding with our reality), we are able to ignore them.

This isn’t an argument that we should abolish kerbs, and there are many good and helpful reasons that symbolic and physical signs and barriers  – though there have been some interesting experiments in removing these.  But I do think it’s interesting to interrogate the effects of excessively taxonomised mindsets on the relationships between different users of urban space.