We should ban bikes in age friendly cities

I am spending a couple of days in Dublin at the World Health Organisation Age Friendly Cities conference. Very interesting. At some stage I will write a blog posting on the concept of age friendly cities. I think a better name would be "age neutral" cities.


Something that does amuse me (in a warped sort of way) is the conflict between the planners who are doing the damnedest to make cities ‘bike friendly’ and the conflict this has with a place being ‘age friendly’.  


This is nothing to do with marketing so click away now if you are looking for words of wisdom on that subject.


I am sure Dublin is no worse than London or Amsterdam, but nobody seems to give a bugger about the traffic lights. Dublin council has invested in these nice devices to let you cross the road that flash and make a noise for people with poor sight. The only problem is that they are useless unless people think that the colour of the traffic light is for guidance only.


In addition to being mowed down by rogue cyclists you have the issue that the complexity of crossing the road has gone up by an order of magnitude. You have one-way roads, bike lanes, and bus lanes. Some of these go in the same direction as the traffic some don’t. 


Let's ban bikes and get people back into their cars. Bad on the environment – good on the sanity of older pedestrians. Dick Stroud