#BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest - Edition No.40

#BikeIsBest Digest Edition No. 40 | Thursday 17th November 2022 | View in browser

Hello and welcome to this week’s newsletter, in which we see just how popular some of the UK’s cycle routes are - and we ponder some of our attitudes towards who cycles.
SAFETY, THEFT AND SOARING CYCLING LEVELS?
It’s Road Safety Week, which means a welcome focus on reducing road harm across society. Some get it better than others but it’s a great opportunity to have a conversation about improving safe access to the streets for all of us - not just the quick and the brave.
BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY
ROAD SAFETY WEEK
The theme this year is safer roads for all. Road safety is a funny industry, one that often focuses on the most vulnerable to protect themselves. There’s a huge power imbalance between drivers and, say, wheelchair users, horse riders, pedestrians or cyclists. Think! points to the Highway Code and the new hierarchy of responsibility, which reflects this imbalance and with it road users’ respective responsibilities.
SAFE BIKES WEEK?
Recent analysis of police data in London reveals how rising cycle theft is affecting different parts of the city - and how suspects are ever identified. Safe cycle parking is a crucial part of the active travel landscape and many cities, London included, recognise this. The article has some good tips for reducing the chance of theft. As an aside, this public information video from the 1950s shows how different the cycling demographic was back then (H/T David Hembrow).
‘THAT’ CLOSE PASS VIDEO
The ripples from a video of a driver failing to give way to a five year old cycling through a narrow gap between parked cars has caused a social media stir, and differing interpretations. Sajid Javid is reported as suggesting the child shouldn’t be on the road - while Sadiq Khan took the child’s side. Some see the solution as making kids cycling in safety a normal sight. Who can argue with that?
UK’S BUSIEST CYCLE CROSSING?
Footage from one of London’s most popular cycle routes shows the heft of metropolitan bicycle rush hour. On a crossing of the East-West cycleway, which crosses London, via Parliament Square, it’s a sight to behold. Just down the road a cycle count totem recently topped 10 million journeys since February 2018. This is crowdsourced data, and excludes a fair few weeks the totem was out of action.
TROUBLE DOWN UNDER
The Guardian reports a resurgence of tensions in Australian cities around allocation of streetspace to cycle lanes, some of which were installed during the pandemic. In Melbourne and Sydney interviewees from union reps to politicians, to a hotel owner, unite behind claims bike lanes are bad for business and ‘getting in the way’. As the author points out, Sydney mayor Clover Moore was elected on a “clear platform of increasing cycling infrastructure”, with just one councillor voting against a now contentious cycleway and majority public support. Instead, the piece concludes, many are unaware of cycleways’ benefits and popularity. Our latest Streets Ahead podcast discusses just this issue.
OTHER HEADLINES
BARRIERS
Transport for All, campaigning for accessible transport for people with disabilities, is asking disabled people about barriers on the National Cycle Network (NCN). Working with Sustrans, it’s trying to help understand accessibility on the NCN and the impact of barriers. Even better - they are offering £50-£100 cash for respondents’ time.
INTERESTING GRAPHIC OF THE WEEK

A reminder of the popularity of cycling, from our recent #BikeIsBest research.
Source
ACTIVE TRAVEL PHRASE OF THE WEEK; COST:BENEFIT ANALYSIS
In some ways the bane of cycle campaigners. While real-life cost:benefit ratios, the calculated return on financial investment, is very high for cycle investment, between £6 and £12 to £1 depending on what you include (health benefits, decongestion, journey times, etc) the computer modelling road building is founded on still heavily (and inaccurately) weights things in favour of car traffic provision.
Until next time,

Founder, #BikeIsBest
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