#BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest - Edition No.46
#BikeIsBest Digest Edition No. 46 | Wednesday 4th January 2023 | View in browser
Hello and a Happy New Year to you all! I hope you had a restorative break and are feeling as ready as you can be for 2023.
2023 STARTS STRONG
VAT cuts on bikes (not in the UK, boo), funding for cycling delivery experts and bikes on trains gets easier. It may be a dreary time of year but there is a lot to feel positive about, and look forward to. Here’s to a happy and healthy New Year for all of us, and for active travel.
BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY
£32.9M FOR ACTIVE TRAVEL A-TEAMS
The government announced this week a £32.9m revenue fund to improve local authorities’ delivery of cycling and walking schemes. The cash will help train and recruit engineers and planners, and build engagement teams, to deliver better and more inclusive active travel programmes in councils across England. These are crucial building blocks to deliver decent infrastructure people will want and, crucially, use. Carlton Reid interviewed Chris Boardman on the news for Forbes.
PORTUGAL REDUCES VAT RATE ON CYCLE SALES.
Portugal is the first EU country to cut VAT on bicycle purchases this year, from 23% to 6%. The move comes 12 months after new EU legislation permitted such changes, and Portugal sees it as part of a bid to boost cycling to 10% of all trips by 2030. The European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) estimates customers will save up to €300 on a €2000 ebike, if retailers and suppliers pass savings on to customers.
BIKES ON TRAINS GOT A TINY BIT EASIER
Trainline finally introduced a switch on its app that lets customers carrying cycles book available bike space on trains. Gone are the days of 45 minute phone calls, in which you are forced to relay apparently endless information to an operator simply to get a cycle on board.
BIKENOMICS CHAT
Chris and Melissa Bruntlett talk Bikenomics - the economic contributions of cycling to society - as well as their work in cycling advocacy. In this podcast, Turn the Lens, the Bruntletts, husband and wife, talk about how ‘modest creation of walking and cycling infrastructure can save tens of billions’, putting ‘money in the public well’.
ANOTHER LANE’LL FIX IT
By contrast, it’s worth visiting the value of road widening. A 2021 study found widening of the M25 between junctions 23 and 27 preceded traffic volume increases that wiped out any time savings within two to three years. As the investment rationale (and the projected 2.9 cost:benefit ratio it was based on) was founded on predicted time savings, their disappearance raises questions about the value of this and other road expansion projects.
OTHER HEADLINES
NEW YEARS HONOURS FOR CYCLING BRITS
Lizzie Deignan and BMX hero Ken Floyde are among those honoured with MBEs this New Year. Deignan, a former world champion with numerous road racing palmares, is a pioneer among female athletes by successfully returning to the sport after becoming a mother (along with Laura Kenny). Ken Floyde has helped develop BMX facilities and talented riders in South London for decades, road.cc reports.
INTERESTING GRAPHIC OF THE WEEK
This graphic illustrates how, by allocating road space for other purposes than just through traffic, we make more space for people and other, more beneficial, activities. It also illustrates the many policy boxes cycling ticks.
Source
ACTIVE TRAVEL PHRASE OF THE WEEK; BIKENOMICS
The study and assessment of the monetary value associated with cycling’s many benefits, from health to tourism, to the economic vibrancy of high streets.
Until next time,
Founder, #BikeIsBest
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