#BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest - Edition No.77
#BikeIsBest Digest Edition No. 77 | Thursday 17th August 2023 | View in browser
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the #BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest. It’s Thursday, and here’s your interesting news round up!
BIKE FIXES, SAFER STREETS AND…
It’s another week of ups and downs in the world of cycling advocacy, but it’s August, and the sun is shining (not too hotly) somewhere so we’ll try to keep things fairly upbeat.
BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY
FIX YOUR BIKE SUCCESS
The government’s pandemic scheme, in which people applied for £50 free bike repair vouchers, was successful in getting people who weren’t cycling much, doing so more, according to a new report - which Road.cc’s Simon MacMichael has read, so you don’t have to (it’s over 70 pages). It may not have been a perfect scheme, by any means, but it had an impact.
WORLDS SUCCESS
The bumper World Cycling Championships were a wonderful celebration of why the bike is brilliant. From cycle ball, gymnastics to the road race - and it was great to see people using Glasgow’s growing network of everyday cycling infrastructure too. Here’s Chris Boardman chatting with Anna Holligan about those changes.
CRUNCHING 20MPH NUMBERS
Welsh journalist Will Hayward was skeptical about Wales’ forthcoming default 20mph speed limit…until he crunched the numbers. He found safer streets, reduced air pollution and economic savings were among the many benefits of lower speeds. Most striking is that “if all current 30mph limit roads in Wales became 20mph limits, 6-10 lives would be saved and 1200-2000 casualties avoided each year.”
BOLLARDS!
Carlton Reid, in his inimitable fashion, has unearthed a ‘70s film showing government programmes to reduce traffic on residential streets has a long pedigree indeed. There’s nothing new under the sun, is the premise. Each generation just recycles and repackages things as they see fit.
BUS GATE DRAMA
Bus gates don’t sound like something anyone would get excited about, but one in Brighton, hyped as the UK’s highest earning, is under the spotlight. Raising £1.5m for the council last year, with 100 infractions per day, one blogger points out the signs leading up to the restrictions, designed to expedite bus travel, are plentiful. If people aren’t heeding them, it’s hardly the bus gate’s fault. As noted, fines usually settle down after six months, when even the less observant take heed.
LENIENCY FOR DRINK DRIVERS?
"I am going to deal with you as leniently as I can,” the Superdry boss was told by a judge after being caught driving his Range Rover while twice over the drink drive limit. This is quite astonishing. We need to challenge the system and culture that downplays offending and bends over backwards to accommodate the needs of drunk drivers.
OTHER HEADLINES
BACK TO SCHOOL OR WORK?
From Cycle to Work to Cycle Friendly Employers schemes, to how to plan your cycle route to work or school, there’s loads of great cycling inspiration from Cycling UK here.
INTERESTING GRAPH OF THE WEEK
Collision rates by speed limit. While there are currently more 30mph roads than 20mph, which may partially account for those numbers, we know for every 1mph reduction in average speed on urban roads there is a 6% reduction in collisions. Source:
ACTIVE TRAVEL WORD OF THE WEEK:
Default 20mph. The presumption that roads with street lights are 20mph, instead of the current 30mph. It's far cheaper and easier doing this than applying for and changing each road’s speed limit one by one.
Until next time,
Founder, #BikeIsBest
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