#BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest - Edition No.94
#BikeIsBest Digest Edition No. 94 | Thursday 14th December 2023 |
Hello and welcome to this week’s electrifying edition of #BikeIsBest, where the cycle lanes are swept and de-iced, and there’s always a tailwind.
JINGLE BIKES, JINGLE BIKES
Hopefully, that’s not a loose mudguard I’m hearing there: winter maintenance is important for bikes, as well as for cycle lanes. And for e-bikes, which are having another moment in the winter sun, amid a sudden rush of recognition. Could they even be vehicle of the year, 2023? Well, we think so.
BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY
MANCHESTER GOES BIG
Dame Sarah Storey, Greater Manchester’s active travel commissioner, has launched an updated cycling, walking and wheeling plan. Its realisation will connect routes with public transport, running within 400m of 95% of Greater Manchester residents. There’s new walking and cycling-friendly junctions, 2,000 crossings and the expansion of GM cycle hire. The city needs an eye-watering 1,170km more cycle lanes by 2040, a new analysis finds - and that’s the new ambitious target they’re aiming for.
YEAR OF THE EBIKE?
I’m going to agree with David Zipper in this piece for Fast Company. Hilly San Francisco, in the heart of Silicon Valley, favours e-bikes, not robo-cars, Zipper points out. E-bike sales are growing, as is their low-impact appeal, while AV companies, and their claims of endless road capacity for their driverless vehicles, look increasingly shaky. Streets full of electric bikes, or streets full of self-driving cars, is the question we should be asking.
WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER CYCLE LANE
This piece from the summer, in Cycling Electric, covers the growing trend of businesses swapping vans for cargo cycles. Well, friends, there’s a new cargo cycle that’s something else. The Pelican Train, by a French startup, Pelican, is the cycle version of a road train, with two trailers that can carry a combined 500kg, or 1,000lbs. The future of freight or just oversized? Time will tell.
SLOW DOWN, AMSTERDAM
It’s not every day a Dutch city follows Britain but in this case Amsterdam’s new 30kph (20mph) speed limit proceeds Wales’ move, by a couple of months. The Dutch capital will see speed limits drop on most of its streets, for safety and to cut noise pollution, among other reasons. Even in one of the world’s cycling capitals, two thirds of residents felt traffic speeds were unsafe in their neighbourhood. The people spoke; the municipality listened.
MORE OFF-ROAD CYCLING
Sustrans has pulled it out of the bag on a new route, helping fund a new 30km stretch of off-road cycle path in Aberdeenshire. Work has started on the path, which will reroute a segment of NCN1 away from a busy road. Path widening and resurfacing will help improve accessibility, and work will be finished, Sustrans says, early next year.
OTHER HEADLINES
WALTHAM FOREST FTW
The north-east London borough has come a long way in a decade. Last week Streets Ahead spoke to Clyde Loakes, the councillor in charge of Waltham Forest’s cycling and walking transformation, and this week, new air quality figures show great strides in cutting pollution in the borough - by up to a third at one monitoring station.
INTERESTING GRAPH OF THE WEEK:
Currently, 77% of nearly 12,000 Sunday Times readers would support a ban on pavement parking across the UK. Earlier this year, 76% of Daily Express readers supported a ban. Whichever politician “grasps the nettle” on this is actually likely to experience broad consensus.
ACTIVE TRAVEL WORD OF THE WEEK:
Pavement Parking ban. Last week I listened to campaigners talk to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Walking and Cycling about pavement parking, and why it needs banning. Blocked pavements cause huge issues for people trying to use those pavements, not least those with disabilities, or people pushing buggies.
Until next time,
Founder, #BikeIsBest
Not for you? unsubscribe from this list.