#BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest - Edition No. 126

Hello and welcome to the Summer Holidays, where the roads are suddenly a lot quieter, and time off suddenly got a lot more expensive.

HELLO BIKE LANES, GOODBYE CULTURE WARS?

Things are undoubtedly changing. Climate change is happening, though there are things we can do to mitigate ours and our organisations’ impact. The culture wars are hopefully waning too, with a new government in post. Change can happen; whether it’s positive change or not depends on us, our systems and organisations. It just takes enough of us to act, to make a difference.

BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY

RURAL CYCLEWAYS BOOST. Earlier this year the government launched a little-touted incentive for farmers to allocate land to cycleways. Now, landowners who allocate land for bridleways (where cycling is permitted) can receive £158 per 100m from the government. It still requires a network plan and capital on top to make high-quality routes, and the application of standards to ensure they’re accessible to all. This is the kind of thing it could build.

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS. Researchers have estimated Germany could, with a decent national cycle network, triple its cycling rates by 2035. According to a new study, based on data collections and surveys, new cycle paths would help fulfill the nation’s cycling potential by simply making people feel confident about cycling trips of up to 30km. This would require ‘a consistent redistribution of space in favour of pedestrian and bicycle traffic’, they say.   

END THE CULTURE WARS. Cycle campaigners are calling for an end to the culture wars, the Guardian’s Peter Walker reports. Cycling UK has conducted polling revealing that while 92% of UK adults can cycle, ‘fewer than half do, with 48% of people citing road safety as the reason why they do not cycle’. 70% of people, meanwhile, want to see cycle-specific infrastructure - a solution to the road safety fears.

CYCLE COMMUTING HALVES ILLNESS DEATH RISK. Yet another study tells us those who cycle to work are healthier - this one, that it halves our risk of dying from illnesses like cancer and heart disease. The longitudinal study, of 82,000 Scottish census participants, found active commuters were also at a lower risk from mental ill health. Worryingly though, they found cycle commuters twice as likely as non-active commuters to be hospitalised due to a traffic collision. 

WALKING AND CYCLE NETWORK BOOST. Liverpool City Region’s mayor, Steve Rotherham, has announced more than £17.5m for the first phase of a new cycling and walking network in East Runcorn this week. This, he says, is part of wider plans to give people alternatives to the car as part of a London-style transport network in the region. It will include a 600km network of walking and cycling routes across the region’s six boroughs. 

OTHER HEADLINES

GRIM TIME FOR CYCLE COMMUTERS? Another cyclist has been fined £500 for cycling through Grimsby town centre, part of a long-running saga on the theme, Road.cc reports. A Public Space Protection Order, like a location-based ASBO, prohibits cycling through the town centre. The council says contravening cyclists will be ‘rightly punished’, and face ‘repercussions’. Surely there has to be a better way, you might think. 

INTERESTING GRAPH(IC) OF THE WEEK: 

This is one graphic taken from a Sustainable Sport promotion, courtesy of Buddle. Sport England is encouraging organisations across active travel and sport to cut carbon, the former responsible for 0.8% of global emissions - the same as a small country. See more here:  https://buddle.co/learning-and-support-resources/environmental-sustainability

ACTIVE TRAVEL WORD OF THE WEEK:

Sustainability. Friend of the newsletter, Chris Boardman, along with a host of other athletes, have arrived in Paris from Manchester, riding to raise awareness of sport and active travel’s role in sustainable practices. Sustainability, put simply, is the ability to maintain a process over time. It’s a word we use a lot but we should remember that, really, it’s about passing on the best future to the next generation.

Until next time,

Adam Tranter

#BikeIsBest