#BikeIsBest Advocacy Digest - Edition No. 119
Hello and welcome to this week’s #BikeIsBest newsletter, where it’s all about bold policies...
Policies to make our lives better, some cargo and e-bike love and, if you squint, there’s also a view to Europe.
BICYCLE CAN-DO CAN-CAN
It was World Bicycle Day this week, a great opportunity to talk about how brilliant cycling is, and all the great things it can do to make our lives better. As cities look to cut emissions and air pollution the bicycle, in all its forms, starts to shine. One of the few things a bike can’t do is the can-can. Or can it?
BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY
SCOTTISH CITIES CUTTING EMISSIONS. Aberdeen and Edinburgh have become the latest Scottish cities to introduce Low Emission Zones (LEZ). A year after Glasgow did the same, the measures will see fines issued to drivers of non-compliant vehicles. Air pollution is a severe threat to human health and these zones are a crucial part of the toolkit to clean up dirty air.
OXFORD TACKLING CITY TRAFFIC. Later this year Oxford will introduce a series of ‘filters’ in the city to cut private motor traffic levels. With just six roads fitted with cameras, hopes are that the measures will improve congestion, cut bus journey times and enable more walking and cycling, as well as tackling health issues and reducing air pollution.
TEN YEARS OF TRANSFORMATION. It’s the tenth birthday of outer London’s cycling and walking transformation. In 2013 three boroughs won a collective £100m from the then mayor, Boris Johnson, and Waltham Forest became the poster child for success. This video looks at what happened, and why it worked, through those involved then and now. There’s a thoughtful long read on it, too, from transport planner John Dales.
EBIKE SUBSIDIES FLATTEN INEQUALITIES, AND HILLS. A study looking at subsidised e-bike and e-scooter share programmes found low-income and disabled users were five times more likely to use them, thanks to those subsidies. The scheme, Lime Access, ‘has delivered the best part of 1.85m trips with a discounted rate’ for those on housing or medical subsidies, improving transport options, particularly for essential journeys. Researchers, unsurprisingly, recommend more of the same.
TELEGRAPH CELEBRATES CYCLING. This joyful piece, by Simon Parker, sets out for Telegraph readers why and how the UK could learn from our European neighbours when it comes to cycling. Underlining the negative, i.e., annual road casualties, and the positive, the joy cycling can bring, Parker brings it back round to what we could have, in everything from tourism and health, when we invest in decent routes.
OTHER HEADLINES
E-CARGO CAN-DO. Can an e-cargo bike replace a car even when your family doesn’t live in a city? That’s the question one journalist tried to answer, having moved with his family to ‘the sticks’, as he terms it. As he realises, plenty of the places he and his partner and kids need to be are, it turns out, e-cargo-bikeable from home. Even in the sticks.
INTERESTING GRAPH OF THE WEEK: Subsidised ebike access, via Lime Access, reaps huge usership among low-income groups. Source: Science Direct
ACTIVE TRAVEL WORD OF THE WEEK:
Fietsgelug. Translated from Dutch, as cycling pleasure. In some nations, cycling is easy and enjoyable. Slowly, change is happening in the UK, too.
Until next time,
Adam
Adam Tranter
#BikeIsBest