Wanlock Dod wrote:I have felt for some time that the main aim of Bikeability, and any similar activities, was to provide a mechanism by which the funds allocated to cycling could be dedicated to cycling in a way which does not result in more people cycling. This is achieved by teaching kids who will not be allowed to ride bikes. It seems to have been a very effective way for local authorities to micturate away any funds allocated for cycling without actually benefiting anybody, but particularly without increasing numbers of cyclists
I don't think it's
that bad. But it's not far off... My take is that Bikeability costs nothing much in the grand scheme of things and primarily allows the ticking of A Box, but it is at least a box that does
some good for
some riders. Given the typical choices of spending your nothing much on training, which does do some people some good, or painting unusable lanes to nowhere, it looks like a fair choice.
See
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/11/how-bikeability-and-cycling-proficiency.html on how ineffective things are.
Wanlock Dod wrote:Are adult bike lessons funded from the same pot that pays for the kids lessons, of is the money allocated to cycling no allowed to be spent on things that might actually encourage cycling? It sounds to me as though the money for adult training is coming from public health sources, which seems to fit pretty well with the theory that money allocated to cycling within councils cannot be spent on anything that actually increases levels of cycling.
There is no singular pot. Though what various pots there are may have some extra money provided centrally, like the £11m that David Hembrow was writing about in the blog post highlighted above (one of those useful political sums that sounds like a lot of money but is, I'd guess, about a pound per child across the country).
My extra volunteer work for NHS Tayside (for whom I work in my day job) to give free lessons to NHST employees is a case of me saying "hey, I'm a qualified cycle trainer and I'll do this if you like" and the Healthy Working Lives team letting me run with it. It doesn't cost any money to speak of. NHST's head of public health is happy to encourage cycling (and rides himself) but he doesn't have a specific cycling budget that will make modal share differences. Cycle training in general is a local authority remit and has been since (IIRC) 1974 when Cycling Proficiency was handed to LAs, and is thus in much the same place as other cycle provision.
As with many things at LA level, there is much variation in what is spent to what end, for which one needs to look to councillors and the policies they enact. If you have a council run notionally by the Greens and another notionally run by UKIP then you'd get far more effort aimed at cycling levels in the former. This is democracy in action, tempered by finite budgets and a voting population with a measure of people who think they have a God-given right to park anywhere they feel like.
In Scotland we still have a cycling promotion quango (Cycling Scotland), and while on the one hand they're providing Bikeability Scotland materials, standards and structures for LAs, on the other they are Clued enough to point out quite openly that it isn't enough in itself. But they only have the funding they're given to do the work they're given by the government.
Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
