Cycling UK Forum

No surprise really

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/cy ... odal-shift

As I understood it any new infrastructure built using EU funding had to consider cycling.
Bridges for example HAD to have cycling and pedestrian provision.
It was certainly the case locally when they helped build a new bridge fir the paltry sum of £29 million.
The one it replaced had no footway at all. It was old but the local Authority had no interest in building a pavement- for 40 odd dangerous years.

Was that the Briwet Bridge?

The lobby for cycling in the EU is just to small unfortunately.

I wonder if there is any chance to have it better here after October.

The utility cyclist wrote:No surprise really

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/cy ... odal-shift

Thanks for posting the above, it’s always good to see the wider picture and proper news of what the European Parliament is doing rarely ever seems to reach Joe public in the U.K.

Personally I have my doubts about how serious politicians are about reducing fossil fuel use and how serious they are about promoting active (human powered) transport; to be fair there are so many powerful groups and businesses that want motorised transport to continue as is that the needed political change can only struggle weakly against.

One thing that would help cyclists would be a cap on car dimensions. The Japanese have had K cars for decades and have proved that the concept works, IMHO most people here don’t need anything bigger than a K car and their use would then would free up some road width in favour of cyclists. Motorcycles also take less road width away from Cyclists and we should revisit the laws on motorcycles; whilst the current engine power and size laws have reduced deaths (there was a lot of ‘sporty’ driving of high powered machines) the 125cc learner limit has had the unintended consequence of curtailing the use of motorcycles for utility transport. Sharing road space better is a good way forward and the promotion of smaller vehicles that meet the utility needs of people is a way towards that.

tony_mm wrote:The lobby for cycling in the EU is just to small unfortunately.

I wonder if there is any chance to have it better here after October.

While the EU may have been failing to consider cycling properly, many of the same accusations apply more so to the UK government. Aren't UK policies those that "still targets motorised transport almost exclusively"? Doesn't UK government "remain evasive about the share of active travel"?

The appointment of cycling-friendly people to a range of transport posts recently gives some hope, but nothing happened yet (early days though) and it seems largely independent of the proposed Halloween act of national self-harm.

The link to the ECF (European Cycling Federation) paper was a very honest assessment of the current situation. The ECF have correctly identified that there is a call to move away from ICE transportation in the EU but crucially there has been:

'No Carrot'

The ECF report echos the sentiment expressed in the Gilligan report on the OxMkCam arc report for the NiC (National Infrastructure Commission). There Gilligan expressed the view that there is a ready made solution to city congestion which is just sitting there waiting to be prioritised and this is Active Travel e.g. walking and cycling.

Let us hope it is possible to ram home the message in the EU and the UK that we need to prioritise active travel. The carrot will be to provide high quality safe infrastructure for active travel.

Out of interest (and not pursuing any personal political agenda or points), to what extent does the EU have responsibility for cycling policy and to what extent does this fall to national governments or to a more local level).

I can appreciate that where EU funding is used the EU can put on constraints (e.g. bypass must include segregated cycle paths), but in terms of e.g. "reducing by 60% greenhouse gas emissions from transport by 2050", when you compare the vast numbers of large lorries travelling big distances every day, to what sort of contribution could the growth in cycling contribute?

I'm not suggesting that cycling should be ignored nor that more journeys being made by bike is not very worthwhile (for a lot of different reasons).

The stated aims of the study were "The study offers an in-depth analysis of the most pressing issues and trends relating to passenger and freight transport" and given that aim I wonder how much consideration of cycling would be appropriate.

Ian

Agree with the point about car width made above

Psamathe wrote:Out of interest (and not pursuing any personal political agenda or points), to what extent does the EU have responsibility for cycling policy and to what extent does this fall to national governments or to a more local level).

Good question indeed!

tony_mm wrote:

Psamathe wrote:Out of interest (and not pursuing any personal political agenda or points), to what extent does the EU have responsibility for cycling policy and to what extent does this fall to national governments or to a more local level).

Good question indeed!

I remember when "subsidiarity" was a vogue word.
I suppose our government's policy of leaving cycle provision to local authorities could be called this.