Increase cycling - Build airfields

[atlas_shrugged]

My guess as others have said is that the military base means a fit young person gets a tied house close to their places of work. Quite similar to student towns like: York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Hence a cycle is an ideal way to get around.

So when they sell off an old RAF airbase maybe they need to keep the arrangement where base houses are tied to having a job on the base as a kind of perk of the job. Further traffic reductions are possible by having a shop and school also located on the base.

[Barks]

Eight of these are military bases (while airfields, some are now home to Army units, e.g. Wattisham and Thorney Island). In most cases, use of cars by personnel living ‘on base’ or in military housing closeby is not routinely allowed from their barracks/housing to their normal place of work. You’d probably find walking also has a higher proportion than the nationwide norm.

It just shows that proactive, if admittedly rather autocratic, policies can really make a big difference.

[mattheus]

Eight of these are military bases (while airfields, some are now home to Army units, e.g. Wattisham and Thorney Island). In most cases, use of cars by personnel living ‘on base’ or in military housing closeby is not routinely allowed from their barracks/housing to their normal place of work. You’d probably find walking also has a higher proportion than the nationwide norm.

It just shows that proactive, if admittedly rather autocratic, policies can really make a big difference.

Yes!!!

[Pete Owens]

My guess as others have said is that the military base means a fit young person gets a tied house close to their places of work. Quite similar to student towns like: York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Hence a cycle is an ideal way to get around.

Actually students are not counted in the figures - Zoom in to York, Cambridge or Oxford and the Universities show up as cycle free islands. Though you can't really call York a "student town".

[atlas_shrugged]

Yes I noticed these cycling deserts in the centre of both Oxford and Cambridge typically where students will be accommodated. This data is from 2011 census data. If what you are suggesting is right the cycling figures in these towns is even higher. I will check into the census inclusion or not of student cyclists.

As a side note I was at the magnificent York University sports centre last year and we had just finished racing on their outdoor track and on their outdoor velodrome. One of our riders who had actually cycled over (and back!) from Oxford in order to race with us was looking admiringly round the facilities at York and said that "we have nothing like this in Oxford". I replied that we have nothing like this in Cambridge either. Our race organiser chipped in to say that we have nothing like this in the whole of East Anglia either!

Maybe some very nice MOD type could donate a surplus airfield or two for the purpose of racing and providing tied accommodation to industry on the base. But I dream.

[PH]

Actually students are not counted in the figures - Zoom in to York, Cambridge or Oxford and the Universities show up as cycle free islands. Though you can't really call York a "student town".

The census question is method of travel to work - it's not so much that students are not included, it's that those not in employment won't answer that question.

[mjr]

Actually students are not counted in the figures - Zoom in to York, Cambridge or Oxford and the Universities show up as cycle free islands. Though you can't really call York a "student town".

The census question is method of travel to work - it's not so much that students are not included, it's that those not in employment won't answer that question.

Yes - to capture them, you have to look at the Active People Survey and Active Lives Survey, but those are only surveys not a census, so lack the depth of coverage of census travel-to-work. There is also the National Travel Survey, but that has its own design problems meaning it almost certainly underestimates cycling.

[Cyril Haearn]

..
It just shows that proactive, if admittedly rather autocratic, policies can really make a big difference.

Yes!!![/quote]
+2
..
Some lucky students at Oxbridge and elsewhere live in their college, no need to cycle, they walk everywhere

[softlips]

Surely part of the reason must be it’s usually relatively flat around airfields.

[Mick F]

Surely part of the reason must be it’s usually relatively flat around airfields.

Try riding across RAF Davidstow Moor.
Still in use for light aircraft and is the highest airfield in UK at 1,000ft above sea level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Davidstow_Moor

[Cyril Haearn]

Davidstowe Moor, it should be fairly flat, but just high up?
Your next mission Mick F, should you choose to accept: visit all airports, airfields and ex-airfields and ex-airports in Kernow?

[Pete Owens]

Actually students are not counted in the figures - Zoom in to York, Cambridge or Oxford and the Universities show up as cycle free islands. Though you can't really call York a "student town".

The census question is method of travel to work - it's not so much that students are not included, it's that those not in employment won't answer that question.

I wasn't suggesting that there is something sinister going on by removing students from the statistics - just pointing out that since what is being counted is travel to work then the high incidence of cycling evident in certain places cannot be attributed to the student population of those towns.

The important issue here is not whether every single mile of cycling is totted up, but getting a measure of prevalence of cycling that is consistent from place to place so that comparisons can be made. The how do you travel to work question results in a simple unambiguous answer that will be correlated to overall utility cycling levels in a locality. If the lots of people in a particular are use bikes to get to work, then it is likely they will often use bikes for other trips and also non-working people in the same area are likely to use bikes for the trips they make.

[Pete Owens]

Surely part of the reason must be it’s usually relatively flat around airfields.

Not really - it is fairly flat over a huge extent of England - and particularly the populated parts.

[Mick F]

Davidstowe Moor, it should be fairly flat, but just high up?
Your next mission Mick F, should you choose to accept: visit all airports, airfields and ex-airfields and ex-airports in Kernow?

I think I've been past or to them all.

RAF Davidstow Moor isn't flat.
Up hill from the A39 and down hill from any road off.
It's at the top with the eastern end being the highest.

Here's a ride track wot I've done a couple or so years ago.
I came in from the bottom (south) and left at the left (west).
Been across east/west and west/east many many times.
Give me a little while, and I'll find an elevation profile Camelford to Altarnun.

[Mick F]

Camelford up the A39, off over the airfield, and down to Altarnun on the Old A30.