Active Travel England - Boardman

[ChrisButch]

I suspect the emphasis on new sales simply echoes the assumed customary significance of that metric for cars, even though the economics of the car industry and the bike industry have little in common, for all sorts of reasons.

[Jdsk]

"Walking, wheeling and cycling to be offered on prescription in nationwide trial":
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/walk ... wide-trial

• trials in 11 areas across the country to help people’s mental and physical health
• GPs will issue social prescriptions such as walking, wheeling and cycling, backed by £12.7 million
• schemes will include cycling and walking groups, cycle training and free bike loans

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

If anyone isn't familiar with social prescribing:

NICE summary:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalised ... escribing/

Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_prescribing

I'll see if I can find any details on what's planned. It's an important area of public health and it's good to see that it's described as a trial.

Jonathan

[Stevek76]

Will sadly be limited in effectiveness without the proper infrastructure to allow these people to cycle and not immediately be scared off the roads.

[Jdsk]

Will sadly be limited in effectiveness without the proper infrastructure to allow these people to cycle and not immediately be scared off the roads.

"The pilots must be delivered alongside improved infrastructure so people feel safe to cycle and walk."

Jonathan

[Stevek76]

Yes I read that but that's going to need to be a very comprehensive infrastructure offering and I can't see whatever's left of the ~£1m per LA after the rest of the costs are accounted for providing that!

[Jdsk]

Yes, the amount is tiny. But a successful well-evaluated trial could have a big effect on what happens afterwards.

Jonathan

[mjr]

Yes, the amount is tiny. But a successful well-evaluated trial could have a big effect on what happens afterwards.

It could, but it could also do sweet fans. Have any social prescribing trials yet resulted in widespread change?

[Jdsk]

Yes, the amount is tiny. But a successful well-evaluated trial could have a big effect on what happens afterwards.

It could, but it could also do sweet fans. Have any social prescribing trials yet resulted in widespread change?

Probably not, but that's true of all sufficiently recent innovations in public health. More importantly it means that all projects and implementation should be evaluated, preferably independently and openly.

There's a systematic review from 2017:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5558801/

and here's an update from 2019:
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l1285

Jonathan

[ratherbeintobago]

Yes, the amount is tiny. But a successful well-evaluated trial could have a big effect on what happens afterwards.

It could, but it could also do sweet fans. Have any social prescribing trials yet resulted in widespread change?

I think I can guess the answer to that.

A lot of it will boil down to people knowing they need to be more active, but feeling that because of time/cost/not really appreciating how short some distances are that they aren’t able to do so, and prescribing won’t help with that.

[ratherbeintobago]

Yes I read that but that's going to need to be a very comprehensive infrastructure offering and I can't see whatever's left of the ~£1m per LA after the rest of the costs are accounted for providing that!

I think our 1km of Beeline is costing £1.2m

[Stevek76]

~£1m per km of protected cycle track was about normal pre COVID so with current inflation that seems in line. Fairly cheap as works go compared to an extra traffic lane, but still, not going to be covered much by this.

Filtering side roads is quite a bit cheaper, particularly for the amount of effective network created, though starts to increase if you want to start doing nicer urban realm stuff. Plus also sneaking in some LTNs under the guise of this is likely to be even more contentious than they normally are. Of course we've plenty of evidence that that contention comes from a small minority but it still needs local politicians with guts to back it.

[mjr]

Yes, the amount is tiny. But a successful well-evaluated trial could have a big effect on what happens afterwards.

It could, but it could also do sweet fans. Have any social prescribing trials yet resulted in widespread change?

Probably not, but that's true of all sufficiently recent innovations in public health.

Sufficiently recent innovations? How long is fair to give them? It's been 16 years since DoH recommendation, arguably 23, and we've little evidence yet.

If that timescale was replicated, we could expect to know what public health measures are effective against covid some time around 2042.

More importantly it means that all projects and implementation should be evaluated, preferably independently and openly.

There's a systematic review from 2017:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5558801/

and here's an update from 2019:
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l1285

Agreed but I'm not sure I like the irony of pointing out the importance of "openly" (which I fully agree with) when linking to a paywalled update.

[Pete Owens]

Will sadly be limited in effectiveness without the proper infrastructure to allow these people to cycle and not immediately be scared off the roads.

You really ought to try riding a bike sometime it really isn't as frightening as you make out - you might even enjoy it.

[Pete Owens]

~£1m per km of protected cycle track was about normal pre COVID so with current inflation that seems in line. Fairly cheap as works go compared to an extra traffic lane, but still, not going to be covered much by this.

Filtering side roads is quite a bit cheaper, particularly for the amount of effective network created, though starts to increase if you want to start doing nicer urban realm stuff. Plus also sneaking in some LTNs under the guise of this is likely to be even more contentious than they normally are. Of course we've plenty of evidence that that contention comes from a small minority but it still needs local politicians with guts to back it.

And a comprehensive 20mph limit comes cheaper still and is not contentious at all.