Why Not Cycle?

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7 Responses

  1. Paul Holmes says:

    This is so well written. I have suggested before make a network of inter connecting roads across every town and city, in plan like a spiders Web, making exiting roads one way, half a two way cycle route, segregation down the centre and motor vehicles the other half. This practice of putting a pedestrian/cycle lane doesn’t work, they don’t mix, it is just local authorities box ticking

  2. Sean Gooch says:

    I’d agree, a very well written article. Completely agree with your points. I’m braving getting my 5 year old to ride with me on roads which as you say were great to ride on last spring, not so mich now. My daughter is the only girl cycling to her college out of 2000 students (a 5 mile ride on wide pavements mainly as too dangerous on the roads)
    We’ve also had two, week long cycling holidays in Holland where my whole family feels like we’re In heaven. So safe, so enjoyable, so mich like we’d love things here to start being properly modelled after.
    Thanks for voicing the concerns and frustrations so many of us share. We can only hope, pray and. SHOUT loud until those who need and can make changes, do so. Like what happened in Holland!

  3. William Smith says:

    Great post, definitely resonates with all the challenges I face here in London. I’ve been trying to pressure our local council to explain their plan for creating a network of cycle routes across the borough. Currently their approach is pretty random, painting a picture of a bicycle on streets where there is nothing contentious about it. However, many of these patchwork cycle lanes are a road to nowhere, e.g. leading onto a busy high street where cycle lanes are actually being removed because the road is too narrow. So far I haven’t got very much response but I think it’s entirely reasonable that every council should have a strategic plan of joined up cycle routes that they work towards.

  4. Colin says:

    Hi, this is such a good blog that gets to the heart of the issue. It really is about giving people choices about how they want to get about, and to choose cycling instead of driving means feeling safe on a bike. Cycling whilst sharing a road with moving vehicles does not feel 100% safe, so the Government targets for increasing the number of everyday journeys done by bike are never going to be met. It certainly feels that they don’t get it, otherwise there would be much more investment in segregated cycling infrastructure. I wrote a blog about similar issues, in Edinburgh, with regards to using a bicycle for everyday trips to the supermarket. If roads and housing continue to be planned in a way that makes the only safest and convenient transport option to get a pint of milk the private car then the congestion, climate change and health issues will continue. This is the link to my blog: https://bit.ly/2Lnc9R3

  5. Peter Clarke says:

    An excellent article and I can fully understand the points made here. I live in Leeds, I’m a very confident cyclist, and to be fair the council has done great work in installing segregated cycle lanes in the city centre, but some of the outlying roads are white lines or painted areas, some now do have these 2 foot high posts to segregate the traffic which do help but on one particular road I often travel the cycle lane with posts is so wide cars actually park in it. The issue with painted cycle lanes too is that many drivers seem to think that the white line at the edge of the lane is the safe passing distance and some drivers idea of 1.5 metres beggars belief, only yesterday I was going quite slowly up a hill towards some traffic lights when the mirror of a Jaguar caught my handlebar the driver totally oblivious until I banged on his window, things like this are the reason I have CCTV cameras on my bike and upload footage of dangerous driving on a regular basis to West Yorkshire Police reporting web site. It has to be said I could easily inundate the police web site with footage every time I go out on my bike and until some drivers attitudes change we are always going to at risk on the roads.

  6. Caroline says:

    I can’t cope with social media anymore I only popped on to check my groups-as you said. happy cycling

  1. February 7, 2021

    […] week I wrote about how fear of traffic is preventing some people from choosing to cycle for transport, and forcing them into their cars. […]

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