New cycling strategy for Brum

While quite a few people commute from Malvern to Birmingham (by train), I don’t suppose many cycle round the city. But the draft cycling strategy put together by Birmingham City Council and the Birmingham Health and Well Being Partnership, to encourage more people in Birmingham to cycle more often, might be of interest anyway. Any comments to them by 30th April.

More kids on bikes please

Perhaps we should ask Madeleine Sumner, MHDC transport officer, about this at the next Cycle Malvern meeting on Monday:

From Bike Radar “Sustainable transport charity Sustrans is providing free training for teachers, parents and other school representatives at events being held in England and Scotland today (6th March) to help boost healthy school travel.”

Not in Malvern this time round, but how about later in the year?

Twenty mph tide turning

Pedestrians group Living Streets reckons that “the tide is turning in the campaign for 20mph limits in residential areas.” The Mayor of London has announced that London boroughs can now introduce borough wide 20mph limits, without costly enforcement measures. Portsmouth is moving to a city-wide 20mph limit, and Hull’s widespread 20mph areas are getting dramatic results.

They are new calling for 20mph limits in all our residential and shopping streets across Britain. See Living Streets 20mph page for more on taking action.

Lower speed, higher safety

Thankfully we haven’t had too many serious road accidents (aka avoidable collisions) around Malvern in the few years I’ve been here. However a cyclist was recently hit by a second car after being in collision with a right turning vehicle coming out of Albert Park Road on to Worcester Road (See Malvern Gazette news item)

A letter responding to this proposes we should follow the lead of Portsmouth, and other residential areas, in considering a general 20 mph limit. If we want to encourage more people to cycle and walk rather than use the car then lower traffic speeds helps, and the CTC is looking into promoting this around the country. Hopefully more soon.

Cyclists as pit canaries of a healthy city

A nice little quote from the chief exec of London Cycling Campaign talking at the Climate Change march on Saturday (8th December). Not totally relevant to Malvern, but maybe Worcester:

“Cyclists are the pit canaries of a healthy city. This is why we dress in yellow. If cyclists disappear or keel over the city is sick. Automotive disease will already have destroyed the public realm – our shared spaces – and torn the social and physical fabric of the city apart”.

The speech as a whole is not a bad read (could have been trimmed a bit for a cold crowd, methinks).

No. 10 rejects road safety move

The Prime Minister, or more likely Number 10 officials, has/have responded to the online petition we mentioned at the end of October “improve road safety by introducing strict liability for motorists in collisions”. To no great surprise, especially given it only got a bit over a thousand signatures, the arguments have been rejected without a lot of thought.

ePetition reply here.

Map standards for which cyclists?

There was some intriguing stuff at the cycle campaign conference in Oxford yesterday, but little chance to discuss (or even explore in detail) some of the important issues raised. I’ve added an extra page to this blog giving some web links to particular policy, research and campaigning developments. More here later on ‘twenty is plenty’, ‘permeability’, etc., probably.

The ‘launch’ of a standard for cycling maps in a few minutes before lunch sounded good, but looking at some of the examples already using it (Cheltenham, Kettering), I am not so sure. The basic idea is that every road in an area is classified into one of 5 categories (colour coded), indicating what level of cycling experience is needed to use them. No suggested cycle routes, no highlighting of problematic junctions – although perhaps these could be added over the top, at the risk of information overload. (Simplify is my motto when it comes to communication, even I often fail!)

My problem is that this potentially gives another barrier for any new or returning cyclist to get over – understanding the map and working out your own route for every journey. Suggested routes could make it easier for someone to just hop on a bike, and not see it as a major undertaking.

And why bother with the top two grades, only suitable for really experienced cyclists? People who fit that bill will be quite capable of making such judgements themselves, but others who over-estimate their competence (which is not unusual) might be misled into taking dangerous choices. Or perhaps as the grading is intended to connect with skills levels of the National Cycle Training Standard the maps are only to be issued to those completing such courses?

I’d like to hear that these maps have been road tested with a variety of bicycle users, and not just colleagues of the designers.

Late addition: Cycling England has produced a briefing for councils on cycle maps – pdf, 900kb – which includes Kettering as an example.

Checking out potholes on two wheels

The latest ‘Word on Worcestershire’ rag from the county council has a feature on highway inspectors being kitted out with a couple of motorbikes to check out potholes or other road defects across the area.

Reporting potholes was one issue which came up at this week’s Cycle Malvern meeting. The CTC’s Fill That Hole website is a national facility, but it may be better to use the local reporting form. I’ll see if I can track down Herefordshire’s version too, if it has one.

(See Helpful Links listed on the right.)

By bike to Europe

Yesterday’s opening of the Eurostar service from St Pancras saw a cycle protest due to the lack of consideration for cyclists in the redesign of the station facilities. But the pressure seems to have had results, with proper cycle racks rushed in at the last minute. See London Cycling Campaign news item.

Also the news item says “Eurostar have now promised to enable customers to reserve cycles onto the same train that they are travelling on rather than the current “within 24 hours” by early 2008, becoming the first high speed service in Europe to permit cycles on all its trains.”

Reclaiming the streets for children

Probably not a lot new here for seasoned cycling and ‘living streets’ campaigners, but Play England have issued a report Seen and Heard: Reclaiming the public realm with children and young people which “aims to start a national debate on the room we leave for childhood in our public spaces”.

It wants to see a 20mph speed limit where streets are shared with children, amongst other things.