Cycling needs infrastructure built for cycling.

As I have posted before, we have a government promising significant modal shift to walking to cycling for doing almost nothing to make it happen, even when spending hundreds of millions on major roads.  

At most we seem to get some shared path signs on existing pavements - which no-one supports as good practise - or dotted white lines on roads.

Rachel Aldred researched the views of people on different types of infrastructure.   While the majority of respondaent were regular cyclists, they were not only asked whether they would use teh various types of infrastructure, but whether others would.  The results are not exactly surprising - but they give a clear indication.

Cycling needs infrastructure built for cycling

Not infrastructure designed for motor vehicles. 
Not infrastructure designed for walking. 
But for cyclists:  8 to 80 cyclists 

Winter cycling in Copenhagen - along a separated cycle lane.

People supported substantial separation from motor traffic, in various forms. Separation by kerb or by car parking was very popular, as were park routes and streets closed to through motor traffic.

Separation by white lines was not popular - especially for people with children, children on their own or older (perhaps wobbly) cyclists,

Change is partly a matter of will - but also a matter of money.  And commiting money is the clearest indication of will available.

So if you meet and candidates for Westminster or Holyrood, perhaps you'd like to ask them when they are going to match Dutch levels of per capita spend on cycling.

See Rachel's blog at http://rachelaldred.org/research/children-and-cycling/ complete with a link to her first publication from her research. 

No thought for cyclists

Shortly, to the north of Aberdeen, there will be oodles of money spend dualling the A90 from Balmedie to Tipperty and starting to build the AWPR.   

You'd like to thing that those in charge as well as thinking about motorists would spare a thought for other road users.  Everyone knows that designing things right int he first place is cheaper than retrofitting later. 

It can be done - look at the path coming off the away from the
feeder lanes.  So build in.  So hard - and expesive to retrofit.

But no.  The new A90 junctions at Balmedie and Blackdog will be grade seperated junctions - like motorway jucntions, designed for motorised vehicle to accelerate into the flow of traffic and decelerate only as they start to turn left.    Great for fast moving traffic. 

But lethal for cyclists.

There are cyclists who regularly use the A90.  Their needs have simply not been included in the design process.

Transport Scotland point to NESTRANS who point to the Councils.

I've news for them - safety of all road users is the responsibility of all of them.
Let's hope they don't learn the hard way.

More details at
http://aberdeengreens.org.uk/news/campaigners-angered-by-lack-of-thought-for-cyclists and
http://aberdeengreens.org.uk/news/green-campaigners-highlight-need-for-cycling-investment and even - the Aberdeen Evening Express - http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/local/call-to-consider-cyclists-in-aberdeen-to-tipperty-a90-upgrade-plans-1.814916

Serious about active travel?

The difference between stated aims and delivery by government's fascinates me.   We have great statements about promoting Active Travel (walking and cycling to normal people but you need a new buzz phrase).  Now the benefits of this are huge - health from the activity itself and the increase in social interactions - economic from increased use of the local shops - environmental from the reduced CO2 emissions and reduced congestion on roads. 

But then we have the latest Scottish Government budget.  I'm going to focus on Chapter 9. 

There are three budget lines that relate to Active Travel:

• Sustainable and Active Travel (SAT)
• Cycling, Walking and Safer Routes (CWSR)
• Future Travel Fund (FTF)

But we can not be sure that these monies are all spent on cycling and walking. 

'The budget for Sustainable and Active Travel delivers support for the promotion of more sustainable travel choices, including support for the actions in the Cycling Action Plan for Scotland as well as work to promote sustainable transport to organisations and in communities, e.g. the development of a network of car clubs across Scotland. It includes funding for the core Fastlink scheme in Glasgow (£20 million in 2013-14 and £10 million in 2014-15).'


Cycling Walking and Safer Routes is money given to local authorities.  They choose how much to spend on such and how much goes directly into cycling and walking and how much is used, under the guise of safer routes for e.g. 20mph limit in urban areas.  Some local authorities all money to this fund - but for many this is the only walking and cycling budget. 


'The Future Transport Fund will reduce the impact of transport on our environment, reducing congestion and supporting better public transport, active travel and low carbon vehicles. This investment provides a platform for increasing support thereafter for a range of sustainable transport initiatives, including cycling infrastructure and freight modal shift.'

So it takes a bit of effort working outwhat is the real figure for walking and cycling.

 (figure in £ millions)                             2013-14  2014-15 Draft   2015-16 Plan
Sustrainable and Active Travel              35           29                      15
Cycling Walking and Safer Routes         5.6           8.2                    8
Future Travel Fund                                 7.7          18.7                 20.2
                                      Total                 48.3         55.9                43.2
but there are some things in this mix that have nothing do do with walking and cycling
Fastlink Bus route, Glasgow                  20           10                      0
Electric car charging points                      5             5                     5
Car clubs                                                  2              2                     2
                                     Total                 27             17                    7
so available might be:
Real figure for walking and cycling   21.3        38.9               36.2



For a country of 5.3m people and with a £2 billion (£2,000,000,000) transport budget, this is paltry - especially with an aspiration for 10% journeys to be by bike by 2020.

A Challenge - EUR 44 per head for cycling?

With some amount of fanfare, the Scottish Government has published their Cycle Action Plan for Scotland 2013 which reviews and updates their 2010 plan.

They describe their target of 10% journeys by cycle as ambitious.  It is ambitious given the paucity of the plan.  But it's not ambitious by international standards. 

So what are the Scottish Government actually proposing?
One measure you can't escape from is cash.

Netherlands EUR 487m/ year - so EUR 30 per head of population each year


London is spending £104m/year - some EUR 21 per head of population each year.

The Peterhead Cycle Demostration project has a total budget of £185,000 - a one off-spend of EUR 13 per head over the three year life of the project.

So what is the Scottish Government proposing in their nice new shiny CyclingAction Plan?  Well it looks like there will be less than £47m over three years (part of the monies are for walking and safer streets) so that EUR 55m.  Sound greats - until you remember that between a population of 5.3m and over 3 years so that comes down to a miserly EUR 3.4 per head of population each year.

If the Government are serious about cycling, perhaps a good place to start would be allocating the 10% modal share aim in terms of the transport budget to cycling.    Transport Scotland has £2,000m a year.  So £200m a year for cycling from that budget.  Ok that's then  EUR 44 per head - but have a lot of catching up to do to get the type of infrastucture that people enjoy in the Netherlands and Denmark.

Winter cycling in Copenhagen