A meeting with Will Norman and Val Shawcross

It is nearly ten months since Sadiq Khan won the London mayoral election for Labour, defeating the Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith. As readers are likely to know, he promised to meet the demands of the London Cycling Campaign, most importantly including building more cycle Superhighways to triple the provision of segregated space on London's roads in four years, and extending the mini-Holland programme to every borough. Since then, it's all been very quiet. There was no immediate replacement for the last Cycling Commissioner, Andrew Gilligan, and, other than an announcement that the (largely back-steet and non-segregated) extension of Superhighway 6 towards St Pancras planned under Gilligan would go ahead, there have been no announcements of any definite new plans for cycling. A new bridge across the Thames from Wapping to Rotherhithe, promised by Khan during the campaign, has been mentioned by him often (along with pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, the effects of which on cycling cannot yet be predicted), but other than that, cycling affairs seem to have been in deep-freeze. Of the other two Superhighway schemes consulted on just before the election, there have been non-commital statements on CS11 to Swiss Cottage, which received public approval in the consultation and so is a scheme that was 'ready to go', while the plans for CS 10, the extension to the East-West Superhighway from Lancaster Gate to West London have vanished without trace, with not even any report on the consultation ever published.

Missing in action, presumed dead: the plans for the westwards extension of the East-West Cycle Superhighway

I've refrained from commenting on this hiatus, as the new Mayor needed time to get his feet under the desk, select his team and come up with his own strategy after assessing the results of what the last mayor had done. However, it has been deeply frustrating seeing such a successful programme apparently grind to a halt. Even the work that needed to be completed on CS 3, the East-West Superhighway from Parliament Square to Westbourne Grove that was already programmed, seemed to be taking for ever, with nothing new definitely in the pipeline. The Mayor announced a £770m budget for cycling for the next five years, but how could this possibly be spent?

So we had finally a development last week, when the new Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman, took up his post, having been appointed in November, and started making public pronouncements. When Andrew Gilligan became the first Cycling Commissioner in 2013, his views  were already quite well known to cycling campaigners due to his press articles, and he had also met many of us and asked our opinions before taking up the job. Not so with Will Norman, who came on this scene as a totally unknown quantity. No-one I have met had ever heard of him before he was given the job. We were told by the Mayor that:

Will specialises in increasing levels of physical activity and participation in sports around the world, working with a range of international organisations... [including the] UN, European Parliament, G8, World Health Organisation and International Olympic Committee... 

Will, who cycles every day in London, has a strong background of working with private and public partnerships, and a wealth of experience in getting people from a wide range of backgrounds active. Before joining Nike in 2013, Will set up a successful social research consultancy and was also Director of Research at The Young Foundation, where he was responsible for delivering multi-million pound European programmes and established a youth leadership organisation... 

At Nike, Will has spearheaded a programme to make physical activity a global policy priority... Among his work has been a partnership with UNESCO and the German Development Agency GIZ to successfully reform physical education in South Africa, bringing activity and sports to thousands of primary school children for the first time since the 1990s.

Others who had applied for the job had been leaders in local government, campaigners, journalists, architects, planners and engineers. The choice of Will Norman was a surprising one, given a slight nebulosity of his connection to the subject in hand, that is, as I would characterise it, physically planning better walking and cycling conditions in London, and working politically to put such plans though the labyrinth of relevant controlling bodies. Still, Andrew Gilligan was perhaps no more obviously fitted to the role when he started, and yet he did achieve quite a lot.

So we were all very excited to hear that, soon after being appointed, Will would speak to a meeting at which we could attend and ask questions. Even better, he would do so with Val Shawcross, the Deputy Mayor for Transport. The meeting was part of the Street Talks programme, started by Bruce McVean and colleagues in a Holborn pub, and later taken over by Sustrans London. It took place last Wednesday at Look Mum, No Hands café. It was completely booked out, and I am sure a much larger venue could have been filled, such was the level of interest. Virtually everyone known for their interest in cycling in London was there, including Andrew Gilligan, the last commissioner, and another transport expert who many thought might get the Commissioner job, Christian Wolmar.

Such was the high level of interest in this meeting people were queueing in the street.

In a packed Look Mum, No Hands

It was apparent really from the start of this meeting there was something of a mismatch between what Shawcross and Norman had come prepared to tell their audience, and the sort of information the audience wanted. The audience was a group of campaigners for walking and cycling. There was no need to explain to them the myriad social, economic and health benefits of getting more walking and cycling in cities. They had also mostly heard the vague talk of 'Healthy Streets' emanating recently from Transport for London spokespeople, and probably seen the cheerful-looking slides before. They wanted details. They wanted to know what this administration would actually do on the ground. They wanted to know why key projects the last Mayor had proposed, CS 10 and CS 11, were stalled, and what would come next. They wanted to know how the new mini-Holland programme (re-christened 'Heathy Town Centres') would look, and be rolled out, and what would happen to the largely failed Quietways programme. They did not get this information, and there was an increasing level of frustration palpable at being given 'motherhood and apple pie' recipes for the healthy city of the future. As Mark Treasure tweeted about 30 minutes into the meeting:

So far I've learned that cycling and walking is healthy and it would be good if more people walked and cycled #streettalks

The Healthy Streets slide you've probably seen before

The chair seemed to believe there would be some sort of debate in the room about the basic desirability of changing the city to enable higher levels of cycling and walking, which showed how out-of-place he was. (Apparently he was an employee of 'The Prince's Trust, whatever that is). It may be worth recalling that the first time Andrew Gilligan had addressed the public after his appointment, he already had a quite specific 'Vision' document he had written with the Mayor to show campaigners, and he was announcing brand-new and highly-ambitious schemes, such as 'Crossrail for the Bike' (which became CS3, and got built), a 'Bike Grid for Central London' (which did not really happen), better Superhighways (which happened at CS3, CS5 and CS6, but not CS1), a 'Jubilee Line Route' from the West End to Wembley (which did not happen), and 'Mini-Hollands in the suburbs" – three of which happened, though only one of which, the Waltham Forest one, is yet really impressive. So compared to all this promise in 2013, the Shawcross-Norman act at Look Mum, No Hands in 2017 was insubstantial indeed.

I asked Will Norman for some details. What schemes would he be bringing forward first? He said he wouldn't make announcements on the programme, as the was going to be a process of analysing where the most demand was in order to prioritise the next phase of cycle network development. He was prepared to say that CS 4 and CS 9 would be consulted on this year. This means that construction on those could begin in 2018. (It is widely believed that CS 9, an East-West Superhighway running through Houslow and Ealing, and Hammersmith & Fulham, will just have to stop at the boundary of Kensington & Chelsea, as the Royal Borough won't allow Cycle Superhighways on its streets.)

The sharpest interest from the audience was on the future of CS 11 and its proposed associated part-time gate closures at Regent's Park. A question on this received the reply from Val Shawcross that Regent's Park was a dangerous place for pedestrians, and so the solution for the Superhighway needed to take this into account. So, you would have thought, she would be jumping at the opportunity to remove rush-hour through-traffic from the park by selectively closing gates. But, no, bafflingly, she uttered these words:

Gate closures will happen if that's what we need to do, but we are looking at alternatives for a safer park.

What could that possibly mean? It seemed that she was considering a segregated track for cyclists. Now, I am one of the world's leading supporters of segregated cycle tracks, as the whole of this blog testifies, but I can't really see how one on the Outer Circle of Regent's Park would solve the problems there. It might reduce traffic speeds slightly, by restricting space for motor traffic, but it would not reduce traffic volume in the park as closing gates selectively would. Of itself it would not facilitate pedestrians crossing the roads. It would not provide the space that the sports cyclists need for their circuits; it would be a disaster for them, as they would be squeezed on to the narrowed road space. The only way to make a track wide enough to cater for utility, commuting and sports cyclists of all types would be to make it the width of the whole road (minus the car parking) – in other words, to go back to the idea of having an unsegregated road, with no through motor traffic on it.

The consulted plan for CS 11 with the proposed part-time gate-closures

No-one campaigning for the implementation of CS 11 wants a cycle track solution in the park. The suggestion of it by Shawcross now might even be seen as a cynical attempt to split the pro-CS 11 lobby by driving a wedge between the utility cyclists, who would benefit from the track, and the sports cyclists, who would disbenefit. A track would do nothing for the pollution levels in the park, which would continue to be a taxi rat-run. Without the closure of Macclesfield Gate, there will still be too much traffic on Avenue Road between Swiss Cottage and the park for it to act as a safe or inclusive Cycle Superhighway. The whole scheme will be ruined. A cycle track on the Outer Circle is a non-starter. Why is Shawcross raising this possibility at all? Why not just get on with the already consulted plan? It makes no sense to say that the safety of park users is a top priority, and then keep the Outer Circle open as a rush-hour rat-run.

Other questions came on development issues such as the Olympic Park, where the cycle infrastructure built on this blank slate site has been highly disappointing, and Old Oak Common, which is another stalled mayoral development project. Again there were no details forthcoming. I don't suppose Norman has had time to look at any of this yet, so it is not surprising. But what I might have expected, reasonably, I think, from him and Shawcross was some more strategic indication of where they would be going in relationship to how cycling had been left by the last administration. What did they think of the facilities that have been built? What did they think had worked, what had failed, and why? What should be improved, what, specifically, are the next steps in making 'London a by-word for cycling', as Sadiq Khan has promised? We really didn't get this. We did get a statement from Shawcross that the Santander hire scheme (AKA Boris Bikes) would not be expanded, as it is too expensive to do so. We didn't get any commitment to review the rather modest target of achieving 1.5 million cycle journeys a day by 2021.

There were some stranger thing in the meeting. One questioner referred to the high-pollution days we have been experiencing in London, and asked, 'Rather than tell people not to go out and take exercise, why can't you tell people not to drive instead?' All the audience understood what this was about, having seen tweets along these lines from TfL, and applauded the question. But Shawcross bizarrely misunderstood, despite lots of people trying to should out to explain it to her. This was a question about messaging, but she interpreted as a question about closing roads locally, or more widely, for 'car free days'. She seemed to be quite against these, cv claiming that 'the science is not behind' trying to reduce pollution by closing roads. There was a ruckus. There was more disbelief in the audience when it transpired that the Chair didn't know what mini-hollands were. It was like being at a debate on medical ethics where the chair had never heard of stem cell research, or something like that.

Shawcross and Norman merely putting to the meeting a broad view on making streets better for cycling and walking, without any firm proposals for particular locations, might have been seen as fair enough, except that the problem was (and I have Shawcross more in my sights here than Norman, as she has been in post for much longer, and is an experienced politician) that they were talking as if they were starting from nothing, as if the last administration had not also had strategy on these things, and had not done quite a bit of good. They were not acknowledging this. They were talking as if an active travel agenda had to be created for the first time ever, and not as if the main issues had been gone into already, and many problems found, particularly with realising such a vision with the fragmentation of authority between the Mayor, the boroughs, the Corporation, the Royal Parks, the Canal and River Trust, other bodies, and opposition from powerful versed groups. They were not telling us how they hoped the new administration might overcome issues that the old one could not, such as the blockages caused by the critically-placed anti-cycling councils in Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea.

I had already asked Val Shawcross about CS10, the extension west of the E-W Superhighway, at a meeting last year. She had said then that TfL were 'looking at different options to decide a way forward'. We all know however there are no options other than the plan which was consulted on, to create a cycle track on the elevated Westway, as all the other roads west out of central London are, at least in part, controlled by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. We got no more information on this, leading one to suspect she  and TfL have no more clue about it. The Superhighway has now been built as far as Westbourne Terrace. This is where it was meant to join the Westway. It is now just going to end at the huge, awful junction of the A40 and Harrow Road, where cyclists will have n-where further to go. I am genuinely fearful about this. The Superhighway from the parks will attract many hire-bikes and tourists, who will end up at this point and be abandoned. I really fear bad things will happen at the end of the Superhighway at Westbourne Terrace. Coming up with no solution here is a dereliction of duty on the part of Sadiq Khan and Val Shawcross.

The existing plan for CS3 and CS10, the E-W Superhighway. It now ends in Westbourne Terrace

Nice new cycle tracks in Hyde Park will now deliver cyclists like this...

...to here, Westbourne Bridge, where the Superhighway should have gone on to the flyover, but now will just run out.

Will Norman, from my first brief engagement with him, came across as personable and able to talk to a crowd. He seemed like a nice guy, but I wonder if he knows what he's got himself into. I am worried he could become a fall-guy, the person angry meetings, of similar composition to the meeting at Look Mum, No Hands, shout at over the next three years at as the Mayor fails to deliver on his cycling promises, but who lacks the influence or political heft to do anything about it. The huge advantage that Andrew Gilligan had was that Boris Johnson did back him, and never undermined him, never put him out front to take the flack for decisions he wan't responsible for.

The Heathy Streets agenda that Shawcross and Norman were promoting sounds good in theory, but how will it collide with the political reality of the opposition they will get to any attempts at reallocating space on the roads or changing the functions of roads, demonstrated so clearly by the totally unreasonable opposition to CS 11 and the Regent's Park gate closures, and the numerous failed Quietway schemes around London, where councils didn't believe their residents would support the closing of streets to through motor traffic? It sounds as if the Healthy Streets initiative could easily descend into a programme of uncontroversial prettification. We could easily get the benches, more trees, nice paving, a few extra crossings, and no reduction in motor traffic, and no more high-quality space for cycling. Sadiq Khan has made a much bigger 'thing' than his predecessor of tacking the life-threatening air pollution we suffer from in London, in his speeches, at least. But what has he actually announced after 10 months in the job? He has announced a higher rate of congestion charge on a rather small number of the most polluting cars entering the very small area of the central charging zone. The response so far has not been in proportion to the problem, or the rhetoric, and Shawcross's comments on the undesirability of closing roads as 'Not supported by science' indicates such 'big talking' coupled with political timidity is likely to be the pattern for this administration.

The Quietway routes promised three years ago: only Waterloo to Greenwich has happened in any meaningful sense.

A change from the previous Mayor's policies would be, Shawcross told us at the Look Mum, No Hands meeting, that there would henceforth be a 'hierarchy' of consideration for the streets. Pedestrians would be at the top of this, followed by people on bikes, followed by bus users, followed by taxi users, with private motorists last. I'm afraid I'm not impressed with this talk. I've been listening for a quarter of a century to statements along the line of 'It is the policy of the London borough of Brokenham to priorities the need to pedestrians and cyclists above those of motor traffic'. These empty 'hierarchy' promises are easy to make to rooms full of active travel experts and enthusiasts, and always have been, they but don't often translate into reality in terms of space and junction time allocated on the streets for pedestrians and cyclists. They don't prevent you having to press a button and then wait two minutes before you can cross the road, and they don't prevent cycle lanes being ruled impossible due to a 'need' for parking. In practice, for nearly every real decision about priorities on the streets taken in authorities which have these stated hierarchies, the hierarchy, when it meets other, sharper political realities, suddenly gives way to a need to 'take into account and balance the needs of all road-users'.

I am told, and someone can correct me if it is not true, that there is a room in Transport for London's headquarters (or maybe in City Hall), somewhere at the top of the building, were there are lots of screens and lots of controls. This is the traffic control neve-centre for London. For TfL controlled roads, operators are monitoring traffic and queues, and they are trying to optimise traffic flow. This means the flow of motor traffic, not the flow or pedestrians or cyclists. They are making adjustments to signal timing all the time to try to keep the motor traffic flowing. They are reducing timings for pedestrian crossings where they feel it is necessary to reduce queues of motor traffic. They are explicitly prioritising cars over people. If all this is true, then I expect Shawcross and Norman to go to these people, and tell them, in future, they are going to have to do something different. If they don't, or can't, I am afraid I think we are being told fairy stories about this Mayor's approach to transport.

A day at the seaside, and the ghosts of the city

I saw a lot of people on bikes on Saturday. Many of them were on National Cycle Network (NCN) Route 2 along the Sussex coast, between Worthing and Brighton, explored by the group I was with on the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain Infrastructure Safari led by Jim Davis. NCN 2 here is largely traffic-free, and it is, of course, only traffic-free space that gets people on bikes as a mass movement, as Sustrans, the charity behind the NCN, have always realised. It is sad that so many compromises and manifest inadequacies exist on all the NCN routes that I have seen, however, and this is particularly true of NCN 2 on the Sussex coast, fitted in cheaply inbetween existing infrastructure with inadequate capacity and too many conflicts and "cyclist dismount" locations (one would be too many).

This failure to accommodate the demand for leisure and commuting cycling space adequately in the UK limits the take-up of cycling, when we should be doing everything we can to encourage people to be more active. It is a crazy situation that comes down to the existence of inadequate political structures for delivering and funding desirable changes to our environment. To be attempting to develop a national stratgic infrastructure through a charity rather than government agency is crazy: and to say that is in no way to do down the great and noble efforts that Sustrans employees and volunteers make to at least deliver something.

This isn't working: trying to squeeze both pedestrians and NCN 2 on to the prom at Worthing

Jim Davis seemingly going apoplectic over inadequate infrastructure. The pink pavement and the grey beyond it is all supposed to be shared by pedestrians and two directions of cycle traffic

Money cannot really be spent and space cannot really be found for cycling on the Sussex coast, so this is the self-defeating result in too many places

Silly width restriction and crummy quality generally of NCN 2 at Lancing

It is particularly sad to see penny-pinching and compromises that will reverberate down future decades being built into new, expensive infrastructure. At the quaint town of Shoreham-by-Sea, the route needs to cross the harbour. A bridge built in the early 20th century about 1.5 metres wide currently carries two directions of pedestrians, cyclists (dismounted of course), buggy passengers, wheelchair and mobility scooter users, and pets. On a busy day the result is of course great frustration. The good news is that this bridge is going to be replaced with a new one costing £7 million, and work has already started. The bad news is that the new bridge will be only 4 metres wide. To many people I expect a 4-metre wide bridge for non-motorised transport sounds generous. But it is obvious to anyone looking at the situation now on a day like Saturday that is is not. It is a short-sighted penny-pinching compromise. Two directions of cycle travel over a long bridge on their own would need 3.5 metres, and the remaining 0.5 metres is not enough for the rest. We never seem to make bridges for non-motoried modes wide enough in the UK. We used to be a nation of great engineers: why can't we learn about this?

The existing bridge across Shoreham Harbour on the left, and the beginnings of the new bridge on the right

Some bikes look like this: another reason you need enough width on cycle paths and bridges

There is more frustration where the route is taken through Shoreham docks, on more 1.5m-wide gangways that are now required, on a busy day, to take a large volume of cyclists and pedestrians, and which are closed (opened up) to allow boats through the locks. This infrastructure was never designed for having a national cycle route on it, and though it is fun to watch the docks in action, if you are not in a hurry, it is poor that this is all we can achieve. It is symptomatic of the way the NCN has been cobbled together from mostly existing bits and pieces, rather than actually having been planned and built as the real national prestige project it should have been.

More dismounting and waiting, and waiting, at Shoreham docks.

What's needed at Shoreham docks is something like this wheeling-channel bridge provided for when a lifting bridge is up in Groningen, Netherlands.

My main criticism of Sustrans (and I make this criticism of their concepts in London as well as on the south coast) is that in the many places where there is no alternative to putting the routes on main roads, they seem to shy away from pushing for real changes to these roads (real changes meaning not just dabbing paint on the pavements), and they seem to have no adequate concept of how cyclists (including young children) should be accommodated there.This leads to a lot of what Paul Gannon used to call "toytown engineering", which may not be directly Sustrans' fault but that of local authority officers implementing their route proposals, but still seems a fundamental inadequacy of the NCN project. "Toytown engineering" refers to the familiar meaningless, isolated, little constellations of white lines and squiggles on roads and pavements that indicate impossible, impractical or foolish cycling manoeuvres and which baffle all road-users. This kind of nonsense is also very influential in spreading the myth amongst "serious" cyclists that "cycle routes (or cycle paths) are slow". They are only slow if they are no good, and Dutch cycle paths are very far from being slow.

Toytown engineering on NCN 2 in Brighton

The safari did visit some better cycling infrastructure, however. Where it reaches Brighton seafront, NCN 2 works better on its paint-segregated path as it is further from the sea than it is in Worthing.

NCN 2 at Brighton

Furthermore, the route connects to two other good pieces of infrastructure in the town, which show different effective methods of segregating cyclists from cars on main roads. The first is on Grand Avenue and The Drive and consists of one-way cycle tracks on both sides of the road at carriageway level, separated from the carriageway by car parking outside kerbed segregating strips about 1 metre wide. The segregating strips reduce the chances of cyclists getting hit by opening car doors, which is in any case unlikely because the parking is in the direction of travel, so it is only a passenger door that could open into a cyclists' path. One their wider section in Grand Avenue these tracks are wide enough to allow one cyclist to overtake another.

The beginning of the northbound cycle track on Grand Avenue

Grand Avenue and The Drive connect the seafront route to the other new facility, the route on Old Shoreham Road, created this year by the Green-controlled Brighton City Council. This consists of single direction segregated tracks on a road that passes three schools, the space having been taken by greatly narrowing the previously-existing carriageway. These tracks are at an intermediate level between carriageway and pavement, and are good-quality, with a smooth surface, and there is no adjacent parking. The side roads are either closed-off, with mode filters that allow cyclists through, or they have give-way lines which give the track priority. The centre line of the road has been removed, and this, combined with the narrowing, and the provision of a very wide zebra crossing on one place, has, according to local accounts, greatly reduced traffic speeds. At one traffic lights, an advanced green phase for cyclists reduces the potential for conflict between cyclists going straight on on the track and traffic turning left from the carriageway.

There are still problems with these facilities and they are not up to Dutch standards consistently. There is no help for cyclists turning from the track on The Drive to the track on Old Shoreham Road at the traffic lights, the right-turn here being executed in the normal UK fashion, with a cyclist needing to pull out across the lanes of general traffic. However there is enough here that is pioneering (for the UK), and effective, for these facilities to be given high marks.

Old Shoreham Road

Wide zebra crossing on Old Shoreham Road

But most of the people I saw on bikes on Saturday were not on the cycle paths of Sussex. They were  on the roads of East London, on which I made a journey for a different purpose on Saturday night. It was one of the hottest nights of the year, and everybody who had not left the stifling city for the seaside or the countryside seem to have decided to party that night. London Fields in Hackney was virtually one huge, spontaneous, communal barbecue. I suppose because people had decided to party, and drink alcohol, and thus could not drive (the suppression of drunk driving being one of the great UK road policy successes of modern times), that this, combined with the weather, and the temporary exodus of cars from the streets due to the Olympics and other summer factors, combined to produce a situation where people seemed to be on their bikes, at night, in huge numbers throughout Islington and Hackney.

These night-time cyclists are the ghosts of the city. They are not generally your type of dedicated, highly-equipped commuter cyclist. They will largely disappear when the traffic returns on Monday morning. Most people won't cycle when there are large volumes of motor traffic present. But for a while on a hot, relatively car-free Saturday night in East London these cyclists seemed spontaneously to have taken over the streets.

The lack of motor traffic did not mean conditions were very safe. I experienced a conflict with an aggressively-driven car at a pinch-point on a road by London Fields, where the driver did not seem to be able to predict, as I could, that we would both arrive at the pinch-point at exactly the same time, and that therefore he would not be able to pass me. And I witnessed plenty of danger due to fast driving on main roads at junctions. Getting large numbers of cyclists on to the streets and reducing motor congestion does not improve the behaviour of drivers of itself; there is no "safety in numbers" for cyclists in this sense, as the rising casualty rate for cyclists at the same time as a rise in cycling rates illustrates. The apparently better behaviour of Dutch drivers is not due to the large numbers of cyclists in the Netherlands, it is forced on them by better infrastructure design (for example, narrower carriageways and tighter and better-controlled junctions).

Despite the under-resourcing of cycling infrastructure, the problems of the political structures, and the absurd policies of London's Mayor (his latest brainwave being not fixing the roads but providing cycle paths alongside railway lines – and do we have surface railway lines crossing central London? – no we don't), there are some limited grounds for optimism about the future of cycling in Britain. There are one or two examples about of satisfactory infrastructure which could  be copied and extended. There is a massive popular desire for safe cycling space, particularly from families, which could start to translate into noticeable political pressure. There is the general feeling arising from the Olympic summer that it is the duty of government to provide for people being physically active. There is a more coherent world-view and platform from the various cycling organisations, as was apparent in the debate on cycling held in the London Assembly last month, part of their enquiry into the subject. And when unusual circumstances occur, the emergence of bikes in the inner London boroughs (but not yet in the outer ones) can be quite striking – possibly the austerity of recession also has something to do with this. But which way it will all go is still hard to predict.

Bristol, Bath, Brighton, and the continuing work of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain

Slightly revised version of a post previously published on my WordPress site. Comments could not be transferred, unfortunately.

I am afraid I have not kept this blog much up to date with recent developments, though I have been busy attending things relevant to cycling: the Cycling Embassy AGM held in Bristol in May, the Cycling Cultures report launch at the University of East London, and meetings discussing the preliminary results of TfL's junction reviews. I will give some thoughts arising out of the first of these today.

Despite having been born and brought up in the south-west quarter of England, I had never actually been to Bristol, and I had never seen the "flagship" National Cycle Network route, the Bristol to Bath bike path, so all this was very interesting. The Cycling Embassy group were shown not only the Bristol to Bath path, the full length of which we cycled, but also the work on the Two Tunnels cycle (and walking) route within Bath, which will, eventually, link the B2B path with new suburbs..

Cycling Embassy folk arrive at Bath on the one hot Saturday we have had his "summer"

The long blocked-off entrance to a railway tunnel in Bath that should soon be part of a magnificent cycle route

Brand new bridge forming part of the Two Tunnels Greenway, Bath

This awkward crossing of a road on the Two Tunnels Greenway will soon go in favour of a bridge

Good junction treatment where the Bristol to Bath route crosses a minor road (but the vegetation could do with cutting back)

Refreshment stop on the Bristol to Bath path

Later in the day, after the AGM itself, we were shown around Bristol town centre by Steve Melia, who explained how the area had been change to favour walking and cycling in recent years, and went into proposals for further reducing motor traffic in the centre and the politics of this change. The meeting extended over a whole weekend, and on the Sunday there were two further bike trips round Bristol and its environs, both led by Joe Dunckley. The first explored cycling conditions in the northern suburbs and some of the established and developing routes (other than the B2B path), and the second took us to some new places including scenic views of the Avon gorge.

Steve Melia (left) explains proposals to further limit motor traffic in the centre of Bristol by restricting the use of the bridge in the distance

The Clifton suspension Bridge by Brunel, from the riverside path

Having been clueless about Bristol's cycling credentials before, I was very impressed. Here was a town that does have some natural advantages in generating a cycling culture, such as a compact, historic centre and a large student population (though, as a proportion, nothing like as large as that of Cambridge, Oxford or York), but also some disadvantages: severe hills, severance by big roads, and suburban residential, commercial and industrial sprawl. Yet the level of cycling was impressive, and the progress made and being made to facilitate that cycling through real and sometimes controversial infrastructure change not insubstantial.

Not particularly smart or expensively-designed, but this is Shared Space in Bristol that is genuinely shared because most motor traffic has been excluded. Contrast with London's failed Exhibition Road scheme.

Rather magnificent new bike path in the northern suburbs of Bristol

Part of the Concord Way route, North Bristol

The Concord Way route passes under a big road here. The space is insufficient, but at least a properly-connected and continuous largely traffic-free cycle route has been provided, a great rarity in the UK

Decent space for cyclists and pedestrians side by side through Castle Park in central Bristol

Sensible design of main road segregation continues the route over a bridge

If Bristol had the student proportion that Cambridge or even York has (which it could not have as it is a bigger, more diverse place, I am sure if would be far and away the leading cycling city in the UK. It may justifiably make that claim even now. For the basic fact about Cambridge is that relatively poor infrastructure there is trumped by the fact that the students literally have no other possible way of getting around. They are not allowed to own cars: a long-standing agreement between the university and city council ensures this. No other city could replicate this situation. The cycling level is high in Bristol, despite the hills, because the cycling infrastructure is the best in the UK. By "cycling infrastructure", I mean this to be taken in a broad way: not just specific bike paths and lanes, though these make a significant contribution, but also the measures that have been taken to control motor traffic both in the centre and in some suburban areas. We tend to regard the "centre of gravity" of cycling in the UK as being in the east: well-known cycling places are London, Cambridge, Peterborough, York and Edinburgh. But towns and cities wishing to become more cycle-friendly probably should look at Bristol more than any of these. Britain's cycling centre of gravity is here, in the west.

Bath is fairly cycle-unfriendly at the moment; the B2B path is not satisfactorily connected to the town centre, the riverside path that is supposed to have that function being far too narrow, and the on-road alternatives hostile. But the local authority is progressive and with Sustrans is working hard, and it looks like the Two Tunnels Greenway will be a huge breakthrough. Even without a good  connection to Bath town centre, the Bristol to Bath path is absolutely at capacity, and urgently needs to be widened (or have alternative routes built to take some of the pressure off). We were accompanied on the ride on the path by a Bath councillor, the city's "Cycling Champion", and he recognised this. The path is a victim of its own success, and is generating the need for more investment on cycling infrastructure elsewhere. He made the legitimate point that, due to shortage of available funds, it was hard to decide whether the existing path should be improved or developments made elsewhere. This is not a choice that really should have to be made.

Bristol to Bath path in Bristol suburbs: cyclists taken clear of busy roads; hugely popular with all ages

The Bristol-Bath path is making a huge contribution to tourism, transport and leisure of people of all ages and walks of life in the area, and that success should be built on. It is typically 3 metres wide, but, as Joe Dunckley pointed out, the whole line of the railway bed is far wider, and in most places it could be widened to 4 or 5 metres at least. There is the problem that the railway is, for a distance between Bristol and Bath, still in place on a single track, operated by steam enthusiasts. Neither the path, nor the railway, can ever be all that satisfactory on this stretch with the other present. This is a conflict that I have seen elsewhere on NCN paths in the UK (in Norfolk). It comes from the fact that we have been relying on these disused railway alignments as our only serious  source of land for inter-town cycle paths, and they are a resource in very short supply. We should be instead thinking about doing what the Dutch do: local authorities there can, and do constantly, acquire land for new cycle paths that are unrelated to the road network, and so suffer no environmental influence from traffic. There is an immense demand for these routes, and the supply, at the moment, is pathetic. This is why, when one path, the Bristol to Bath one, is done reasonably well (though to nothing like Dutch standards of quality), all the world and his wife and their family and dog and horse come to use it.

Where the B2B path enters the suburbs of Bristol, it does not conk out or divert onto minor roads or collide with cycle-unfriendly traffic systems, as do most off-road cycle paths in the UK when entering urban areas. It is carried over motorways and roundabouts on bridges that almost made me feel I was back in the Netherlands, where, of course, high-level engineering totally separating cycle flows from motor traffic is the norm. The original line of the railway did not go properly to Bristol city centre, but new links have now been created within the city to allow you to cycle, traffic, free, all the way there. And when you get to Bristol city centre, there are extensive almost traffic-tree spaces to cycle around in.

Bristol waterfront: a little bit "Dutch"

Yet another bridge for cyclists and pedestrians in central Bristol

Cyclists of all ages come out for business and leisure in Bristol because of the existence of convenient and spacious traffic-free paths and bridges

One of the biggest and most commendable roll-backs ever of inappropriate motor invasion of a historic city centre in the UK  took place in Bristol in 2000 when the Inner Circuit Road, driven diagonally across Queen Square in 1937, was removed, and the square restored to its peaceful, Georgian grandeur, a place for sunbathers, walkers and cyclists, with the occasional delivery by van allowed. This massive change is a signal one to give encouragement to those who believe it is possible to improve our cities and actually make big, popular changes that involve removing traffic. There was great opposition to the removal of the Inner Circuit Road at time, but now nobody in Bristol would have it back in Queen Square. And I suspect this change in modern times had a wider effect on the psychology of the city, and put in train a desire to change even more in the environment for the benefit of people not travelling in space-wasting metal boxes, a realisation that radical things can be done,  that has led to the subsequent improvements to the city centre, and development of some decent (by UK standards) mostly traffic-free routes to the suburbs.

Steve Melia indicates the route of a huge road through Bristol's Regency centre prior to the restoration of Queen Square in 2000. The statue is George III by Rysbrack (1733).

Bristol is certainly not a miniature Amsterdam or Copenhagen (though in places it does resemble them). The standard of the cycle panning and engineering is far off what the Dutch would consider acceptable, and there are still far too many main road barriers, poor crossings, nasty junctions, built-in pedestrian/cycle conflicts, and other issues arising from car-centric planning of the past. But compared to the Borough of Brent it is a bit of paradise. And it is moving visible in the right direction, whereas the London suburbs (with the exception of odd projects like the Olympic Park, which haven't helped cycling either) seem to be set in concrete at Epoch 1970.0, the changes required being so vast that no London borough can contemplate the expenditure that is necessary.

Measuring a cycling and pedestrian path in the northern suburbs of Bristol (local authority: South Gloucestershire) that foolishly tries to contain two directions of cycle flow in 1.3m

Cycle route on a nice new estate at the Bristol Council–South Gloucestershire border foolishly obstructed by a wooden post. It would never occur to me to suggest that this problem could easily be remedied by a couple of men with a hand saw in the dead of night.

Inconvenient low-priority multi-stage design of crossing of cycle route of main road that also is inconvenient for pedestrians and mixes cycle traffic with pedestrians inappropriately

This is not a cycle path, it is just a pavement. Shared use is generally not appropriate in towns.

Near Bristol Cathedral: not too bad a cycle path, but again, to my mind, too much confusion between cycle and pedestrian space in a small area, too much subtlety with the tiny red cycle symbol tile, and a silly (worn-out) "Give-way".


The main purpose if the Cycling Embassy AGM was to decide the direction and strategy of the organisation after its first year of existence, which was devoted mainly to explaining to the world why it should exist at all. Many people have asked me, "Why another cycling organisation in the UK?", but I have not the slightest doubt that the setting-up of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain was necessary, and, indeed, a long overdue step. The reason was that the UK needed a pressure group to demand, on a national basis, the type of high-quality dedicated cycle infrastructure that is the necessary prerequisite of a mass cycling culture. The existing cycling organisations were not doing this. They were doing many other good things, representing their members, providing services to them, and organising training, and acting as suppliers of services to government, but not this. Or if they were, it was a too low-key and mixed-up message to work.

We needed a body that shouted a single, clear, unambiguous message about cycling "from the rooftops": Mass cycling as transport ain't going to happen in the UK without proper cycle paths and tracks everywhere, in the city, suburbs and countryside. There was some overlap between the objectives of the Embassy and Sustrans, the great charity responsible for the B2B path and other elements of the National Cycle Network, but they were and are primarily a provider of a practical service involving the organisation of volunteers, not primarily a political lobby group, and also, as recipients of large amounts of public (or lottery) money, they could not be regarded as a fully independent force. Also, I think it is fair to say that the founders of the Embassy regarded Sustrans' apparent collective concept of the nature of the cycle infrastructure that the UK required to be inadequate. We felt there needed to be a voice that was (in a friendly, constructive way) critical of Sustrans and of inadequate demands by other cycling organisations.

So that was what the Embassy was about, but what sort of organisation should it be? A membership organisation, a pressure group, a think-tank, or a political lobby? This was debated at this AGM. It was decided that the Embassy should not a membership organisation. It was decided that there is no need for another organisation to compete with CTC and British Cycling to be a provider of benefits (such as insurance) to individual cyclists in return for a membership fee. These organisations do a good job. The Embassy also, it was decided, does not have the resources to be a consultee on whatever problems or schemes need addressing for cycling on a local basis across the country, though we do with to supply good information to local campaigning groups, who are the proper people to advise local authorities as to what needs doing in their areas.

The Embassy, it was decided, should free itself primarily to be the national lobby directed at central government (Westminster and the devolved administrations) for asatisfactory policy, legal backing, and funding for building cycling through provision of cycle-specific infrastructure across the UK, based on best-practice from what has been proven to work in other countries. The Embassy would be a network of supporters who all shared the vision of mass cycling on quality separated infrastructure, with all the huge economic, social and health benefits for the nation we believe that would bring. With a large support base, pledged to support a clear manifesto, it would be possible to go to central government and say "This is what X thousand people think on this subject. What are you going to do about it?"

This is the point. For too long (almost the whole period of the invention of the bicycle, in fact, the British government has failed to provide a lead on how the bike should be accommodated in our country. We have been watching and discussing the successful pro-bike policies of some of our continental neighbours, particularly, of course, the Netherlands, for 80 years, wondering whether or not they could work here, while continuing, in practice, to design-out the bike from our urban and rural environments so comprehensively that the vast majority of the population consider it totally out of the question to attemp to meet the daily transport needs by cycling. In each decade, in each generation, and in each parliament, ministers of transport have insisted that it is "the responsibility of local authorities" to provide for cycling, without giving them the direction, the legislative backing, the powers and the funding to do it. If this attitude had been taken in respect of the nation's railways, its ports, motorways and airports, we would have none – as we have (with precious few exceptions like the B2B path) no effective cycle infrastructure.

We need a change that has to come from the top. Getting this is the huge task that the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain has set itself. Every town, city and rural district in the UK needs to have what Bristol has, but far more, and better, and that won't happen until central government has said loud and clear that this is what they want and provided the cash, freedom and expertise to local authorities to make it happen. That will mean ending the long British tradition of treating cycling as some sort of toy or diversion, but reassessing it thoroughly as universal efficient mass transport for medium-length daily journeys and part of the core infrastructure requirements of a modern advanced nation, on a par with motor, rail, air and sea infrastructure.

It's a long way off. But in Bristol, Bath, and other places, many people are working towards this goal, and, little, by little, in places, it is becoming a reality, and then other places can see how it is done. Brighton (with its Green Party council) has taken the latest substantial step with a high-quality cycle track on Old Shoreham Road that looks as if it will be genuinely useful to many cyclists. As more good examples of working dedicated cycle infrastructure appear around the country, other towns will want the same, and, with the correct policies from central government, a momentum will develop that has the potential to transform the appearance of our towns and the nature of local transport across the UK.

The Cycling Embassy is organising an Infrastructure Safari on bikes for campaigners, planners, politicians, and anyone interested to see what has been achieved in Brighton and Worthing on Saturday 18 August. Sign up to the Embassy (if you have not already done so) to be kept informed, and put the date in your diary. And if you think the Embassy should come and look at cycling developments in your town, then tell us. Don't forget also that the Embassy is organising another study tour party with David Hembrow in Assen, Netherlands, in September. If you want to understand what it is really all about, what the Embassy is actually aiming at, this is the one "must-do" activity. You will see how riding a bike becomes really "as easy as riding a bike" in the correct environment, and why we urgently need this in the UK. We've been discussing this for 80 years. We shouldn't loose any more time.