Cycling: lets get a little less "eco" about this

Though one tries to be independent as a blogger, and express original thoughts that have not been voiced elsewhere, occasionally a contribution to a particular subject comes along that just has to be highlighted, and basically, just relayed, as it seems to critically elucidate a vital issue which has always lurked just below the surface, with nobody really laying out before where the problem lies.

These are my thoughts on reading this invaluable contribution to the cycling infrastructure debate from David Hembrow. Hembrow lays out a number of common objections to the construction of quality cycle infrastructure that originate in supposed concern for the environment, and shows, though, basically, the application of common-sense, how invalid they are:

I was told as a child that money "didn't grow on trees". However, the one thing which certainly does "grow on trees" is of course trees themselves. Cutting urban trees and replacing them causes only a temporary change.

Eventually, any urban tree will become too large and need replacing. This is an ongoing process in all cities. To bring forward the replacement of a few trees to enable construction of top class cycling provision benefits the environment.

This issue has been floating around in my mind for many years as a campaigner for better cycling provision in London. A shibboleth-like "preservation of trees" argument has so often prevented changes to the roads to benefit cyclists and pedestrians. It has, in my experience, really been a major factor in preventing progress on better streetscapes and urban designs in the UK, because it has been an argument that has tended to be accepted by both "green" campaigners and those who wish to prevent change for the better, hence it has been effectively unanswerable, and the result has been a log-jam in altering the built environment to benefit cyclists and pedestrians. And yet, as Hembrow remarks with childish simplicity "One thing that certainly does grow on trees is trees themselves".

Other areas Hembrow deals with in his post are drainage, and its relationship to laying cycle paths with proper surfaces, and lighting. Another, that, I would add, is "disturbance to wildlife". These are all arguments that have, in my experience, been used to scupper pro-cycling and pro-walking proposals in London. The striking thing is that these arguments are not, typically, used to successfully prevent road-building, road-widening, construction of car-parks or other commercial or industrial development of land in cities. 


Why not? The answer goes to the heart of how our society thinks about cycling and walking. They are not regarded as serious transport. They are not regarded as a seriously productive part of the economy. Hence they are not regarded as a high economic priority (and see this fascinating post on the At War With The Motorist blog on how the economic contribution of different transport modes is currently officially being measured by our Department for Transport – it is horrifying). 


Because of this, infrastructure plans that will benefit cycling and walking are easily derailed by flimsy arguments dressed-up in ecological terms that are really just part of the great local government tradition of "creatively finding reasons to do nothing". In contrast it is widely accepted, by public and politicians alike, that "serious" infrastructure projects like new roads and railways and new housing or industry have to be driven through at the expense of some alteration to the natural environment. The alignment of pro-cycling and pro-walking campaigners, typically, with the wider environmental or green movement, facilitates this status-quo reinforcing situation. They themselves are often genuinely not sure what is "best for the environment" in the long term, with all these competing arguments. And so they too are likely to err on the side of caution, of not wanting to change anything.


Now, don't get me wrong here. I am not arguing for indiscriminately cutting down mature trees here there and everywhere, or casually paving over remote and undisturbed Sites of Special Scientific Interest, or lighting up the New Forest with laser beams (though the last really is what Southampton City Council wanted to do – and for no good reason!) But I am questioning the way competing considerations are often balanced up, particularly in the context of the dense urban environment of London. I am suggesting that the result of this balancing up is often not to produce, overall, long-term, a "green" result at all, but quite the reverse. Some examples, all from north-west London, may help to explain my case more clearly. 


In 2009 I was asked to look at plans for a new section (one of the last to be built) of the "London Cycle Network Plus", in Harrow. This was to be on heavily-trafficked main roads just south of Harrow Town Centre: Kenton Lane, Tyburn Road, and Lowlands Road. Now, in fact, Harrow LCC have a much better idea for where the cycle route E-W through Harrow Town Centre should go, but I am leaving that to one side. This was the alignment of the LCN+ route that the council wanted, on these cycle-unfriendly, not very wide, main roads that basically form a bypass to the town centre, and connecting two gruesome giratory systems, the Northwick Park roundabout and the  Lowlands/Bessborough Road roundabout. The only redeeming feature of this route is that it has some quite nice parkland on both sides of the road.

The plans the officers came up with showed the kind of classic "bitty" mixture of on-road and off-road cycling provision, that I have already criticised as ineffective in this post. They had sections of advisory cycle lane (the kind with dashed lines that motorists are allowed to park in), sections of off-road segregated track, and sections of shared-use path with pedestrians in the parkland by the south side of the road, alternating few times (I can't recall the exact details, and the don't matter) in a distance of little more than 1km. I tried to explain to the officers why this would not work: how short sections of off-road path are not worth cyclists getting on to and off again; how it is safer and more efficient to stick to the carriageway; how, for cyclists not confident enough to cycle on main roads, these little bits off-road will do them no good, and tend to create more illegal cycling. What would work in this location, we (I , the Harrow Cyclists representative and the CTC rep) argued, would be a consistently off-road cycle path (bearing in mind there was no chance that the (then) Conservative-run council would allow the loss of space for cars that mandatory cycle lanes on the road would entail).

The reason they could not do that? Trees. Mature trees in the way, trees that are a distinctive part of the Harrow landscape. Now, these issues are always difficult. These trees are indeed nice ones. This parkland with its trees is indeed a nice feature of Harrow town centre. But only relatively, only because the planners have made such a complete balls-up of the rest of Harrow town centre, covering it with elevated roundabouts, flyovers, concrete multi-storey car parks and cathedralic shopping centres.

Herein lies the rub. In case like this, there has been decades of destruction of the traditional characters of our English town centres by insensitive, commercially-driven, motor-centric planning. Where a little nice bit is left, everybody wants to preserve this. This might also be a good place to put a bike path. But, no, now you cannot alter anything in the landscape to make the bike path practical, because we have wantonly destroyed so much in the past, that now this landscape has to be fossilised. It cannot now be touched. So cycling again gets the back end of the deal. Cycling was not catered for when the big changes to the urban fabric were made, in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and regret at the cataclysmic mistakes of that era now paralyse thinking over optimising what remains. A "preservation mentality" prevents consideration of proper cycling infrastructure, and so the motor-dominated environment created in the late 20th century continues to rule.

A second case: on the border between the boroughs of Brent and Barnet exists a reservoir, variously known as the Brent Reservoir or the Welsh Harp (from the name of a pub which used to stand where the River Brent drained into the reservoir, but which was demolished in the 1970s to make way for the concrete jungle of the Staples Corner road junction). The Welsh Harp reservoir was created in 1835 as a header water supply for the Grand Union Canal. It is today surrounded by a mixture of public open spaces, industrial land, and housing. It is hemmed in with major roads on three sides: the A5, the A406 (North Circular Road) and the A4088. These roads and their major junctions to the west of the reservoir at Neasden and to the east at Staples Corner, which reached their modern form in the 1970s, make the reservoir and its open spaces quite inaccessible by any means of transport, but particularly by walking, cycling and public transport. They also cut off the open spaces on the north side from those on the south side. There is furthermore a lack of paths across these open spaces.

Neasden Recreation Ground by the Welsh Harp Reservoir, Brent: an under-used public space with a lack of suitable paths for walking or cycling, hemmed in behind the North Circular Road, reachable only via footbridges, from one of which this picture was taken. The dam is in the background, with Kingsbury Church beyond.

Looking the other way from the same vantage point: the community-severing A406 North Circular Road

The lands around the reservoir are administered partly by Brent, partly by Barnet, and partly by British Waterways. These bodies are supposed to co-operate in managing the reservoir lands through the Welsh Harp Management Committee. The land at the west end of the reservoir, near the dam, is occupied by various sailing clubs. These have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of limited public access to the reservoir lands. British Waterways will not allow the use of the dam as a walking or cycling route, though it would be extremely useful as such to allow journeys avoiding the horrible A4088 Neasden Lane. The unconvincing argument given for this intransigence is "security" – despite the fact that dams all over the country, and, of course, abroad, are used as walking and cycling routes. The overall effect of this is that the reservoir lands are extremely under-used and do not make the contribution they should to the public amenity of north-west London. People in NW London who wish to find a traffic-free cycle circuit in a park for leisure or family cycling or for teaching kids to ride have to go the south-west London, to Richmond Park, to do this. There is nothing for them in north-west London, an area containing maybe 5 million people.

It was suggested, as long ago as 1994, that a footpath should be created all the way round the reservoir, linking up the severed open spaces (the idea of cycle paths was not around at that time). The idea of a cycle and walking route around the reservoir was again put forward by Brent Cyclists in 2010. This idea has been rejected by the Welsh Harp Management Committee, both on grounds of cost (as usual), but also because it is claimed that cyclists and walkers close to the reservoir would disturb breeding wildfowl.

Now, I don't know what these wildfowl are. I don't know how special there are, exactly where they are, or if it is really true that a walking and cycling path round the reservoir would of necessity disturb them. It has not been demonstrated in detail to me, and so I have my doubts. Could not a path be routed to be sufficiently far from them not to trouble them? If not, could not some land be taken off the industrial premises, that hem the reservoir in quite closely at certain points, to take a path sufficiently far away from them? If these are not possible, and if their habitat must be damaged, could not another habitat be created for them elsewhere to compensate?  Even if none of these things can be done, is it reasonable that the breeding of these wildfowl in the middle of an urban area at an artificial reservoir take precedence over developing low-carbon leisure and transport choices for 5 million people?

Staples Corner. I think the breeding wildfowl are supposed
to be somewhere in the greenery to the right.

Well, is it? It is not an easy or obvious choice, but why shouldn't the reservoir lands be used to try to create pleasant and useful routes for walking and cycling that go a small way to undoing the car-dependency in the local population fostered by this car-centred infrastructure that has been used to hem the reservoir in?  On either side of the Welsh Harp, the concrete jungles of the Neasden junction and Staples Corner testify to the failed urban transport concepts of the Motorway Box era, cutting communities off from one another and forcing everyone into cars in order to get around, creating a brutal environment for anyone who tries to travel under human power. As in the Harrow case, the cause of cycling is stuck between the two apparently immovable barriers that none of this motor infrastructure can be altered now (it would cost far too much), and the bits of space that remain, and happen to have attracted the odd breeding fowl, or grown a big old tree, are considered too fragile to alter.

I think what is going on in these cases is that actually an exaggerated importance is being given to one small aspect of the natural environment as it is, that is being used as an excuse for no change. So there remains no-where to teach children to cycle, and no route to go for a decent walk before having to cross a huge road, that you have to do by climbing stairs up to a desolate walkway, and then down again on the other side, or alternatively by diving down some rank underpass. So the car-dependency is not challenged, so nothing is done to counter the ever-increasing pollution and noise (which can't be doing these trees or wildfowl all that much good). We have an eco-logjam where the small remaining green bits of the city do not seem to be usable for cycling, and Harrow, Brent and Barnet continue to make their disproportionate contributions to global warming. How much good is that doing to wildfowl, either at the reservoir or anywhere else in the world?


In The Netherlands, they do recognise that there is pressure on urban environments, and things are sometimes in the wrong place in towns and cities, and sometimes you do have to create significant temporary disruption in order to move things and re-arrange the urban elements, to create better choices for transport by foot, bike, boat, and even car. They are not afraid of spending money on this, and it doesn't seem to cause them big political problems, or problems with an ecological or preservationist lobby. Why not? Are people there just used to taking a broader, more longer-term, more holistic view of the issues?


Back to north-west London, and a third and final example, which demonstrates another type of problem that often confounds attempts to create off-road cycle routes in our cities. If we can't have a decent-length cycle route round the Welsh Harp, what about having it a bit further east, on Hampstead Heath? Well, Hampstead Heath is ruled by the Corporation of London, though it is geographically in the boroughs of Camden and Haringey. The Corporation is not a democratic body: it consists of City-types "elected" by the bosses of City firms. Why should they govern this area of open space in north London (and other scattered open spaces, such as Queen Park in Brent and West Ham Park in Newham)? Well might you ask. The reasons are diverse historical hang-overs, not good ones. Mrs Thatcher gave Hampstead Heath to them when she abolished the GLC. Anyway, they run the heath through their Heath Management Committee, which is advised by their Hampstead Heath Consultative Committee. This latter body is dominated by local residents groups, which consist of the wealthy owners of large houses which abut the heath. They are the people who make the roads around Hampstead, Highgate and the heath congested and dangerous for cyclists when they are in their cars, but, when they want to go get out of their cars and go walking on the heath, they consider it rather as most people do their back garden. They do not want to meet cyclists there.


Some limited shared-use paths for cyclists, which do not connect very well, were introduced on to the Heath by the GLC and preserved by the Corporation. There has been an endless campaign by Camden Cycling Campaign, occasionally abetted by Sustrans, to try to get more useful cycle paths on the Heath, which has been blocked down many years by the Hampstead Heath Consultative Committee and the Heath and Hampstead Society. This amenity group contains people very wedded a fiction that they decorate with the Latin title rurs in urba, drawn from the 19th century act that brought the Heath into public ownership, that means that the Heath is considered to be a bit of the countryside in the city. I have pointed out to them that if it really was countryside, they wouldn't be able to walk all over it, but this doesn't seem to cut much ice with them. They claim that cycling is too dangerous on the Heath, that more of it it would result in lots of injured or dead pedestrians (but why doesn't the existing cycling do this?), and that the paths are too steep and too narrow for cycling. They claim even if more cycling did not cause injuries, it would worry pedestrians and put many off from using the Heath entirely.

Many of the people who argue like this want to remove cycling from the Heath entirely. The often say they are "pro-cycling", but that they believe the cycle paths should be on the roads surrounding the Heath. These roads are of course narrow arteries full of large volumes of fast traffic going round the Heath. The Heath is even crossed by two busy roads: North End Way and Spaniards Road, but this does not seem to alter their rurs in urba concept, whereas, apparently, connected cycle paths would shatter it. Obviously they have never been as far afield as Richmond, or even Hyde Park.

One answer to the claim that the shared-use paths are too narrow is to suggest building new, dedicated cycle paths. But this suggestion drives these self-appointed guardians of the Heath to a new level of fury. The Heath should not be urbanised, they say. It should not be "covered in concrete", and it should not be made part of the transport network. Cycle paths would be the thin end of the wedge. The next thing would be motorways and housing estates being built on the Heath, destroying its delicate habitats, ruining it for everyone. This is exactly what the Heath and Hampstead Society, they say, has been fighting for 100 years to prevent.

Again, a "preservation of the natural environment" argument is very dubiously used to prevent the creation of useful cycle routes: places where families with children could cycle without quickly coming the the end of the path and a barrier created by a fast, busy road; places where children could be taught to cycle. In this case, the argument is clearly hysterical and used by those who are more motivated by their own narrow local interests than a broad environmental agenda. A compounding factor is the lack of democracy in the governance of the Heath.

So, the relationship of the "cycling as transport" lobby with environmentalism can be a troublesome one. We emphasise the "green" credentials of cycling, but cycling is in fact technology, and part of the industrialised society. It is just another technological solution to the human desire to move further and faster. In the move to promote cycling as "low carbon" transport, we can generate dubious alliances: as I pointed out in an earlier post, Team Green Britain, supporting cycle events such as Bike Week and even the London World Naked Bike Ride is a branch of the nuclear power industry (EDF Energy).

Team Green Britain promote cycling with a heavy "reduce your carbon footprint" message:

Gareth Wynn, Group Director, 2012 Programme at EDF added “As the first Sustainability Partner of London 2012, EDF Energy founded Team Green Britain to help Britons reduce their carbon footprints ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Travelling contributes significantly to most people’s carbon footprint, but cycling is a low carbon way to get around, plus it can be enjoyable and help you get fit at the same time. We’re hoping that Team Green Britain Bike Week will help people get back on their bikes, helping them reduce the carbon footprint of their travel in the long term”.

In my opinion this is the wrong way to promote cycling. In my opinion, virtually nobody starts cycling because the wish to reduce their carbon footprint and be more "green". Look, I am as concerned about carbon footprint as anybody: I am so concerned about my carbon footprint  that I spent £650 of my partner's money recently taking a train to Geneva (first class), when I could have flown (economy class, also at her expense) for £150. But even I, paragon of environmental virtue that I am, did not start cycling in order to save the planet. I started as a child as a means to gain independence. I started again as an adult as it was a cheap and efficient way to get around London (at a time when there was less traffic than there is now). I think we have to treat the people whom we want to get cycling as normal, selfish humans. I think we have to "sell" cycling to them on the basis, primarily, of convenience and economy and fun (so we have to actually make it convenient and fun, so that means getting the infrastructure right first), and, perhaps secondarily, though this comes some way behind, on the basis of health and fitness.

Ultimately, in both promoting, and providing for, cycling, the "less green" approach may be the one we need to get the ecological benefits we wish for in the long term.

Team Green Britain Tosh

In my last post I reflected on the near-impossibility of making a simple bike journey safely in the "Bikeless Borough of Barnet", but the truth is that the situation is not that much better in the "Biking Borough" of Brent, or the apparently biking-neutral boroughs of Harrow or Hillingdon, to name those I am most likely to cycle in of the Outer London Boroughs. I believe the rest are similar; evidence from bloggers in East London and South London suggests this is so.

I have blogged before on another site about this fantastically frustrating situation: about the total, nutty disjunction between the promotion and propaganda surrounding cycling in UK, and the reality of what those who attempt to cycle discover on the roads. I think I'll reproduce that text here (with corrections), which I wrote two years ago, as it's just as relevant now. Here, the boroughs in question are Brent and Harrow.

It's striking how much cycle promotion there is around London these days. You can't get on a tube or bus without seeing posters exhorting you to cycle.

And lots of people do want to cycle. But then come the practicalities. A question we just received on our [Brent Cyclists] Yahoo! group was: "What is a good way to cycle from Dollis Hill to Stanmore?" This cyclist has been on the TfL journey planner, and selected "bike only", and got the suggestion to go up the A5 and over the Staples Corner flyover (where speeds are often in excess of 50mph) with it's terrifying low angle of merging motorway-style slip roads. And one has to answer his question, sorry, but it isn't actually possible to cycle from Dollis Hill to Stanmore by an acceptably direct route without going through feasome motorway-style junctions, or breaking the law and riding on pedestrian bridges and pavements. Brent south of the A406 North Circular road is completely cut off from north Brent and the outer suburbs, that is the way it is, and no-one in government seems to have a clue how to address that problem, or even to understand what a problem it is.

So, there's a fundamental problem with cycle promotion in this country. It's all upside-down, cart before horse. Government keeps telling people to cycle before the facilities are put in place to make it feasable, safe, and attractive – and, in fact, without there ever being a serious intention to make it so. We keep having cycling festivals and this and that cuddly thing, without ever having done the hard stuff, without having actually built the routes. The so-called soft and hard measures are in the wrong order, which will never work. Logically, it is completely crazy. Translated to another form of transport, it is as if we were railway promoters spending all our budget on advertising our wonderful railway, telling people to use it, but we don't build it, it just doesn't exist. It's just nuts.

Well, maybe as a nation we can't afford to buid proper cycle routes. But it seems we can afford to do the promotion. And advertising doesn't come cheap. Advertising budgets are measured in millions. The cost of, say, a cycle bridge across the North Circular would be millions too. But that would be millions well-spent, it would be a permanent piece of cycle promotion which would not disappear when the poster boards are resurfaced. And if it worked, it would continue working indefinitely – what an investment.

The sad truth is that the cynical, but realistic reply to the qustion about cycling from Dollis Hill to Stanmore is that the best way to do that is to take a folding bike on the tube and cycle the last bit from the station, or, leave a cheap bike permanently at the far end. The tube and railways are how most sensible Londoners without cars cross the North Circular barrier. Just imagine if the tube lines stopped at the North Circular, how divided London would be. That's what we have in cycling terms. We don't have the network, and we are wasting money telling people to use a mode of transport that is not practical.

The brilliant (but unanswerable) Freewheeler of Waltham Forest puts it like this, in reposnse to TfLs "Catch up with the bicycle" poster campaign:

And once the marketing of cycling using sexy models has persuaded you to try out cycling, what next? A world of crap. Like here on the B159 approaching High Road Leyton, last Friday. A signed cycling route on that meaningless farce which goes by the name of the London Cycle Network. Here, the cyclist catches up with London’s ever-growing gridlock. And it’s simply not possible to get past, which is why so many cyclists take to the pavement. There’s a vision of more and more people cycling combined with an absolute refusal to provide the safe, convenient cycling infrastructure that would accommodate mass cycling. Cognitive dissonance, in other words.

What parent would want their child to cycle to school on cycling infrastructure like this? It’s no use Transport for London marvelling at the extraordinary levels of car dependency in outer London when that dependency is nurtured in every aspect of the transport network.

My friend Paul Gannon, who had lived in The Netherlands for a time, and then came back to London and pioneered campaigning for segregated cycle routes in the UK at a time, in the late 1990s, when that was totally unfashionable with the cycle campaign establishment, indeed, looked upon with horror and opposed at every possible turn, used to say that the trouble is that the UK is, in cycling terms, like a partying teenager who won't do any work. We are always having the celebration of cycling first, but somehow never getting down to work on the environment needed to get ordinary people cycling.

That was more than 10 years ago, but, frustratingly, nothing changes. I have just seen this press release from "Team Green Britain". Don't worry if you can't be bothered to read all of it, just scroll through it, as it's just typical UK cycle promotion happy-clappy committee-written tosh.

15 June 2011

MPs on their bikes to kick-start Team Green Britain Bike Week 2011

Team Green Britain Bike Week, the UK’s biggest mass participation cycling event, launches on 15 June at the EDFEnergy London Eye, with the first of hundreds of ‘Bike Fixes’ which will roll out around the country between 18-26 June 2011. 

Spike Taylor, former Team GB chief mechanic, will kick off ‘Britain’s Biggest Bike Fix’ with Dawn Porter, Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Ed Clancy, and a number of MPs from various parties at the annual All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group bike ride. The ride will start at the EDF Energy London Eye and takes the riders on short trip around Westminster before finishing at the House of Lords.

Team Green Britain Bike Week is aiming for ‘Britain’s Biggest Bike Fix’, an ambitious attempt to mend over 10,000 bikes and liberate the multitude of unused bikes from sheds across the country – by encouraging people to dig them out, get punctures fixed, brakes adjusted and gears tuned at events around the country.

Phillip Darnton, Chairman of the Bicycle Association says: “We know that 77% of people in the UK own a bike, but only 14% use them regularly and a major barrier to people getting back on two wheels is often something as simple to fix as a dodgy brake or puncture. 

“So we want anyone with a bike, who wants to get it roadworthy, to help make Team Green Britain Bike Week become ‘Britain’s Biggest Bike Fix’. We are urging new and lapsed cyclists to check out www.bikeweek.org.uk to find out details of their nearest event to re-discover how cycling helps you get fit, have fun and feel free”.

Dawn Porter, TV presenter and keen cyclist says: “Cycling is my favourite way to get around town but I never leave home without my trusty puncture repair kit and Allen key! I encourage everyone to get to a Team Green Britain Bike Week event to pick up a few useful cycle maintenance tips and take advantage of the bike fixes to help you make the most of cycling in the summer months”.

This is the second year in which Team Green Britain, founded byEDF Energy in 2009, has supported Bike Week. Team Green Britain is an online community that aims to enable people to live in a more sustainable way. Team Green Britain is now comprised of over one million members. Team Green Britain and Bike Week are again working together to inspire Britons to reduce their carbon footprint and promote low carbon transport solutions to a wider audience than ever before.

Gareth Wynn, Group Director, 2012 Programme at EDF added “As the first Sustainability Partner of London 2012, EDF Energy founded Team Green Britain to help Britons reduce their carbon footprints ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Travelling contributes significantly to most people’s carbon footprint, but cycling is a low carbon way to get around, plus it can be enjoyable and help you get fit at the same time. We’re hoping that Team Green Britain Bike Week will help people get back on their bikes, helping them reduce the carbon footprint of their travel in the long term”. 

Team Green Britain Bike Week runs from 18-26 June 2011 and is for everyone from total novices to passionate cyclists. The opportunity to get your bike fixed is just one of the attractions of the events – to find details of your nearest event visit www.bikeweek.org.uk.

In 2011 Team Green Britain Bike Week is funded by EDF Energy and the cycling industry via Bike Hub. For more information about Team Green Britain, and advice and ideas to help you save energy and money, visit www.teamgreenbritain.org.

Who are "Team Green Britain"?. I looked on their website to try to discover, but under the link, "What is Team Green Britain?", instead of just telling me who they are, they insisted on presenting me with a mind-numbingly soppy and banal video involving conspicuously multicultural people waving green union flags. But elsewhere I read:"Team Green Britain was founded by EDF Energy, the UK’s largest low-carbon electricity producer, and London 2012." So they are a kind of quango funded by one of the near-monopoly utility companies. Which explains, I suppose, why the have escaped incineration in this government's famous "bonfire of the quangos". EDF of course wouldn't support incineration, because they are trying to de-carbonise us. That's why they generate most of their electricity from nuclear, then promote wasting it on light pollution:

Team Green Britain Website: just look at all that light pollution in the background. I don't call that "green".

Well, why do I say, so insultingly, that their press release above is "a load of tosh"? Because it is. It patronising rubbish to suggest that the reason, or even "a reason", for the low levels of cycling in the UK is that people do not know how to mend a puncture; that bikes are languishing in garages up and down the country (as they undoubtedly are) simply because of want of a bit of 3-in-1 oil. While it is true that many bike owners will not know an Allen key from a sprocket, is it really the case that they they do not know how to open their purses to pay a man in dirty overalls who does? Do they not know how to find a bike shop, or how to use a plastic payment card? I am sorry, I cannot swallow this claptrap. The reason people leave bikes languishing in sheds is not because they cannot fix them up. As the recent study by academics at Lancaster University confirmed, the reason is because they don't have a safe and pleasant environment in which to cycle. In a phrase:


IT'S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID.

The reason I have just typed in capitals, is because I am trying to shout. I am angry about this.

IT'S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID!!!


That's better. Except that it's not, really. Because there is this Environment Issue Avoidance Industry operating in UK cycling. Freewheeler noticed it in his devastating critique of the Brent Biking borough Report, where he commented:

This MVA Consultancy report does a professional job of identifying the poor condition of cycling in Brent. However, it doesn’t diagnose it because it is incapable of understanding the reasons for it, and therefore its cures for the condition are rather like medical cures of the pre-modern era – a mixture of quackery and superstition. All the traditional cycling folk remedies are here – cycle training, signposting, promotional activities, recycling old bikes – and none of them will save the patient.

It has been much the same for decades, as David Henbrow noted, looking back in 2010 at the British National Cycling Strategy from 1996.

The longer Team Green Britain, or any of the other organisations in the Environment Issue Avoidance Industry that is most of UK cycle campaigning (and, yes, this means you, CTC and CCN) keeps wittering on about how people are not cycling because they "lack training", or "lack confidence on the roads", or "don't know what to wear in wet weather" or "can't find the right routes" or "lack the skills to repair a bike", or any of these other bits of patronising tosh, the longer we delay solving the problem, the more years go by with derisory levels of cycling in the UK, the more money we waste on ineffective cycle promotion and pointless studies of cycling, the more people take up cycling and then quickly give it up again, the more people die of avoidable obesity-related health conditions and from the effects of pollution, the more we destroy our cities and countryside with motorways and concrete and car-parking, the more we live in de-humanised car-centric communities, the longer we fail to get to grips with transport-related CO2 emissions leading to more global warming.

Please sign up to the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain's campaign for proper, effective cycle infrastructure in the UK.