£140 million for Cycling

[John the Monkey]

£140 million for Cycling (of which £110 million is new funding)


DfT announces record £140m Government investment in cycling
The cash injection - boosting the importance of Cycling England - was announced earlier today by transport secretary Ruth Kelly

Article on BikeBiz.

 

[John the Monkey]

Except its only £110 million of new money - not £140 million.

Title amended accordingly.

 

[Danny]

I look forward to seeing Ruth Kelly on a bike - or thinking about it, perhaps not

 

[dmoan]

<Short-sighted & selfish alert>

£140 million to get a load of kids to cycle to school on NCN cyclepaths! Give me and guys like Papercorn2000 half that amount and immunity from prosecution and we will make the roads safe with flamethrowers and rocket launchers. No more cycle paths - get grown up drivers out of their cars and riding on the roads

</Short-sighted & selfish alert>

Sorry. Good news for English schoolkids - I hope the Northern Ireland Assemby factors in a few quid for something useful for kids here.

 

[John the Monkey]

Hopefully the nippers will be on some bits of the NCN that are one road as well. They'll be the drivers of tomorrow, and possibly may influence their parents, I guess.

(Rocket launcher plan should definitely be plan b, mind...)

 

[jonesy]

The explicit aim of 'Bikeability'- the National standard child cycle training is to give the next generation the skills and confidence to ride their bikes on today's roads.

Level 1 is off-road, but that is just to learn how to handle a bike. Level 2 and 3 are in traffic.
http://www.bikeability.org.uk/professionals/course_content/

 

[mickle]

[BikeBiz] The funding increase will:

* allow an extra 500,000 10 year-olds across England to take part in Bikeability cycle training by 2012, equipping them to cycle safely and responsibly

* build another 250 Safe Links to Schools, connecting around 500 more schools to the National Cycle Network. Many schools with links have already doubled the number of pupils cycling to school.

* create up to a further 10 Cycling Demonstration Towns in England, as well as the first large Demonstration City. This will mean nearly 3 million people will have the chance to benefit from best practice and promotion of cycling. [BikeBiz]




The 'Demonstration towns' programme costs £3 million per town (over three years) if it's the same as Derby, Exeter, darlington et al. So that'll be £30 million then.

Which leaves £110 million split between 250 'safe links' and training for 500,000 ten year olds. The training is over four years if it starts this year. However you slice it, it's a big lump of cash.

I'm a cycle trainer. Tee hee