Britons unmoved by pro-cycling campaigns

[Hilldodger]

sorry to badger you, but what was it that made Derby stand out from the rest?

I've only seen the results in Brighton and Aylesbury, and, despite much thought and great intentions you wouldn't describe either as making a breakthrough.

They worked with kids.

This included cycling to school (working alongside Bike It), building international standard BMX tracks and employing quality people to teach skills and most importantly, listened to what people were saying. If they needed advice (in our case special needs and events) they asked people who knew.

I'm just off down to Bath for a roadshow but will find more info for you next week.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Meanwhile, those pesky cyclists in Oxford, Cambridge, and increasingly in London, just keep on cycling without the segregated paths. ..

And we just don't give a damn!

I agree with dellzeqq, every new cyclist is a result and there seems to be much to be happy about. Every new person we help out onto the road is a success. Even on our small Freewheeling scale, we're growing at afabulous rate, we had 25+ turn-p last Thursday for a 15 mile pootle, they keep coming and each is a success and each person is an opportunity to make them see the bicycle as so much more than a 'fitness/hobby machine.
If we expect the revolution to happen overnight, we're misguided, it may not happen in our lifetime, but as some smart-arse once stated, 'Each Journey starts with a first step' and IMO we're already several steps in.

 

[Richard Mann]

Dave qualified his conclusion a bit under questioning (today). The four areas they studied "definitely would need segregation to get them on bikes", but they weren't necessarily typical, or where you'd start in a city (two "ethnically-diverse" / poor areas, two white middle-class outer suburbs).

Gentrifying inner suburbs that aren't the wrong side of a tricky junction would probably be a better place to start.

 

[jonesy]

Richard, are the results published anywhere yet? So far all I've seen is the Guardian article on it. Did they look at places with existing high levels of cycling? I'm always a bit concerned about putting too much weight on how people respond to hypothetical questions about what would make them change their travel behaviour, without also looking at what influenced the behaviour of those who have actually made that change.

 

[Richard Mann]

http://www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/research/society_and_environment/walking_and_cycling.php (outputs tab)

Dave's (and Griet's) part of the study is a very detailed talk-to-households in four specific areas (3 months in each area). Other parts of the research have done city-scale questionaires.

 

[MacB]

I think the 'truthfullness' of the answers would be my biggest concern and I'm not sure how surveys and stats can get beyond those to reflect reality. Even some enthusiasm towards cycling schemes will have, underlying it, the desire to get more cars off the road so that the respondee can drive more freely. I'd rate it as a similar effect to NIMBY, good ideas and all that but they don't really apply to ME.

 

[Mac66]

As far as I am aware the CTC and other national bodies have by and large camapigned on an 'integration' platform - share the road and all that jazz. The research seems to show that the fear of death (and perhaps exercise!) is the biggest inhibitor to people cycling and that separatation is the way to go.


Now I can dream of Copenhagen, but I have a nagging doubt that crap cycle lanes will be as good as separation gets here, at least as far as on-road cycling is concerned.

 

[sheddy]

One thing I did learn at the Leicester Conference was why no new towns are being added to the CTC Workplace challenge -
CTC are asking each Local Authority for £20-£30k to set up the town/counter webpage.

http://www.ctc.org.uk/desktopdefault.aspx?tabid=5313

 

[dellzeqq]

One thing I did learn at the Leicester Conference was why no new towns are being added to the CTC Workplace challenge -
CTC are asking each Local Authority for £20-£30k to set up the town/counter webpage.

http://www.ctc.org.u...aspx?tabid=5313

you're having a giraffe! They can't even set up their own website!!!!!!

(later edit) - for this! http://www.chichestercyclechallenge.org.uk/home

 

[sheddy]

Well thats what a CTC rep told me.
If anyone wants to give em a poke see http://www.challenge...it-works/public
It looks like CTC sub it out to a 3rd party

 

[Hilldodger]

One thing I did learn at the Leicester Conference was why no new towns are being added to the CTC Workplace challenge -
CTC are asking each Local Authority for £20-£30k to set up the town/counter webpage.

http://www.ctc.org.u...aspx?tabid=5313

What did you think to the Leicester conference in all honesty?

 

[sheddy]

Setting aside the issue that 'A 2 Day Conference' was actually Sunday afternoon plus rides (I don't know waht happened Sat evening) what I saw seemed mainly a lot of hot air, and some of it was just depressing (survey: no interest, cycle considered to be a toy etc)
However I guess the networking opportunities could make up for that.

The 4 town survey - http://www.cyclingcultures.org.uk/

The most interesting presentation for me was on the New New York City Cycling Infrastructure, where car lanes have been taken out to provide cycle space. If I think of any more I'll add at the weekend

 

[Richard Mann]

What did you think to the Leicester conference in all honesty?

The New York guy was fun/inspiring, but over-ran massively, and hacked into the time available for everything else. The academics gave almost apologetic presentations, which was weird.

Roger Geffen gave a strange presentation about getting people onto bikes one at a time (through cycle challenge etc).

I'd have liked a keynote from Streatham's finest, myself.