Massive Investment In Cycling Announced...

[newfhouse]

Tories spending tens of billions on trains, buses, cycling, public transport infrastructure. The utter, utter bastards.

Depends how it is spent, surely?

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I'll bet most of the money will be spent on widening roads or building new ones "to improve bus journeys".

 

[steveindenmark]

So England is going to have less cycle paths than my local commune area 😁🚴 I cant wait to visit 😁🇩🇰

 

[mjr]

Simon MacMichael commented "In the final question of the debate, he confirmed to Ruth Cadbury that the spend on cycling is £350 million. That's the manifesto pledge. It's about £1,20 per person per year over the lifetime of this parliament."

Pathetic. That's rural-Norfolk-level 2010-2015 spending spreading to the whole country. A long way from even the £20/person/year starting point of the Get Britain Cycling report.

 

[mjr]

This says Boris got the amount wrong. Don't worry, it's still pathetic, just not quite as miniscule...


View: https://mobile.twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1227276467911843847


Now where can he have remembered a bogus bus £350m from?

 

[Drago]

I'm quite happy to cycle on the road - if Boris would like to spend the money filling in pot holes and punishing dangerous motorists then I'd be very happy with that.

 

[mjr]

I'm quite happy to cycle on the road - if Boris would like to spend the money filling in pot holes and punishing dangerous motorists then I'd be very happy with that.

As discussed previously, money needs spending to make more roads places that a lot more people than just the likes of us will cycle on, plus removing some cars will reduce the rate of pothole creation, maybe to a level where we stand a chance of catching up. Agree on the policing but that won't come from a DfT budget.

 

[HMS_Dave]

I'm quite happy to cycle on the road - if Boris would like to spend the money filling in pot holes and punishing dangerous motorists then I'd be very happy with that.

More motorists on the roads every year i can't see potholes ever being gotten on top of. However, if we could replace speed cameras with speed activated lasers to accurately disable speeding and distracted motorists that would be a start...🚗💣🎆

 

[Drago]

I'm all for speed sensitive dashboard tasers myself.

 

[lazybloke]

If Boris wants to promote cycling, and build HS2, perhaps the cyclepath could be reinstated in the design?

 

[Seevio]

If Boris wants to promote cycling, and build HS2, perhaps the cyclepath could be reinstated in the design?

It's not that bad an idea. The route will be flat and if they're buying the land anyway, a bit extra for a cycle path wont hurt too much.

There is a downside though. Your bike ride could end up in Birmingham. 😕

 

[Drago]

...or London.

Either way, it won't end well!

On a serious note, the original proposal for the HS2 cycle route was intriguing and clearly had the potential to be a cost effective cycle route of national significance. It's a shame it was dropped and is now being overlooked in the ironic clamour to introduce more safe cycling routes.

 

[mjr]

On a serious note, the original proposal for the HS2 cycle route was intriguing and clearly had the potential to be a cost effective cycle route of national significance. It's a shame it was dropped and is now being overlooked in the ironic clamour to introduce more safe cycling routes.

But of course, HS2 can't afford the £102m the cycleway would have cost because a £0.1bn increase would surely make Boris cancel it(!)

The cycleway would have returned about £5 benefit for each £ spent. The railway will struggle to return £1 for each £ and is being justified by capacity-building.

 

[straas]

There's no money in cycling unfortunately, or not to a measurable degree. We don't buy taxed fuel at the pumps, and don't pay yearly for tax, insurance, MOT's and maintenance.

Keeping cars on the road keeps contributions to the economy up.

 

[mjr]

There's no money in cycling unfortunately, or not to a measurable degree. We don't buy taxed fuel at the pumps, and don't pay yearly for tax, insurance, MOT's and maintenance.

Keeping cars on the road keeps contributions to the economy up.

Cyclists buy taxed fuel in food shops (more of which will stay in the local economy than the oil revenue) and I certainly pay my taxes and insurance and for maintenance. I doubt the government cut of a few £30 MOTs is worth the increased costs to the NHS from pollution, inactivity and injuries. More widely in economic terms, each road death is estimated to cost the economy £14m, so motoring has a mountain to climb to break even just on that.

Cycling is measurably good for local economies, with loads of studies like cyclists spend 40% in London shops than motorists. Why does the myth that motoring is economically better than cycling keep zombieing on? Its costs are massively more and its benefits are tiny.