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A FAIR DEAL FOR THE MOTORIST |
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Blocking the road
to buses, cars, fire engines, ambulances, etc? MORE EQUAL THAN
OTHERS? A personal view by Brian I’ll start by declaring an interest. I once was a keen
cyclist, willingly doing a 30 mile round trip for my job in Bucks - before my
bike was vandalised. But I also see cycling used as a Trojan Horse for
anti-driver policies. Of late, my part of London has seen a rash
of ‘Boris Bike’ stands spring up. Many have resulted in a loss of vital car
parking space, despite my council’s stated plans to provide more - 70 new
bays could deprive us of maybe 200-300 parking spaces, as those in the road seem
to lose maybe 5-6 parking spaces in areas with limited parking. This is not
universally popular (see comments). Our transport supremo says it is not costing our residents
a penny, but the cost, £2m, paid by developers’ for community improvements, could have been better used. [Right way, wrong way – Manbre Rd, W6 and
Crabtree Lane, SW6] [NB photos taken before the start of local
Boris Bike hire] 6.8 million people cycle once a month, a rise of 1 million in four
years, according to British
Cycling. It’s certainly trendy enough for the PM and London Mayor’s
photo-ops, and when I happened to be in Derbyshire just after the new
Transport Secretary was appointed, his local paper pictured him cycling. 4 out of 5 cyclists allegedly also drive, so the anti-car
tendency probably is a small but very vocal minority. Green Party rep and
former London Deputy Mayor Jenny Jones demanded £300m be spent on cycling.
Mayor Boris Johnson’s cycling fund
is now at £913 million. The latest addition being electric
bikes costing £700 apiece for those who don’t need the ‘health benefits’.
This when untreated potholes affect wider road users...
In September 2013, the Mayor’s
Cycling Commissioner, Andrew Gilligan was
quoted
“...we have to get people used to the idea of taking space away from cars and
giving it to bicycles... It's a big change and you can't just throw it in overnight.
The danger is that if you do that there's a backlash and you end up having to
take it out again." Yes - under a Conservative Mayor, elected after declaring
he was against Red Ken’s hierarchy that put drivers last, but who refused to
put treating road users equally in his Transport Strategy and making it
binding on boroughs. The Mayor’s Roads Task Force, which included the London
Director of cycling campaign Sustrans, has proposed a dangerous direction
in social engineering – cycling growth targets. Boris’s transport commissioner, Sir Peter Hendy, had to
declare interests
regarded as influencing his actions. Interesting
that he saw fit to suspend his membership of a rail group while working on
Crossrail, but not his otherwise relevant Sustrans membership! Cycling is being justified on grounds of space efficiency,
with claims – after a count in Central London – that for a unit of road space
taken up by a bus passenger, cycles take 3.7 and cars 14. That comparison may
true in a limited sense (e.g. static) but becomes much less valid when you
consider the bigger picture. (Source: Mayor’s Roads Task Force & TFL
response set
of documents). Besides, if road space and throughput are so important,
why have the authorities taken away road space and slowed traffic so much?
Why are they keen on fostering overdevelopment and a population explosion
that adds to the pressure on space? CAMBRIDGE
BLUES Promoting cycling has become an
obsession for some. Some Cambridge campaigners are calling
for a prominent display of cycle-themed public artworks on all key routes
into Cambridge. These would “go beyond
the stereotype of the male cyclist” and reflect “psychological and cultural
barriers to cycling” and “conflicts on the roads”. The art would also be
“designed to reduce car traffic speeds”. (The RAC Foundation actually made
approving noises). The London Mayor’s office was flooded with complaints
after this year’s gratuitous road closures for RideLondon, a jolly which
impacted residents, businesses and holidaymakers, and resulted in some Surrey
farmers being ‘kettled in’
their homes from 5am to 7pm. (Transport for London denied receiving any
complaints!). At least DfT rejected
the Get Britain Cycling report produced by some MPs earlier this year, which
sought to social-engineer the proportion of national journeys made by bike
from 2% to 10% and then 25%. As cycling numbers increase, so unfortunately do
casualties, producing a demand for roads to be reengineered and large
vehicles either banned or fitted with extra equipment. ‘Us and them’
activists use cycling to demand anti-car measures like 20mph
limits that won’t really apply to them. ‘BLOCKMAIL’?
A recent protest lead to about 1,000 cyclists blocking
a busy street outside the TFL HQ in Southwark, and calling for another £600m
to be spent on cycling, and a segregated cycle network
over six foot wide. The protest came after a police operation,
Operation Safeway, cracked down on lawless cyclists, although it seemed to
concentrate more on drivers, judging by the offence
count. The organiser was one Donnachadh McCarthy, a ballet dancer
turned eco-fanatic,
and was even seen as too way out
for the LibDems! He is also one of the
luminaries
of ‘OccupyLondon’, who are rather fond of blocking thoroughfares, and run
such delights
as ‘Meditation flashmob to end ecocide’. He has said that to match Holland we need to
spend £1.5 billion annually on cycling (NB the ‘cost benefit’ link given
doesn’t work). After this showpiece, Boris is minded
to spend ‘a billion’. LOWERING
THE STANDARD – ENCOURAGING ‘US AND THEM’? The freesheet Evening Standard has regular dramatic
headlines on casualties and articles with titles that don’t help to break
down barriers between road users.
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After it was adopted as Liberal Democrat policy, Bright slated
local
MP Julian Huppert’s bid to make motorists automatically liable for any
crash with cyclists as “very silly”. He added that in Cambridge, cyclists were often to blame for collisions with cars.
Huppert whined that ‘strict
liability’ would only apply to civil liability, in cases of compensation
whereas criminal prosecutions would rely on proof of guilt! |
The Government might usefully consider policy going beyond
the Highway Code. Child
pedestrians must be taught the Green Cross Code before going out
unsupervised, and new motorcyclists need Compulsory Basic Training by law,
but cyclists have only been covered by a recommendation.
I personally find Ken Livingstone’s idea of licensing and
number plates a bit OTT when there are opportunities to use common sense and
develop good attitudes. Above all we need a bit of mutual respect.
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