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This interview first appeared in Britain's only
weekly publication for cyclists - Cycling Weekly.
Keith Bingham's
reaction
Minister of Transport Dr Gavin Strang has admitted conditions for cyclists are not being improved fast enough. But he did also talk of giving money direct to cycling projects!
Story by Keith Bingham.
Only talk, mind, and sadly this interview at Dr Strang's offices at the Department of Environment, Transport and Regions was all too short to explore the matter further. Before he was whisked off to the House of Commons I think I glimpsed, in Dr Strang, a fair man who genuinely wants to solve the growing transport problems in the UK.
He is a former member of SPOKES, the Lothian Cycle Campaign Group, and this allegiance would suggest this Scot knows one end of a bike from the other. But others argue that as he came to the transport post from agriculture, he hasn't had time yet to get to grips with the new subject which embraces not only bikes and pedestrians, but cars, trucks, trains and planes, all bidding for a slice of the £3 billion transport budget.
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The National Cycling Strategy (NCS) sets out to quadruple cycling use by 2012, but there was no mention of the NCS in the recent consultation document, "Developing an integrated transport policy". This cost Labour a lot of Brownie points. So has Dr Strang any cycling cred? When I said to him conditions for cyclists are not being improved fast enough, he did not dodge the issue and replied: "I'll give you that." When I asked him if there were any plans to build a show-piece cycling development, he inspired hope by saying there was talk of creating what he called "vanguard cities". "There has been talk of pilot areas where in fact we would do exactly what you are saying. We would give them public money to go forward very quickly. Now most of that (money) has been geared to public transport, but the idea of doing it for cycleways is an interesting one, no question." But he added that legislation would be needed to do anything radical in this area.
But of course, I reminded myself, this is still only talk about the so-called "Vanguard Cities". Back to the here and now.
To be going on with, it would be nice to have tough laws to combat bad driving and speeding, and an eyesight test to weed out drivers who are as blind as bats. Speeding traffic is major deterrent to cyclists, I told him. Make the roads safer and there will be less of a need to create special facilities for cyclists. The government's "advice" to drivers to take more care is having minimal effect. I was disappointed by his response. Although Dr Strang said he saw it as a priority to enforce the speed limits in built-up areas, he saw no reason for reducing the speed limits in the countryside. Surely, if, as DoT figures suggest, 72 percent of drivers exceed the speed limits in built-up areas, a large proportion of them also drive too fast in the countryside? Clearly, Dr Strang has never been hassled by drivers belting by, inches away, at 50-60mph down country lanes! He was keen, he said, for traffic law to be enforced. But when asked if it should become a core police activity, he placed the emphasis on increasing the number of speed cameras. Speed cameras don't stop and book people on the spot, I wanted to say.
I was astonished that he didn't think it necessary to include a proper eye test as part of the driving test when, according to the Association of Optometrists (AoT), one-in-four drivers 8.4 million people have subnormal vision. The AoT claim that more than three million motorists are unfit to drive because they cannot see properly! "If we come across any evidence that shows this is a real source of accidents, we will act," said Dr Strang. "But we've no evidence that that's the case. If we get evidence that there is a real problem with people not being capable of seeing appropriate distances then we'll act. There's no question about that. There would be no justification at all for the government not taking action." Over to you, AoT.
I liked his idea of using money from congestion
charges or car parking to pay for local cycling initiatives. At present,
many authorities who want to improve road conditions for cyclists don't
have the cash to carry out the work. He said allowing local authorities
to keep their hands on money raised this way was relative to developing
an integrated transport policy. It was time for the $64,000 question.
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We are so near and yet still so far from creating a more balanced transport policy. And even if Dr Strang does know what he must do, there is a feeling that without the legislative powers to impose the changes that we know many people want, cycling initiatives will remain piecemeal. The mood right across the cycling campaign spectrum is one of disappointment that the new government is dragging its heels. Way back in 1968, former Minister of Transport Ernest Marples said: "There is a great future for the bicycle if you make the conditions right. If you make them wrong, there isn't any future." So where are we, 29 years later? To recap, let us recall that the Department of Transport u-turn on cycling a few years ago was the first most significant positive change in transport policy. Once they used to oppose cycling on the grounds that traffic made it unsafe! Now they promote cycling and campaign for slower traffic speeds.
They have also been party to a fine design guide for cycling facilities. But the last government failed to provide decent investment and the new government is hedging its bets. The biggest project of all is the 6000-mile Sustrans National Cycling Network, but this is driven by a charity not government. Sustrans received £43 million of lottery money towards the overall£180 million cost and their splendid network will eventually link most of the major cities and towns. Meanwhile, progress within these citadels is pitifully slow and all because of a cock-eyed government budget. Indeed, some of the cycling facilities that have been provided are third-rate and nowhere does the cyclist have right of way. Meanwhile there are drivers, ignorant of the law, who take the attitude that cyclists should use these mostly crappy lanes where they exist and not be on the road alongside. We will end up with the worst of both worlds and all because of a lack of overall planning and decent investment. The government needs to remind drivers that roads are not motor roads, that cyclists have a legal right to use them and not use adjacent cycle tracks if they choose not to. Afterall, when the M1 was constructed alongside the A1 no one said to drivers that they had to get off the A road!
There is a seachange in campaigning. The CTC is placing more emphasis on the need to create calmer traffic conditions rather than the need for cycle tracks or routes. They have never been happy with cycle tracks, fearing erosion of our rights to the highway as a consequence. However, the key to implementing change is for the government to have the guts to install a dictator and give him or her the power to zap into place the conditions the cycling lobby demands. Shopkeepers who protest that banning traffic will cost them business have to be ignored, as do home owners objecting to a cycle route past their front door if that route is a part of a whole. The Continental experience and indeed the experiences of businesses in pedestrian zones in Britain has proved that business improves in traffic-free areas. Afterall, look at the mighty institutions backing cycling and calling for traffic reduction. We have the British Medical Association on health grounds, the Confederation of British Industry on the grounds of cost - congestion is costing business£ millions - and the Royal Commission on Pollution.
All cry out for government to provide the required funding to make cycling happen. We have 23 million bicycleowners, we know that cycles have outsold cars year on year for nine years. We also know that 15 million of those cycles only ever get selected use because their owners view the roads as too dangerous. Meanwhile, traffic increases and with it pollution. Last October, it was reported that much of the South East was covered in a cloud of pollution far worse to health than that experienced in Paris earlier this year. The French reaction was to impose restrictions on cars in Paris and to make public transport free for the period. They reacted, they tried to do something. The British government did nothing.
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