Chris Boardman says MPs “should be embarrassed” & don’t “even know the most basic of facts” about cycling

I got exactly the same response from MP Vickers. Basically the MPs are there to throw in an idea (probably thought of by someone else), and if its a flier then they will take the credit, if its a duffer then issue statements such as these.

To be honest it sounds like a blinding job!

Simmo72 wrote:

Out of curiosity, would you contribute to a voluntary fund that guaranteed it was used solely to supplement cyclist safety projects and spending agreed by a 3rd party committee (which I would like to include Mr Boardman).

And who would be on this committee, sustrans????

Think of it like this, why do we need a separate fund? We all pay tax, many of us pay VED now, we pay VAT when we buy bikes, as it is the sum spent on cycle infrastructure is less than the amount the government raises in VAT on bikes.

If we start to consider the health savings and congestion reduction caused by not driving!!!! we should be getting paid to ride!

Why is there no mention of cycling or walking in the government infrastructure plan? How do you get it in that plan without central government support, a Quango isn't going to cut it. We have a transport committee that have clearly shown themselves to know nothing about transport! take a body even further removed? It would be nothing more than a talking shop.

Even taking a slightly wider view on transport, where is the joined up thinking regarding public transport? Try getting buses between counties for instance, in many places it doesn't happen. Or why do Stagecoach, First take all the profitable routes and leave the subsidy dependent routes to the local tax payer....

mrmo wrote:

And who would be on this committee, sustrans????

That made me chuckle.

I suppose someone would have to make sure the coffee and tea at the meetings was Fair Trade...

Simmo72 wrote:

'Cycling doesn't cause congestion' This really is not true, especially outside of the towns.

Often on my commute I get caught in a big tail back because a cyclist is on a busy road at rush hour and no one can get past? In part this is caused by drivers not having the skill to judge a safe gap and sitting behind unnecessarily.

If this number increases significantly, what will happen - even more hatred + less revenue for the government and more anger to cyclists, including me as I am sometimes one of those cyclists causing the backlog.

Then how much extra Co2 is caused by having bike generated tail backs and the excessive power used to overtake quickly? I often wonder how much this increases your Co2 saving commute.

It really isn't simple and that is why I would be prepared to pay an annual cost towards dedicated cycling schemes, but only if we do away with this stupid CO2 VED based tax. A toyota prius is generating wear and tear, more than others because it weighs more and why pretend its saving polar bears, its not. Build the ved into the cost of fuel, you use, you pay, you drive a big car, you pay more, you cycle more you pay less. don't penalise me because I can only afford a 5 year old car.

My car's older than yours.

If you look more closely at the urban commute, you'll realise that the actual delays you encounter are down to waiting times at junctions. Those waiting times are because vehicles have to queue at the junctions. Look at how many times those bicycles you wait to overtake then come past you at the junctions. Note also how many motor vehicles contain only one occupant (around 80% according to DfT research). Drivers who don't cycle will become frustrated while waiting to make an overtake of a slow moving cyclist, then hurry basically to get to the end of the queue. I see this all the time, whether I'm in my car, on my motorbike or on my bicycle.

Severe congestion is a function of having too many motor vehicles in too little road space. The UK has the highest number of registered vehicles/km of road of any major western nation. That's why the urban commute takes a long time. If more drivers switched to cycling, the congestion would lessen and the commute would be quicker because you wouldn't have the long waiting times at junctions that cause delays.

The urban commute makes up the greatest percentage of traffic movements. So delays to motor vehicle journeys outside of towns and cities to motorists caused by cyclists are very much the minority.

Yes, a lot of people delude themselves into thinking they're saving polar bears by driving a Prius. But bear in mind too that the average fuel consumption of modern vehicles is declining as they become more efficient, which is why taxation of fuel is only a short-term measure that has already been identified as such by transport ministries the world over.

I wouldn't be prepared to pay an annual cost to ride my bicycle so as to benefit a small reduction in journey times for a small percentage of motor vehicle users. I know that by riding my bike, I'm saving the UK economy on a number of counts, as outlined in my earlier post and a number of others.

That is my point.

Simmo72 wrote:

Often on my commute I get caught in a big tail back because a cyclist is on a busy road at rush hour and no one can get past? In part this is caused by drivers not having the skill to judge a safe gap and sitting behind unnecessarily.

all you're doing is reaching a queue at a different point in your journey. unless, once you get to town, all those cars are magically transported somewhere else. they'll get in to town before you, tail back and you'll be behind them. the fact that you were stuck behind a cyclist for 30 seconds earlier on won't make a second of difference to your journey time in most cases. especially at rush hour.

i see this all the time. people overtake me, i overtake them, they get cross that they have to overtake me again, then i overtake them again, they get more cross, etc, etc. the fact is that your journey time in your car is almost entirely unrelated to what i do on my bike because the speed of my bike journey is almost entirely unaffected by traffic volume. you keep having to overtake me because my average speed is the same or better. if you just sat behind a bike instead of having to overtake it, a lot of the time it wouldn't make any difference at all.

bikes aren't the problem in cities. single-occupancy cars are the problem.

Simmo72 wrote:

'Cycling doesn't cause congestion' This really is not true, especially outside of the towns.

Often on my commute I get caught in a big tail back because a cyclist is on a busy road at rush hour and no one can get past? In part this is caused by drivers not having the skill to judge a safe gap and sitting behind unnecessarily.

If this number increases significantly, what will happen - even more hatred + less revenue for the government and more anger to cyclists, including me as I am sometimes one of those cyclists causing the backlog.

Then how much extra Co2 is caused by having bike generated tail backs and the excessive power used to overtake quickly? I often wonder how much this increases your Co2 saving commute.

It really isn't simple and that is why I would be prepared to pay an annual cost towards dedicated cycling schemes, but only if we do away with this stupid CO2 VED based tax. A toyota prius is generating wear and tear, more than others because it weighs more and why pretend its saving polar bears, its not. Build the ved into the cost of fuel, you use, you pay, you drive a big car, you pay more, you cycle more you pay less. don't penalise me because I can only afford a 5 year old car.

Often on any journey I make (other than the middle of the night) I am delayed by huge queues of traffic (often with cars alternately at the kerb or further out, thus making filtering on either side very difficult). The congestion is due to cars being too large and too numerous for the road (and they have gotten wider on average over the last couple of decades).

They drive down side-roads, overtake me, and then find they can't pass the car coming the other way, for example, and make me wait while they stop and try and maneuver past each other.

Its the cars that delay _everyone_. The idea that bikes significantly delay cars and cause more CO2 is nonsense. Its overwhelmingly the other way round. Cars constantly stop and start due to lights and other cars.

Perhaps VED should be rolled-up into fuel tax, I'm not 100% sure on the relationship between fuel-consumption and emissions though (I guess it must be a simple one for CO2, as the Carbon in petrol hasn't got anywhere else to go, but there ought to be a cost for all the other crap cars put out, and surely that can vary depending on the engine?).

But there also needs to be an element of congestion charging, because emissions is one cost, but the use of in-demand roads by such large vehicles is another. I think that is actually a more important issue than the cost of wear-and-tear. That roadspace is a scarce resource.

Dave Atkinson wrote:

Simmo72 wrote:

Often on my commute I get caught in a big tail back because a cyclist is on a busy road at rush hour and no one can get past? In part this is caused by drivers not having the skill to judge a safe gap and sitting behind unnecessarily.

all you're doing is reaching a queue at a different point in your journey. unless, once you get to town, all those cars are magically transported somewhere else. they'll get in to town before you, tail back and you'll be behind them. the fact that you were stuck behind a cyclist for 30 seconds earlier on won't make a second of difference to your journey time in most cases. especially at rush hour.

i see this all the time. people overtake me, i overtake them, they get cross that they have to overtake me again, then i overtake them again, they get more cross, etc, etc. the fact is that your journey time in your car is almost entirely unrelated to what i do on my bike because the speed of my bike journey is almost entirely unaffected by traffic volume. you keep having to overtake me because my average speed is the same or better. if you just sat behind a bike instead of having to overtake it, a lot of the time it wouldn't make any difference at all.

bikes aren't the problem in cities. single-occupancy cars are the problem.

Yeah that's the idealistic approach but it's easy to see how drivers are tempted to "yo-yo overtake" in slow traffic because if anything, it gives a more consistent spread of progress when stewing a traffic jam.

But single occupancy cars... mayyyn. It just occurred to me lately how perverted the idea is. Upwards of 1000kg of metal to move just ONE person, often over pretty small distances. Comes across very grim.

There is undoubtedly a use for cars, lol, but I guess the ever increasing petrol prices might be an opportunity to publicize cycling more as a way of getting around.

It all boils down to perception and awareness - even the best shops/services/products are of little use to someone if they are looked at from a skewed angle and/or people don't know about them.