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Controversy over Bournemouth & Norwich active travel & safety initiatives

Councils accused of wasting money to try and get people out of cars and improve cycling safety

Are unconventional local government measures to encourage active travel, including cycling, and improve cycle safety a waste of money in these straitened times? That’s the question being asked in Bournemouth and Norwich after their councils launched unusual projects to encourage cycling and safety.

Bournemouth council has been hanging bright yellow tags with safety advice for drivers and cyclists on car wing mirrors. Norwich City Council has announced it will fit electronic detectors to lampposts so people can see how far they are riding or walking as part of a project to get people out of their cars.

The Bournemouth signs offer some simple advice for cyclists and drivers for cyclists, the triangular flier suggests:

  • Be visible
  • Follow the Highway Code
  • Always indicate your intentions
  • Respect the needs of pedestrians

And for drivers:

  • Always look twice for cyclists
  • Give cyclists space
  • Always indicate your intentions
  • Respect the needs of cyclists

According to the Bournemouth Daily Echo some cyclists and drivers have praised the initiative.

Jason Falconer, Sustrans schools ‘Bike It’ officer in the Bournemouth and Poole area, who suffered serious head injuries when he was hit by a car in 2012, said: “They are reasonable and simplistic and I’m fully in support.”

But the notices have been left as litter in car parks, and local taxi drivers are unimpressed.

Ashley Miller, chairman of the Bournemouth Station Taxi Association, said some of his fellow drivers believe they are ineffective.

“They said: ‘What a total waste of money’,” he said.

Bournemouth council has distributed 2,210 leaflets on cars in council car parks since November. The council plans to give out a further 2,281.

Ian Kalra, head of transportation services, said the leaflets are part of the Getting About project aimed at encouraging more people to cycle.

“These information leaflets are just one element of the Look Out campaign aimed at reminding motorists and cyclists of their responsibility as a road user,” he said.

“It is important that we create a mutual respect between different road users.”

Mr Kalra added: “We hope people will take notice of the message and act on it, making our roads safer for everyone.”

High-tech Norwich active travel scheme

Meanwhile in Norwich, a poll by the Eastern Daily Press has given a resounding thumbs-down to a plan to install electronic detectors on lampposts so people can log their walking or cycling distance.

Norwich City Council will spend £60,000 from a Department of Health grant to set up the system, which it expects 15,000 people to use. Participants are likely to compete for prizes for those who walk or cycle the most, though the details are yet to be worked out.

Cards that work with the system, to be run by health IT company Intelligent Health, will be available from doctors’ surgeries and libraries.

City council leaders hope schools and businesses will check online to see who can walk the furthest and most regularly.

In a similar scheme in Caversham in Berkshire, a primary school won £6,000 in library books for its pupils topping the table.

But a poll in the Eastern Daily Press has come out over 80 percent against the scheme. Asking the question “Do you think that this idea is money well spent?” the paper found 84 percent of readers responding in the negative.

Norwich City Council sees the project as an investment in the health and wellbeing of Norwich citizens, according to council leader Brenda Arthur.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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9 comments

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northstar | 10 years ago
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Predictable but not shocking response.

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levermonkey | 10 years ago
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Has anyone else noticed that yet again Taxi drivers are rubbishing a campaign aimed at road safety and mutual respect.

"Ashley Miller, chairman of the Bournemouth Station Taxi Association, said some of his fellow drivers believe they are ineffective.“They said: ‘What a total waste of money’,” he said."

Funny that, coming from supposedly professional drivers!

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A V Lowe | 10 years ago
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In 1995 Glasgow began putting cycle parking stands in on the street, highly visible and often in response to a request, or an obvious demand from having bikes locked to nearby railings and lampposts.

Every year they have installed 200-400 stands, all to a standard spec, but ordered from any supplier who quoted to the spec (which avoids having the cheap quotes delivering thin, badly finished stands because the order was placed on price alone).

At one location in 1995 there was a solitary bike locked to a bollard, and now there is a covered block of on-street bike parking for 48 bikes, it is often filled to capacity. At another location I photographed the single original stand parked to 350% of capacity with 7 bikes. There are now cycle stands on each corner at that junction, all well filled.

Glasgow monitored a selection of the locations to see how many bikes were being parked, and notably the stand fill up during the day and empty at night (apart from the ones outside places like GFT and CCA, where people go out for the night) figures indicating growth (in bike count) of over 30% per year were noted, and as someone who has cycled in Glasgow since 1976 I can confirm that there has been an enormous growth in utility cycling, especially along the main road commuting corridors.

There have been other interventions, and perhaps the most dramatic impacts have been the river bridges which 'connected', in one case where the Motorway bridge did not provide convenience for pedestrian and cycle traffic (after a 25 year wait it eventually arrived).

So public cycle parking is a key way to increase cycle use - people see the bikes of others and realise that they can also use a bike.

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FluffyKittenofT... | 10 years ago
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It does sound like a waste of money, to be honest.

I just don't see anyone paying much attention - especially to such vague and generic advice as "respect the needs of cyclists".

And "Give cyclists space"? How _much_ space, exactly? Most drivers give about an inch between their wing mirror and the bike's handlebars - they presumably think that is sufficient.

Why not just hand out fliers saying "do good things, don't do bad things"? Be about as effective.

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Farky | 10 years ago
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mmm, Norwich scheme seems like a Strava type scheme.

Anyone found Strava increased activity in non-participants?
Im sure the prizes etc WILL do just this, but then what?

Investment in infrastructure wouldve been better first but I cant say this is a bad way of spending funds you wouldnt otherwise get.

Not-surprised the general population here in Norwich didnt agree. Would be better looking at typical readership before relying on those figures.

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birzzles | 10 years ago
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these schemes seem a little odd, especially the electronic one, that almost seems like an April Fool. However in south oxfordshire there a quite lanes with posts marking them as such. These have often been vandalised by those who appear to think such spending is wasteful, this seems ironic.

It is strange how some people seem to violently believe spending on schools and hospitals is good, whereas this kind of community spending is bad. But actually i personally get much more benefit from the latter than i have ever received from the former.

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bikeandy61 | 10 years ago
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By toss I assume you either put it in a bin close by or take it home and bin it there?  7

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fatbastard | 10 years ago
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Don't Smart phones have the ability to keep a track of your walking/cycling distance via Apps/GPS? Spending money on cycle lanes rather than Flyers on windscreens (which I never read and go straight in the bin) would be a better use of tax payers money.
Maybe now that Cycling is taking off at last, the DofT should make Cycling Awareness much more prominent in the Driving Test. Just a thought.

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Angelfishsolo | 10 years ago
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 102

How many people ever bother to look at things left on their cars?

Anything placed on mine is tossed without a second glance (unless it is a parking fine, obviously  19 )

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