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Newcastle Cycling Campaign slams new city 'start cycling' initiative: just give us proper infrastructure

Dr Bike sessions and beginner sessions don't work if the infrastructure isn't there, says NCC...

Newcastle cycle campaigners say that without paying for infrastructure changes, a city-wide drive to get more people on bikes is bound to fair.

Newcastle City Council’s Cycling in the City project is focused on addressing the barriers to cycling and will aim to encourage people to give it a try - but some campaigners say it’s just the same old tired attempts.

Katja Leyendeker, chair of the Newcastle Cycling Campaign, said that the infrastructure had to come first.

“We have being doing the exact same things, like Dr Bike sessions and talking people into cycling, for 20 years,” Ms Leyendeker told the Chronicle Live.

“It’s nothing new and it won’t work unless it is coupled with actual changes to our environment and highway infrastructure.

“They need to do something to make it safer for people who want to cycle before encouraging them to go out there and cycle to work or to the shops.

“There is a need for major infrastructure changes and engineering solutions on the roads.”

However long time cycling advocate, Carlton Reid - who also lives and works in the Newcastle area - thinks the council should be given credit for its efforts to encourage more people in the city to cycle. 

"Many cycle advocates have long campaigned to get local authorities to stop promoting cycling with MAMILs in hi-vis and helmets. It’s very much worth praising Newcastle City Council for taking a more inclusive approach. It’s fabulous to see a council portray cycling as both normal and aspirational. Naturally, this doesn’t mean we should take our eyes off the ball and allow the council to instal shoddy infrastructure.

"But it’s important for cycle advocates to be positive. There’s a place for negative campaigning to highlight road justice, but let’s help spread the joy and freedom, too. Current cyclists cycle despite the sometimes crap infrastructure and we need to see political will to change things for the better. By portraying cycling as something for everyone Newcastle City Council is helping to create the atmosphere where true change is more likely.

"Infrastructure provision is important but what we also need are the "multi-faceted, mutually reinforcing set of policies” so brilliantly described by John Pucher and Ralph Buehler’s influential 2008 report Making Cycling Irresistible. http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/Irresistible.pdf  They are two of the world’s leading academics in this field. The report stresses: “The most important approach to making cycling safe and convenient … is the provision of separate cycling facilities along heavily travelled roads and at intersections …”

"Critically, they add: “ … separate facilities are only part of the solution.” This point cannot be repeated often enough.

"Pucher and Buehler explain further: "Dutch, Danish and German cities reinforce the safety, convenience and attractiveness of excellent cycling rights of way with extensive bike parking, integration with public transport, comprehensive traffic education and training of both cyclists and motorists, and a wide range of promotional events intended to generate enthusiasm and wide public support for cycling … The key to the success of cycling policies in the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany is the coordinated implementation of [a] multi-faceted, mutually reinforcing set of policies.”

"We need to encourage all of the measures that encourage cycling, and that includes marketing, when done well."

Newcastle has been the beneficiary of some Cycle City Ambition funding in 2013- to the tune of £5.7m which is supposed to help provide new and better cycling routes. 

However much of the money is being spent on training cycling and walking champions and supporting low activity families to try cycling and walking.

Professor Eugene Milne, Newcastle’s director of public health, said: “As part of the council’s new public health role, we see the investment in this programme as a key initiative to engage our residents in more physical activity which is both healthy and fun.

“We’re also being extremely cost-effective by using our own council vehicles, which travel all over the city every day, to help promote the project.”

There are also beginner cycling sessions and maintenance courses.

Coun Jane Streather added: “We know there are specific issues that need to be addressed to make it easier, safer and more pleasant for people to cycle and walk around our city and this programme addresses these issues and will help boost the amount of Newcastle residents who cycle as part of their everyday lives.” 

You can find out more about Newcastle's, Cycling in the City Project via it's Facebook page.
 

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10 comments

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pmanc | 9 years ago
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As much as I respect Carlton and the amazing work he's done I'm a bit disappointed at his take on this (and I've told him so).

Cycle parking, training, and so on is (relatively) easy, and that's why it's already happening up to a point, but not making any real difference. Certainly, good cycle facilities should initially target progressive urban areas - such as university towns - where there's already an appetite for it and you can grow things from there, rather than imposing bad cycling infra on unwilling suburban daily-mail readers (or whoever). There are many places where people already want to cycle, they don't need propaganda.

But once you've done the hard bit and created proper safe space for cycling then filling in the gaps - parking, lessons at school, public transport integration etc - is even easier and far more effective. As his own Pucher/Buehler quote states, these measures reinforce the infrastructural change.

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harrybav | 9 years ago
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Seems to me that if they took $5.7m and then changed their minds about building the infra, the cash should go back to find an infra-building use elsewhere.

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darrenleroy | 9 years ago
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All the training 'initiatives' in the world are ineffective if there isn't infrastructure. If you build it, they will come.

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HarrogateSpa | 9 years ago
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Quote:

other than numpty drivers i've never had a problem with the roads or infrastructure

The point of good cycling infrastructure is to design out the opportunity for numpty drivers to intimidate people. Some confident adults are prepared to take their chances in the traffic, but only safe infrastructure leads to mass cycling, with everyone feeling that they can do it.

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bikecellar | 9 years ago
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Bring back Tyne and Wear County Council and a integrated plan for transport within the region.

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gazza_d | 9 years ago
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Newcastle has bundles of cash to spend, so much so that other Tyneside LAs have complained that they've been starved of funds as a result.

Yet apart from a few PDFs of drawings little if anything has been seen of any ambition to actually put anything in concrete.

Newcastle cycling campaign is vocal but fair, but is having to kick and shame the council into any sort of action. All power to them for that. It's proving to be a hard tough war which needs serious stamina.

I think the CCAF should have been split across the Tyneside LAs and focussed on broader strategic traffic-free routes between the various urban centres as well as within Newcastle itself.

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Chasseur Patate | 9 years ago
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Spot on.

Our infrastructure is absolutely awful and any plans to get more people riding are fucked from the start because of it.

Problem is, recent evidence indicate the absolute buffoonery of Newcastle and Gateshead councils with regard to transport infrastructure. The monumental cluster of road works show how truly awful they are at planning and their ridiculous short sightedness.

£5.7 million and they have no idea what to do with it. Moreover, do we really trust them to do it properly? Clowns.

Avatar
Stumps replied to Chasseur Patate | 9 years ago
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Chasseur Patate wrote:

Spot on.

Our infrastructure is absolutely awful and any plans to get more people riding are fucked from the start because of it.

Problem is, recent evidence indicate the absolute buffoonery of Newcastle and Gateshead councils with regard to transport infrastructure. The monumental cluster of road works show how truly awful they are at planning and their ridiculous short sightedness.

£5.7 million and they have no idea what to do with it. Moreover, do we really trust them to do it properly? Clowns.

Completely disagree, i've cycled through Newcastle for many years and to be honest other than numpty drivers i've never had a problem with the roads or infrastructure.
As for road works it's no different from most other cities / towns.

Avatar
Chasseur Patate replied to Stumps | 9 years ago
0 likes
stumps wrote:
Chasseur Patate wrote:

Spot on.

Our infrastructure is absolutely awful and any plans to get more people riding are fucked from the start because of it.

Problem is, recent evidence indicate the absolute buffoonery of Newcastle and Gateshead councils with regard to transport infrastructure. The monumental cluster of road works show how truly awful they are at planning and their ridiculous short sightedness.

£5.7 million and they have no idea what to do with it. Moreover, do we really trust them to do it properly? Clowns.

Completely disagree, i've cycled through Newcastle for many years and to be honest other than numpty drivers i've never had a problem with the roads or infrastructure.
As for road works it's no different from most other cities / towns.

You must have missed the combined circus that was the Central Station / Gateshead interchange / A1 mess then. A lesson in calamitous planning leading to horrific tailbacks and ratrunning around domestic areas.

Honestly, If you think Newcastle and Gateshead cycling infrastructure is any good you need to look to other cities. It's absolutely awful and always has been. You are not going to increase people cycling to work with a few lessons when the main problem is it's so difficult to ride safely at peak traffic times.

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sponican | 9 years ago
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Typo in paragraph one - should it read "bound to fail" not "bound to fair"?

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