The Birmingham Mail has thrown its weight behind the city's bid for £17 million of cycling funding - launching its own Cycle City campaign.
The campaign aims to showcase the people and businesses that are already making use of existing cycle inrastructure, while highlighting the need for more.
Birmingham Mail Editor in Chief David Brookes said: “Cycling is an activity which can transform lives.
“It gets people out of their cars, provides exercise and has a really beneficial effect.
“But it is clear that people need more than just encouragement to take the plunge.
“If successful this bid would lead to a revolution on the roads, offering safer routes, drastically improved facilities and the chance to make commuters feel cycling to work is a genuine option.”
Council cycling champion Councillor James McKay told the Birmingham Mail: “If we only ever do these things year-by-year, we’re never going to be able to make real progress. In the past we weren’t thinking about that really long-term transformational stuff.
“It will always be about the softer stuff like bike training and bike facilities, but never about infrastructure because three, four or five years isn’t enough to deal with that.”
Plans for the cash include:
* Introducing marked cycle lanes and shared-use footways along eight of the main routes into the city,
* Upgrading and extending off-road “green routes”, including the Rea Valley, Cole Valley and Tame Valley, for leisure cycling and commuting,
* Making extensive improvements to towpaths along the canal network, to make them suitable for all-weather cycling,
* Significantly extending Birmingham’s 20mph zones,
* Creating city centre cycle routes, a bike hire scheme, similar to London’s “Boris Bikes”, and new bike parking and hubs.
While two or perhaps three cities are set to benefit from £30 million of “Cycle City Ambition” funding announced by transport minister Norman Baker in January, the number of bids is believed to run well into double figures, including submissions from Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield.
Birmingham is not currently top of the league table, as its numbers of regular cyclists has not risen in recent years, but is faring better than Nottingham, where numbers have dropped.
Birmingham City Council has set up a web page where you can register your support for Birmingham's Cycling Revolution at http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/bcr.
With the old route I hope they bigger it up too. Sadly they'll probably do that but with a vowel change.
Sean Kelly, assuming you mean him by the rattling pockets, /did/ fail tests in his career.
I think this incident has angered the police, such that this driver will face further sanction. We've created a monster here.
Took my thru axle bike abroad in one. It was a couple of years ago and I can't remember how I did it but you can attach the wheels with skewers...
for me its the lack of sanctions for traffic offences in the first place thats the problem, Mikey wouldnt have to do what he does at all, if people...
The UK has had a few black cycling champions. Not long after Maurice was gaining recognition on the track, Charlie Reynolds, also from South London...
Common sense at last
And tandems...
Car crashes into wall behind Natwest in Winchester https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/24216676.photos-car-crashes-wa...
One way to find out is to put a member of the driver's family on the bike and ask them to repeat the manoeuvre.