Government provides £21m for National Cycle Network

burtthebike wrote:

Government to local authorities "you should spend 15% of transport budget on cycling and walking"

Government itself "We're spending 0.015% of transport budget on cycling and walking.  Why aren't the cyclists and walkers delighted?"

I'm not entirely convinced that £21m will be enough to pay for the projects listed...

Isn't £21m the sort of small change that pays for a ferry company with no ferries, that sort of thing? We could call it a "Grayling".

eg. "How much will resurfacing that half mile of motorway cost, Sir Humphrey?" "Oh, only a Grayling, minister. Barely anything."

brooksby wrote:

I'm not entirely convinced that £21m will be enough to pay for the projects listed...

Isn't £21m the sort of small change that pays for a ferry company with no ferries, that sort of thing? We could call it a "Grayling".

eg. "How much will resurfacing that half mile of motorway cost, Sir Humphrey?" "Oh, only a Grayling, minister. Barely anything."

It's a truly risible amount of money, scattered here and there, that will achieve very little.

It's a quarter of a cost of the proposed 4-mile Shrewsbury 'relief' road (for a town that already has a DC bypass) and less than Shropshire council wants to spend on refurbishing its Shirehall, a 1960s concrete bunker. The £54 million from the DfT is "part of a £1.8billion investment in schemes across the Midlands, as well as providing £176million in the past year for road maintenance and small transport projects" (LEP). That £54 million is a little over 2/3 of the estimated £71 million cost of the road. The council will have to find £17 million and must also fund any overspend (which is almost inevitable). The council also intends to build a 1-mile link road from the A5 to the western end of the NWRR, costing an additional £13 million.

This same council has spent £12 million of LEP grant money on tarting up roundabouts and a few pavements around the town. This work cannot possibly achieve its claimed purpose of being sustainable and providing "enhancements to pedestrian and cycle links to increase accessibility to the town centre for active and sustainable modes of transport" and "a highly accessible and connected town centre for pedestrians".

I'm citing my own council merely as an example of how much public money is pissed away on these projects. Further afield...

The 'emerald necklace' alongside the HS2 rail project that would provide a ROI of at least 5 times that of the line itself has been scrapped. It wasn't part of the HS2 project so councils would have to fund their own sections. Well that's not going to happen with cycle-unfriendly councils being starved of cash over the last 9 years.

Last month it was revealed that the M4 'relief' road that would wreck the Gwent Levels could cost as much £2 billion. But there's already one f..king motorway across there! The Welsh government has so far spent £44 million of taxpayers' money (that's £3 million per mile) just preparing for and running an inquiry into the proposals (BBC).

TfL are struggling to get dedicated cycle infrastructure in parts of London where councils and ill-informed councillors and even clergymen get NIMBY... which I guess is understandable, since who of us would prefer clean air, safer, more sociable and economically more prosperous streets when you can make them scary, noisy, smelly places crammed with toxic taxis and white vans?

And none of this is helped by stuffed shirts in the House of Lords like Robert Winston getting airtime & column space repeatedly making ill-informed statements and baseless accusations to further demonise and marginalise people who ride bicycles.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Highways England spending on the A63 in Hull for 0.9miles of road to ease congestion of a mere 47,000 vehicles over a 24hr period is £392.5M! And at the same time making the road a psuedo motorway that will banish people on bikes from the road and no cycle infra of any use put in place 9basically repeating what they did further up the A63 that had a maximum of 45s reduction on journey times to the ports!!)

£2M is the typical fucking insult dressed up as doing us a favour, it'll do fuck all as per!

Really, not what I saw at the open days showing the plans. OK the Castle St stretch is still going to be crap apart from the multiuse bridge but there's still a lot of investment in cycling infrastructure around the "road improvements" BTW the whole of the road was planned, and funded by the EU, to be a high level road from the River Hull to Daltry St but a certain PM decided the money would be better used to help widen the M25.

Personally I think the quicker the HGV's get out of the town centre and onto the motorway the better it is for cyclists.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Highways England spending on the A63 in Hull for 0.9miles of road to ease congestion of a mere 47,000 vehicles over a 24hr period is £392.5M! And at the same time making the road a psuedo motorway that will banish people on bikes from the road and no cycle infra of any use put in place 9basically repeating what they did further up the A63 that had a maximum of 45s reduction on journey times to the ports!!)

£2M is the typical fucking insult dressed up as doing us a favour, it'll do fuck all as per!

Really, not what I saw at the open days showing the plans. OK the Castle St stretch is still going to be crap apart from the multiuse bridge but there's still a lot of investment in cycling infrastructure around the "road improvements" BTW the whole of the road was planned, and funded by the EU, to be a high level road from the River Hull to Daltry St but a certain PM decided the money would be better used to help widen the M25.

Personally I think the quicker the HGV's get out of the town centre and onto the motorway the better it is for cyclists.