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Bristol Cycling Campaign's 'Tube map' of proposed routes.pngBristol plans Dutch-style network of bike routes across city
Bristol looks likely to get a Dutch-style cycle network after the city council adopted an ambitious plan put forward by Bristol Cycling Campaign to build a grid of commuter routes across the city.
According to the Bristol Post, Bristol City Council will put the proposal out to public consultation early next year. The plans could be signed off by Mayor George Ferguson by next Spring.
Bristol Cycling Campaign described the news as “a bit of a first” and welcomed the chance to influence the building of bike routes instead of the council “producing something on their own which needs to be changed later”.
Mark Bradshaw, Bristol’s assistant mayor for transport, planning, strategic housing and regeneration, said: "We are producing a new cycling strategy and have been working with Bristol Cycling Campaign on plans for the strategic cycle network for the city.
"We are aiming to consult on proposals this year for a launch in early 2014 which will include many of the issues highlighted in the campaign group's manifesto.
"There are more than £10 million of new cycling measures in the council's cycling programme, including the new cycling ambition fund to improve cross-city and river links. We will continue to work with the campaign group and other stakeholders in delivering a comprehensive network for Bristol."
In its Bristol Cycling Manifesto, Bristol Cycling Campaign called for an investment of £109 million over 12 years to quadruple the level of bike use in the city. The manifesto’s aims include 30 percent of commuter journeys in Bristol being made by bike.
Martin McDonnell, from Bristol Cycling Campaign, said that the council's support is a big success for the group.
He said: "It is a significant step and a bit of a first.
"We are really pleased to be working with the council over this instead of them producing something on their own which needs to be changed later.
"It looks likely to go ahead but the issue is funding. Whether it will come from local budgets or national budgets there needs to be long-term, secured financing."
Cycling projects in Bristol are currently funded by an allocation from the Cycle City Ambition project which put £7.8m the region’s way with a £3.3m local contribution.
That money will be used for a new pedestrian and cycle promenade across the city following the route of the River Avon; five new or improved river crossings for cyclists; the Cribbs Causeway to Emerson’s Green trunk cycle route in the North Fringe of Bristol; and the Seven Dials National Cycle Scheme in Bath City Centre.
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.
Latest Comments
- Brauchsel 6 min 27 sec ago
Is the basic question of gear hardness/easiness here not equally expressed as "how far will the bike go each time I pedal it?"...
- Born_peddling 26 min 54 sec ago
MCR cycle euro capital???? Have had to read this article very carefully and repeatedly.... I know a good swath of Manchester locals and lovers of...
- Born_peddling 43 min 16 sec ago
You're joking right? Unless it's a bridal path there's very few "quiet" roads and the so called quiet roads are usually used as speed runs for...
- chrisonatrike 2 hours 15 min ago
He's probably busy doing his festive 1000. Apparently some similar-looking fellow is having this Christmas off......
- NOtotheEU 3 hours 43 min ago
I have the same problem with my front facing cameras so I wipe them regularly but the rear ones never seem to get wet. One is mounted on my...
- ktache 4 hours 12 min ago
As the excellent John Crace calls him, Jimmy Dimly, was telling us all not to be obsessed with the whole Rwanda thing a couple of weeks back.
- Bungle_52 4 hours 20 min ago
A better reply would be....
- ktache 4 hours 32 min ago
How come he's riding a bicycle from his 1950s future?
- JL77 5 hours 8 min ago
Think that my Toyota already has this.
- Hirsute 5 hours 48 min ago
Is he trying to put the wall back ?
Add new comment
15 comments
Bristol don't get it right all the time but you've got to give them some credit. My Bath to N Bristol commute is 18 miles with only 1 mile on road (not bad). I recently tried out the 'Concorde Way' (mixture of cycle paths and quiet roads) from N Bristol into the city centre and was surprisingly impressed. It wasn't the most direct route but because you are rarely stopped by a light or having to deal with traffic, it's pretty quick. Using Cyclestreets I found another path that cut out a busy car 'rat run'. Granted some of the directions could be better but once you learn the route, it's pretty quick.
The last sentance is one of the major problems with cycle infrastructure currently - there's little integration, and expecting people to "know the route" before they use it will not get more people cycling. Hopefully Bristol get this right, and it can act as a template for the rest of the country.
Maybe it's my browser, but it would have been convenient to have been able to enlarge the map by clicking on it. Can anyone post a link to the full size version?
http://bristolcyclingmanifesto.org.uk/images/Cycling-Tube-Map.png
Thanks! Right-click doesn't work for me on the image.
Right click on the image and choose something like 'view image in new tab' (or the equivalent for your browser).
Fair play to Bristol for giving it a go. After all it has everything the excuse makers use to argue against cycling (plenty of hills and wet weather) !
Fair play to Bristol for giving it a go. After all it has everything the excuse makers use to argue against cycling (plenty of hills and wet weather) !
Fair play to Bristol for giving it a go. After all it has everything the excuse makers use to argue against cycling (plenty of hills and wet weather) !
"Bristol looks likely to get a Dutch-style cycle network after the city council adopted an ambitious plan put forward by Bristol Cycling Campaign to build a grid of commuter routes across the city."
Lets hope the £dutch style£ motorist adapt to along with crappy trenched road surfaces and send us on a detour commuter ride.
Give it a chance Bristol is so cycle friendly it may just work. Build a facility and we'll get the benefits.
There are plenty of signs that George Ferguson is willing to take on motorists and create a fairer transport system in Bristol. Good luck to him
The key to making schemes like this sucessful is to give cycle at least equal priority compared to motor vehicles where the network intersects or joins the road network (which it will have to in many places). My biggest concern with this sort of scheme is that we end up with a network of routes that are not particually practical due to having to contantly give way to other traffic or cross roads like a pedestrian.
As we see in sucessfull cycle cities cycling needs to be the easiest option. Cycles should have priority over cars by default where routes intersect but that's probably too much to hope for in the UK (at least at this time).
If it's just going to be paint don't bother.
"Dutch-style network"
As in "beef-style" horseburgers?
This is the same Bristol City Council who recently installed car parking spaces on a National Cycle Route, yes? Oh well, we're in safe hands then.
Nice ambition / sentiment, whether they deliver we will have to wait and see.