Chris Boardman has been appointed Greater Manchester’s first Transport Commissioner.
The former hour record holder was appointed by Mayor Andy Burnham after spending the past few years working as Cycling and Walking Commissioner.
In his new, expanded role, Boardman will continue to help facilitate the delivery of the Bee Network.
The Bee Network is intended to be the UK’s largest joined-up cycling and walking network.
It will hopefully deliver 1,800 miles of protected walking and cycling routes.
Boardman will attend the newly established ‘Bee Network delivery board’, which meets weekly, to ensure that the city-region’s plans stay on track.
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said: “[Chris’s] work and drive to make our city-region a global player to rival great places such as Copenhagen and New York over the last three years has been inspirational and I know he will apply this same vision in his new job.”
Excited to start a new role as Transport Commissioner in Greater Manchester. A genuine honour to be trusted with the task.
If we are going to drive less, then we must provide an easy, reliable & affordable alternative. And that’s what we are going to do! ??♀️????♀️? https://t.co/0FAlTCZVo9
— Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman) May 21, 2021
Boardman, 52, said: “Our vision for Greater Manchester was never just about delivering quality cycling and walking routes.
“While they are essential ingredients in making Greater Manchester a better place to grow up, get on and grow old, they are only a part of the solution.
“If we combine our plan for a world-class active travel network, with trams, buses, trains, taxis and private hire, we can give people everything they need to travel around the region without needing to drive.
“Crucially, that will also help us achieve our goal to be carbon neutral by 2038. Greater Manchester can lead the country in showing how this can be done.”
Transport for Greater Manchester also published results from new research which has found that more than half of the residents (54 per cent) living in ‘phase one’, of the proposed cycle hire zone (which has an overall population of 198,000) would consider using the scheme when it launches.
Phase one of the cycle hire scheme will cover the regional centre, the Etihad stadium, Old Trafford, the Oxford Road cycling and walking corridor, Chorlton, Salford Quays and the University of Salford.
The research also showed that currently just 13 per cent of Greater Manchester’s residents cycle once a week and just 26 per cent of current cycle trips are made by women.
However, 45 per cent of those who said they will consider using the scheme are female.
67 per cent of those who would consider using the scheme said the inclusion of e-bikes would make them more likely to use it.
Boardman added: “All the data suggests the cycle hire scheme is likely to lead to a huge increase in the numbers choosing to get around by bike, especially women…
“I travel around the region every week, so I am one of the many that can’t wait to personally use the service.”
I’ve just had the most amazing commute to the station (sound on)
I don’t recall ever thinking that when I drove…. pic.twitter.com/aIyhhZTjN6— Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman) May 19, 2021
20 thoughts on “Chris Boardman appointed Greater Manchester’s first Transport Commissioner”
Good combination of the Mayor
Good combination of the Mayor’s political will, and Boardman’s drive and competence, should achieve results.
A lot of us in other local authority areas will look on enviously.
he’s going to sort out the
he’s going to sort out the A56
https://twitter.com/iamrobfowler/status/1395811860449005578
8 minutes of filtering !
“Don’t see that in car adverts do ya”
I wish Boardman luck and
I wish Boardman luck and success in creating an integrated transport system for Manchester. It sounds promising that he is seeking to take the successes of Boris Johnson’s London mayorship as his working template.
If he can do it in the rainiest and most miserable weather cities in the UK, it bodes well to be replicated everywhere that supports a level of urban scalability.
Just a couple of things:
Just a couple of things:
London’s integrated transport system pre-dated Boris Johnson by many years. I didn’t read that Boardman was seeking to take the successes of his London mayorship as a working template but if so, he might want to check the facts and reconsider.
Manchester would not even be in the top ten rainiest cities in the UK, let alone the rainiest. ‘Most miserable weather’ is less easy to define, however it’s nowhere near the top ten for windiest, snowiest, foggiest or coldest so I expect it would not score highly in this category either.
Apart from these, I agree about wishing Boardman luck.
it generally comes in around
it generally comes in around 15th in UK lists, Cardiff or Glasgow take the top spot, though the North West is the rainiest part of England.
but it always rains at least once when I visit Manchester, so it feels miserable and damp, but then technically I live in a desert so experiencing any precipitation is notable.
I can only guess you’ve never
I can only guess you’ve never visited, let alone lived in Manchester if you’re pretending the weather is anything less than awful there, lol. As someone who grew up less than 20 miles away, I know that anything in the North of England lying west of the Pennines gets a right good soaking, and Manchester seems to be right in a rain shadow – perhaps not the worst but certainly much more rain and inclement weather than average for England.
I’m not going to get into some silly battle about Boris bikes and the oodles of great initiatives he pioneered for London, but suffice to say we’ll have to disagree there!
Boardman gave Boris a bike during his time as mayor – Boris was very fond of and rode it daily until it was stolen after Khan brought in lawlessness… contrasts rather well with the story today about “2 kitchens” Ed Milliband and his difficulties riding a bike (hardly surprising since he could barely manage to eat a bacon sandwich)
“it was stolen after Khan
“it was stolen after Khan brought in lawlessness”
Comments like that do make you look a bit silly.
Terrible guess. I’ve lived
Terrible guess. I’ve lived there and still visit often (in non-pandemic times). I didn’t say it was a sunny enclave, just that it is nowhere near the wettest and most miserable weather in the UK as you had claimed, so I’m glad you’ve changed your mind and agree with me that it’s not the worst weather in the UK.
I’m pleased you don’t want to get into a battle about the London Cycle Hire Scheme; I’m sure you’re aware this was Ken Livingstone’s project and couldn’t resist giving them their eroneous nickname ‘Boris bikes’. Whether this was to be provocative or you were just following your habit of making patently false claims on his behalf, I can’t tell.
Either way, it appears that you are counting not cancelling ongoing projects alongside not disassembling London’s pre-existing integrated transport policy as the ‘template’ to which Boardman is seeking to follow. These projects aren’t already in place in Manchester to the same levels, so Boardman would be much better advised to be proactive regarding his role. And, thankfully, he won’t be able to launch unused cable cars, plan garden bridges, investigate a pointless estuary airports and mess up Jubilee Line renovations.
Anyway, I hate to upset you as you are particularly sensitive when it comes to Boris, but although he told a Tory leadership debate in 2019 that his bike was stolen, he had already written a column in 2014 where he told how his bike really came to it’s end. You should look it up.
Lol, I can virtually see your
Lol, I can virtually see your eyes swivelling around in their sockets at the slightest mention of our charismatic leader, so I’m not going to post again on this topic – suffice to say it’s one thing to think up a vague idea, and another to do the heavy lifting, carrying it through to fruition.
Sure there were some misses, and no one is perfect, but there’s a reason Boris was so keen to exemplify his time as London mayor – because it was a parable of success in a heartland that was naturally anti-Tory, underscoring his enduring popularity.
If you want to claim someone else was secretly pulling the strings behind his successes, that’s your prerogative, but the underlying story is the same – Boardman has a smorgasbord of successful policy ideas at his disposal, enabled by Johnson’s brave and visionary ideas.
I can’t think of any of his
I can’t think of any of his successes and you haven’t identified any, so it would be really difficult for me to claim someone was secretly pulling strings behind them. Boardman won’t know about Johnson’s successes at setting up an integrated transport system, for the very reason that he didn’t, so cannot possibly use it as a template. This is not saying anything that anyone other than Boris’ biggest fanboy might find even slightly controversial. As for eye swivelling: if this were true, it still would be better than automatically typing lies to back him up every single time he’s mentioned – you do know that he doesn’t read this and, even if he did, he wouldn’t love you back, don’t you?
I actually laughed at you classifying Boris lying about having his bike stolen as him being ‘keen to exemplify his time as London mayor’ and it being a parable. Comedy gold.
I’m off for a run. Enjoy your Sunday.
“It sounds promising that he
“It sounds promising that he is seeking to take the successes of Boris Johnson’s London mayorship as his working template.”
I hope not. I just Googled “Boris” and “lord mayor of London” and I could find very little to support the word “successes”. Just look at the Reuters report.
Sorry if you feel triggered
Sorry if you feel triggered by facts, but Boris Johnson cut recorded crime by over 20% and the murder rate by 50%, with stop and search quadrupling under his mayorship.
King Boris also implemented the rollout of the 20mph speed limit that saw traffic fatalities fall by 50%, and lifted all London boroughs out of poverty (two were in the bottom 6 when he took over, none were in the bottom 20 when he left).
Boris built more affordable houses, 100,000 more than Red Ken which Khan has sadly stopped.
So apart from flying more blimps than Boris and encouraging knife murders, I can’t think of anything else notable about Khan’s mayorship
https://www.insidehousing.co
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/fact-check-did-boris-johnson-massively-outbuild-labour-as-london-mayor-64282
hirsute wrote:
This is a good article – Pete Apps is a very good housing journalist (speaking as someone who used to work in housing).
As the article points out, Johnson’s affordable homes were largely built using a legacy Labour programme, which the Tories subsequently slashed. He also switched the focus from ‘social rent’ to the (ironically) much less affordable ‘affordable rent’ and shared ownership (which arguably isn’t an affordable tenure at all). In fairness to him, it was again partly because that was what central government wanted.
Both mayors are largely at the mercy of wider factors, including on the likes of homicides, which were falling across England before the Johnson mayoralty but began increasing nationally again in 2015.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020
The London mayor has pretty limited powers. I’m interested in how Johnson “lifted all London boroughs out of poverty”: was it with some inspirational Latin quotes?
hirsute wrote:
Fuck me. You’re not saying that Spaffer Johnson was LYING?
Don’t feel sorry for me. I do
Don’t feel sorry for me. I do like facts. I’m just not sure what ‘facts’ you are refering to. Let’s stick with Bojo for the moment.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-johnson-record-factbox/factbox-incoming-pm-johnsons-record-as-london-mayor-idUSKCN1UI1TV
efail wrote:
Unfortunate for you that the badly motivated pro-EU Reuters filed their mayoral “fact check” under “Brexit” and even named their URL “uk-britain-eu-johnson-record”. Independent thinkers don’t need biased news sources to come to the correct conclusions, and everything that I posted can be validated through official data.
Go on then.
Go on then.
And, start with German water
And, start with German water cannons,
Oh dear. You appear to have
Oh dear. You appear to have fallen for the “Johnson great for cycling when London Mayor” bullshit.
The fat clown did nothing for cycling in London, other than a couple of photo ops.
His predecessors (Livingstone in particular) did all the heavy lifting.