Controversy over Bournemouth & Norwich active travel & safety initiatives

Predictable but not shocking response.

Has anyone else noticed that yet again Taxi drivers are rubbishing a campaign aimed at road safety and mutual respect.

"Ashley Miller, chairman of the Bournemouth Station Taxi Association, said some of his fellow drivers believe they are ineffective.“They said: ‘What a total waste of money’,” he said."

Funny that, coming from supposedly professional drivers!

In 1995 Glasgow began putting cycle parking stands in on the street, highly visible and often in response to a request, or an obvious demand from having bikes locked to nearby railings and lampposts.

Every year they have installed 200-400 stands, all to a standard spec, but ordered from any supplier who quoted to the spec (which avoids having the cheap quotes delivering thin, badly finished stands because the order was placed on price alone).

At one location in 1995 there was a solitary bike locked to a bollard, and now there is a covered block of on-street bike parking for 48 bikes, it is often filled to capacity. At another location I photographed the single original stand parked to 350% of capacity with 7 bikes. There are now cycle stands on each corner at that junction, all well filled.

Glasgow monitored a selection of the locations to see how many bikes were being parked, and notably the stand fill up during the day and empty at night (apart from the ones outside places like GFT and CCA, where people go out for the night) figures indicating growth (in bike count) of over 30% per year were noted, and as someone who has cycled in Glasgow since 1976 I can confirm that there has been an enormous growth in utility cycling, especially along the main road commuting corridors.

There have been other interventions, and perhaps the most dramatic impacts have been the river bridges which 'connected', in one case where the Motorway bridge did not provide convenience for pedestrian and cycle traffic (after a 25 year wait it eventually arrived).

So public cycle parking is a key way to increase cycle use - people see the bikes of others and realise that they can also use a bike.

It does sound like a waste of money, to be honest.

I just don't see anyone paying much attention - especially to such vague and generic advice as "respect the needs of cyclists".

And "Give cyclists space"? How _much_ space, exactly? Most drivers give about an inch between their wing mirror and the bike's handlebars - they presumably think that is sufficient.

Why not just hand out fliers saying "do good things, don't do bad things"? Be about as effective.

mmm, Norwich scheme seems like a Strava type scheme.

Anyone found Strava increased activity in non-participants?
Im sure the prizes etc WILL do just this, but then what?

Investment in infrastructure wouldve been better first but I cant say this is a bad way of spending funds you wouldnt otherwise get.

Not-surprised the general population here in Norwich didnt agree. Would be better looking at typical readership before relying on those figures.

these schemes seem a little odd, especially the electronic one, that almost seems like an April Fool. However in south oxfordshire there a quite lanes with posts marking them as such. These have often been vandalised by those who appear to think such spending is wasteful, this seems ironic.

It is strange how some people seem to violently believe spending on schools and hospitals is good, whereas this kind of community spending is bad. But actually i personally get much more benefit from the latter than i have ever received from the former.

By toss I assume you either put it in a bin close by or take it home and bin it there?

Don't Smart phones have the ability to keep a track of your walking/cycling distance via Apps/GPS? Spending money on cycle lanes rather than Flyers on windscreens (which I never read and go straight in the bin) would be a better use of tax payers money.
Maybe now that Cycling is taking off at last, the DofT should make Cycling Awareness much more prominent in the Driving Test. Just a thought.

How many people ever bother to look at things left on their cars?

Anything placed on mine is tossed without a second glance (unless it is a parking fine, obviously )