Gilligan hits out at "emotive button pushing" cycle scheme critics

Anti-gentrification now opposing cycling schemes? This is just absurd.

I wonder if Gilligan or anyone else will take on the LTDA at some point, who are now running something approximating a hate campaign against cycling infrastructure, and those supporting it. 

Obviously they've never exactly been cycling friendly, but the language and threats from taxi drivers against certain people across social media and news sites in the last few months has gotten much worse.

"Dave Hill wrote his Guardian piece (link is external) earlier this month quoting a local opposition politician as saying Waltham Forest's Mini Holland scheme will “clearly disadvantage all road users including bus passengers other than the small minority of residents who are cyclists, whom a study [funded] by the Camden NHS and TfL has proven are almost entirely middle-class, young white men.” 

Build it and they will come. Cause and effect, etc. A mini-Holland scheme should see more children, mums and dads and older people on bikes - the non-cyclist people who are scared off our roads by the current pro-car road layouts. The people who'd just use a bike as it makes sense for short journeys rather that the 'cyclist' that the mainstream media love to point at.

As Chris Boardman said not that long ago -

“I want to see our villages, towns and communities prioritising people – putting them and businesses first. I want everybody to think “what’s the nicest place I have been to?” And I can guarantee it was not full of cars.

That’s what we need to be aiming for. It’s not about cyclists, it’s about communities. I want the car to be a visitor not dominating where me and my kids live.

I want my daughter to be able to ride 300 yards to the local park because there is space to do it and the laws and infrastructure allow it. It needs a holistic approach but people will get used to it and prefer it."

Good to hear Andrew Gilligan speaking out against the dumb-downers and exhaust addicts.

While it is reassuring to consider that the degree of hostility from those who just like to shout at any attempts to redress the balance, means that worthwhile changes are happening (see recent Easy As Riding A BIke - 'Why Cycling Needs A Backlash'), democracy is shown to be  remarkably lacking. 

Just a few years back, 'the public' demonstrated a persistent lack of social empathy by smoking in eating places. So the government of the day had to head-off bleating about a 'nanny state' and simply pass a law that enabled people to breathe air not contaminated by smokers in cafes and so on.

We have a similar state of affairs now, magnified by an escalating figure wih climate change, health and resultant economic impacts are given their due, for unrestrained, excessive and inappropriate motor vehicle use.

When signs on posts indicating speed limits, (you would assume drivers would understand to minmise risk of injury to vulnerable road users and also to reassure people that it might be possible to try cycling with the kids) - show that actually, it is infantilist behaviour  clearly demonstrated by those who've had it thier way behind the wheel for too long - it is actually time to impose some physical constraints.

Single-occupancy vehicle-users too easily delude themselves that passive/aggressive bursts of aggressive acceleration interspersed with slow death crawling, day in day out, is some unwritten constitutional right.

Some help then, from the mayor of the day would be helpful meanwhile  (tv/cinema public information films, posters, leaflets etc, that get the 'drive considerately if you have to at all' message across. This might save a lot of repetition from campaign groups at consultation and trialling times, and free up some space for getting the all essential connecting and linking routes in. A long way to go still to catch up with the Dutch.