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Chris Boardman: "Political courage" needed to deliver safe cycling infrastructure for LondonLondon cyclists at Hyde Park Corner (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).jpg

Chris Boardman: "Political courage" needed to deliver safe cycling infrastructure for London

Champion cyclist turned campaigner was speaking before London Assembly's Transport Committee...
by Simon_MacMichael
Thu, Jan 11, 2018 19:18
15

Chris Boardman has said that “political courage” is needed to advance plans for cycling infrastructure in London and that the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has missed the opportunity to maintain the momentum built under his predecessor, Boris Johnson.

Boardman, the former world and Olympic champion, now policy advisor at British Cycling and Greater Manchester cycling and walking commissioner, was speaking yesterday in front of the London Assembly’s transport committee.

The meeting (which you can watch here – livestream starts at around 13 minutes 30 seconds) also heard from Dr Rachel Aldred of the University of Westminster, Simon Munk of the London Cycling Campaign and Matt Winfield of Sustrans.

Many campaigners have been disappointed by what they see as a lack of progress made by Khan since he took office in May 2016.

“The current administration didn’t take input from previous lessons and so have encountered many of the same problems,” Boardman said.

“Regrettably, Andrew Gilligan [the city’s cycling commissioner under Johnson] was not consulted by the current administration. I

“I would hope this wasn’t a party political thing,” he said. “We plan to use his knowledge in Manchester.”

Boardman, who met with Khan prior to his election to emphasise the need for safe infrastructure for the capital’s cyclists, added: ““if we were looking solely at the evidence for progress, it should be the car lobby fighting to keep road space, not cycling trying to gain it.”

> Chris Boardman leads calls for Sadiq Khan to deliver on cycling

Aldred, whose work includes the Near Miss Project, spoke of the way cycling is perceived in Britain and agreed that there needed to be a desire on the part of politicians to ensure decent infrastructure was built.

> Near Miss Project: 'Very scary' incident once a week

She said: “There is not necessarily a single baddie, but a paper I’ve written previously found that many consider that you have to be a bit brave to cycle and that quickly turns cycling into a marginalised activity and one deemed by many to be for the eco-warrior.

“That creates undue hostility which simply doesn’t exist elsewhere in Europe.

“Political will is often therefore the biggest barrier, perhaps even more so than financial constraints. In respect of London there are varying levels of support within TfL and within the boroughs. We haven’t yet managed to mainstream cycling across the board.”

Boardman touched on the way cycling is often perceived in the mainstream media, saying: “Negative news surrounding cycling unfortunately spreads disproportionately, so politically cycling is treated with caution.

The DfT in particular I’ve found to uncomfortable with upsetting the status quo and we have to push quite hard for progress.

“There are some very obvious quick wins that we can fight for,” he added. “British Cycling’s Turning the Corner campaign, for example, would bring us more in line with the rest of Europe. This has been demonstrated to deliver efficiencies for all road users, including a 47 per cent enhanced efficiency for motor traffic.”

In December 2017, Khan announced plans to double spend on cycling in London to £770 million from 2017/18 to 2021/22.

> Sadiq Khan "to double" amount spent on cycling in London

Current projects that have been the subject of recent consultations include Cycle Superhighways running from Kensington Olympia to Brentford (and ultimately, Uxbridge) and from Greenwich to Tower Bridge.

London Assembly
Sadiq Khan
chris boardman
Dr Rachel Aldred
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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15 comments

Avatar
Beecho | 5 years ago
0 likes

Dear wife, I am leaving you. For someone called Chris...

Avatar
burtthebike replied to Beecho | 5 years ago
3 likes

Beecho wrote:

Dear wife, I am leaving you. For someone called Chris...

Have you got a picture of her?  I'm back on the market 1

Avatar
kitsunegari | 5 years ago
2 likes

I view this in a similar fashion to the question of plastic coated Coffee cups that end up in landfill because there are only two places in Britain that can actually recycle them. If the Government really gave a shit, they set the horrificly unambitious target of 25 years to get rid of single use plastics, they could just legislate over a few months that these types of Coffee cups are banned.

Likewise, if they gave a shit about saving the lives of vulnerable road users, they could legislate accordingly, and get our fat, lazy, unhealthy nation out of the metal boxes that are killing us.

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
2 likes

If you have the will to do something and that literally forces the stubborn, lazy, reticent, unwilling and dangerous (being overweight nor angry doesn't equate directly to not wanting to cycle) to change their choice of mode of transport because it's either so difficult/totally inconvenient, impossible, massively expensiveor and dangerous to do so or all of that (as per what happened with bikes) then people will change.
However the focus is on ever heavier and wider EVs that kill and maim and still pollute and there's no will to stop through traffic in towns/cities, no will to block up entire roads or at least one side of the carriageway on all roads, nor to ban motors completely in town/city centres nor to build proper cycling segregated lanes. None at all anywhere.
The examples so far in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol etc are piss poor.
You could literally ban motors (other than public transport) from every town and city centre at a stroke and remove a carriageway and make it cycling only on every single road in every inhabited area/non trunk road with priorty at every junction for the new non 'motor-way'

There are easy and inexpensive solutions just no will, our leaders are criminals, every last fucking one of yhem including labour who show know will to change yhings either nor did shag all when in power for 13 years or in the 70s or in the 60s

Avatar
Pushing50 replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
0 likes

However the focus is on ever heavier and wider EVs that kill and maim and still pollute and there's no will to stop through traffic in towns/cities, no will to block up entire roads or at least one side of the carriageway on all roads, nor to ban motors completely in town/city centres nor to build proper cycling segregated lanes. None at all anywhere. 

 

Unless you live in West Bank Stanford Hill 

 

Avatar
Grahamd | 5 years ago
2 likes

Two words seldom found together, political and courage.

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Bill H | 5 years ago
5 likes

The Mayor has no interest in promoting cycling, this has been obvious for as long as he has been refusing to take a decision on closing the gates to Regents Park for a trial period. 

It is true that Sadik has pledged to spend lots more money, but that will go on consultants, future projections etc nothing that will enhance utility cycling.

All we can do is to keep writing to our GLA representatives to remind them which issues sway our vote.

 

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matthewn5 replied to Bill H | 5 years ago
0 likes

Bill H wrote:

The Mayor has no interest in promoting cycling, this has been obvious for as long as he has been refusing to take a decision on closing the gates to Regents Park for a trial period.

Westminster is the holdup with Regent's Park, the Outer Circle is their road:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2018/jan/19/regents-pa...

Also, bear in mind the government have cut the funding for London by 50% since Boris was in, so Sadiq's operating under a much tighter budget than his predecessor. The Strategic Cycling Plan shows intention. There was no plan under Boris, just seat of the pants stuff.

But I agree, what we've seen for CS9 looks excellent, but we need more lanes BUILT and quickly.

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
5 likes

What he means is 'do their fecking jobs properly'. with respect to actually giving a shit about both the health and safety of the populous and finacial circumstances of the nation/localities.

Greater cycling is proven to improve all those factors and more and yet Khan and others sit on their hands if indeed not try to damage/attack cycling. 

Avatar
Hypoxic replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
2 likes

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

What he means is 'do their fecking jobs properly'. with respect to actually giving a shit about both the health and safety of the populous and finacial circumstances of the nation/localities.

Greater cycling is proven to improve all those factors and more and yet Khan and others sit on their hands if indeed not try to damage/attack cycling. 

 

Nice in theory but the reality is that educated, exercising and healthy eating individuals are swamped by lazy, fat arsed, angry sloths who  would need to have the saddle surgically removed if they ever tried to ride a bike. Hence the need for bigger and bigger and bigger cars, escalators, lifts and any other device which assists one from the feeling the merciless clutches of gravity and harmful muscular activity.

 

Avatar
P3t3 replied to Hypoxic | 5 years ago
3 likes

Hypoxic wrote:

Nice in theory but the reality is that educated, exercising and healthy eating individuals are swamped by lazy, fat arsed, angry sloths who  would need to have the saddle surgically removed if they ever tried to ride a bike. Hence the need for bigger and bigger and bigger cars, escalators, lifts and any other device which assists one from the feeling the merciless clutches of gravity and harmful muscular activity.

This is a nice rant, but the reality is that we humans typically just respond to the environment in which we live.  It isn't borne out b the evidence that when asked most people like the idea of getting more excersise and being able to cycle to the shops.  If it made logical sense to move about by bike, we would.  But at the moment our environment doesn't make it the most logical choice.  

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vonhelmet replied to P3t3 | 5 years ago
2 likes

P3t3 wrote:

Hypoxic wrote:

Nice in theory but the reality is that educated, exercising and healthy eating individuals are swamped by lazy, fat arsed, angry sloths who  would need to have the saddle surgically removed if they ever tried to ride a bike. Hence the need for bigger and bigger and bigger cars, escalators, lifts and any other device which assists one from the feeling the merciless clutches of gravity and harmful muscular activity.

This is a nice rant, but the reality is that we humans typically just respond to the environment in which we live.  It isn't borne out b the evidence that when asked most people like the idea of getting more excersise and being able to cycle to the shops.  If it made logical sense to move about by bike, we would.  But at the moment our environment doesn't make it the most logical choice.  

What environment means bikes aren't the logical choice?  The state of our roads?  Houses far from places of work?  That is not a natural environment, it is one that we have built.  We are not responding to an environment, we have built an environment in response to our own laziness and poor planning.  If we had the will we could unbuild it and re-make it in a way that was more suited to cycling.

Avatar
scouser_andy replied to Hypoxic | 5 years ago
6 likes

Hypoxic wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

What he means is 'do their fecking jobs properly'. with respect to actually giving a shit about both the health and safety of the populous and finacial circumstances of the nation/localities.

Greater cycling is proven to improve all those factors and more and yet Khan and others sit on their hands if indeed not try to damage/attack cycling. 

 

Nice in theory but the reality is that educated, exercising and healthy eating individuals are swamped by lazy, fat arsed, angry sloths who  would need to have the saddle surgically removed if they ever tried to ride a bike. Hence the need for bigger and bigger and bigger cars, escalators, lifts and any other device which assists one from the feeling the merciless clutches of gravity and harmful muscular activity.

 

 

Hey, leave sloths out of this. At least they smile (compared to the people you're describing!)

.

Avatar
jacknorell replied to Hypoxic | 5 years ago
7 likes
Hypoxic wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

What he means is 'do their fecking jobs properly'. with respect to actually giving a shit about both the health and safety of the populous and finacial circumstances of the nation/localities.

Greater cycling is proven to improve all those factors and more and yet Khan and others sit on their hands if indeed not try to damage/attack cycling. 

 

Nice in theory but the reality is that educated, exercising and healthy eating individuals are swamped by lazy, fat arsed, angry sloths who  would need to have the saddle surgically removed if they ever tried to ride a bike. Hence the need for bigger and bigger and bigger cars, escalators, lifts and any other device which assists one from the feeling the merciless clutches of gravity and harmful muscular activity.

 

Might be true for the UK but you only need go to the Netherlands to realise it's not a law of nature.

British road culture is seriously skewed by decades of incompetent planning, and a political class with often no interest in the nation's well-being

Avatar
burtthebike | 5 years ago
4 likes

And of course, he is absolutely right, but not just in London, throughout the UK.

The problem being that most of our politcians talk big, but think small, utterly unable to convert their rhetoric into action.  I've lost count of the number of hugely positive statements by politicians about cycling, none of which ever result in proper facilities for cyclists.

We need politicians who are prepared to actually enact what they say, and I'm afraid the current government have demonstrated so many times over the past ten years that they have no intention of actually doing anything useful, that they cannot be considered as having the slightest intention of doing anything other than building more roads for drivers.

It would also be useful if those politicians read some of the reports about cycling and obesity, cycling and health, cycling and congestion, cycling and pollution and cycling and the economy.

Basically, we need another government, this one is so failed as to be completely lacking in credibility on anything to do with transport, health, pollution, the environment and quite a lot of other things which might not be appropriate for a cycling website.

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