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Paris segregated cycle lane (copyright Simon MacMichael)If they come, we'll build it - no priority for segregated cycle lanes until more people cycle, says minister
“If you build it, they will come,” goes the saying* – but despite cycling campaigners’ insistence that safe infrastructure will get more Britons on bikes, the mantra appears lost on transport minister Robert Goodwill. In a letter, he says the government will not consider prioritising segregated cycle lanes until there are more cyclists on Britain’s roads.
Carlton Reid, writing on BikeBiz, describes it as a “chicken-and-egg letter.” It was written to Sevonoaks MP Michael Fallon who had contacted the minister on behalf of his constituent, Stuart Helmer, a lawyer and cycling campaigner who rides his bike each day to and from the town’s railway station.
In his letter – much of it standard text used by the Department for Transport since at least 2012, with minor changes highlighted in this blog post from Cycling Embassy of Great Britain chair Mark Treasure – Mr Goodwill rejected Mr Helmer’s call for segregation to be introduced here similar to that found in countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark.
“We do not place the same emphasis on segregation in the UK,” the minister said. “Whilst alongside high speed roads we encourage it, in urban environments space is often at a premium.
“Providing a broad, high quality cycle route segregated from motor traffic in these circumstances might be desirable but in many cases it is not always practicable.”
Mr Goodwill explained that the government’s stance is partly due to concerns that some drivers would not give way to cyclists using such facilities.
He said: “There are also concerns about the potential for conflict between cyclists and motor vehicles where these routes cross roads, regardless of whether cyclists have priority.
“In the UK we tend not to encourage cycle priority in these situations because, given relatively low levels of cycling, there are concerns that motorists might fail to give way.
“That said, cycle priority crossings are not ruled out and local authorities are of course free to consider them if they feel they might be suitable in a given situation.”
The minister added: “If we begin to see the increase in cycling in the UK that we all wish for, it is likely that we would want to reconsider our guidance in general, and specifically our position on segregated cycle routes and cycle priority at road crossings.”
With the perception of danger the single biggest barrier to getting more people cycling, the government’s position will dismay cycle campaigners who view the provision of safe infrastructure as a pre-requisite to increasing levels of cycling.
Last week, the campaign group Cycling Works London highlighted results from a YouGov poll it commissioned in October that showed that nine in ten Londoners, including non-cyclists, backed fully segregated cycle lanes as something that would make them feel safer while riding a bike.
Last year’s Get Britain Cycling report from the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group as well as the #ChooseCycling campaign launched by British Cycling in February both called on the government to invest a minimum of £10 per head annually in order to boost the proportion of trips made by bicycle.
But the government’s Cycle Delivery Plan, published last month and referred to by Mr Goodwill in his letter, was criticised by campaigners – CTC branding it “derisory” – for what they saw as its failure to set ambitious targets for cycling, as well as a pledge only to “explore” how to raise investment to that £10 a head level over the coming years.
* Actually a misquotation from the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams, but one that has entered every use; the original line, from the scene in this YouTube video, is “If you build it, he will come.”
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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30 comments
Well that's my next GE vote sorted then. Easy.
Clearly, this government has no desire whatsoever to bring about a change in modal share for transport.
I actually wonder what the EU make of this attitude, as we continue to fail to meet air quality standards.
How about making harder/more expensive/less convenient to drive everywhere then they might just decide to walk/cycle instead.
Fuel price increases seem to make no difference to the amount of cars on the road. The only time I can remember there being significantly less cars on the road was during the fuel tanker strikes and blockades of fuel depots.
Hmmmmmm..........
It may not be obvious but the surveys are saying car use has actually dropped, not by much which may explain why you can't see it, but it is real.
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/sites/default/files/CfBT_NTS_2012_new_data_FINAL.pdf
Now that petrol is "cheap" again, I wonder If usage will rise? If you want to get people out of cars you need two tools, make using a car a pain, and make the alternatives attractive.
Just to put a different slant on it, there is no evidence that "build it and they'll come" works for cycle facilities and lots of evidence from many places that have done it that they don't come. Even if you look to the Netherlands, their massive programme of building segregated cycle facilities did not lead to any increase in cycling and in Dublin it led to a decrease. Elsewhere Carlton Reid has written about the utter failure of a pretty much perfect segregated cycle network built in Stevenage to get people cycling. I know it heresy in cycling circles to say it but personally I agree with money not being wasted on segregated facilities - it should be spent on getting the facilities we have - the roads - into a safer state to cycle which means taming the motor vehicles, not giving them their own personalised cycle free rat runs to speed down.
The reason that many campaigns support segregated facilities is that they want everyday cycling to be available to "All Ages and All Abilities", or as some others put it, "8 to 80".
And you just can't do that by sticking to the road. Sorry.
As Wolfshade's comment points out the opinion surveys are pretty clear, people want proper segregated facilities.
The government actively WANT people to not ride bikes, because they think that will keep car usage as high as possible, which means tax revenue from fuel/VED, and profits for big business (their mates).
The only attendant risk to their strategy is that people will die, and they don't care whether ordinary people live or die, so that's OK.
It's often repeated on here that the cost of supporting the level of car usage we have here is greater than the tax income. So wouldn't the government rather that was less?
Short term and long term costs, cap ex v maintenance.
If you are focused on tax take and not expenditure you see a cut in income.
Then how do you place accidents, pollution, etc on a simple balance sheet?
Sounds like you are referring to the external costs of motoring.
http://rdrf.org.uk/2012/12/31/the-true-costs-of-automobility-external-co...
http://www.ippr.org/assets/media/images/media/files/publication/2012/08/...
The £15 billion just announced for road building isn't created by magic and it has certainly not been raised by taxing motorists exclusively. It has come from general taxation - the ones we all pay, even migrant workers (who pay more in than they take out). Though the wealthy individuals and hugely profitable companies that keep their money offshore pay very little tax.
I can only guess that road building makes rich people richer and keeps the rest of us visiting the petrol pumps and servicing and replacing our cars more often.
You assume financial logic has anything to do with it.
Try 'do-everything-to-not-upset-our-voters' instead, and it makes more sense.
Reminds me of this:
Utter shite.
Wolfshade and others have hit the nail on the head. Look at these road.cc article headlines:
9 in 10 Londoners would feel safer cycling on fully segregated lanes
http://road.cc/content/news/136600-9-10-londoners-would-feel-safer-cycli...
Would-be cyclists want more cycle lanes and better facilities
http://road.cc/content/news/121927-would-be-cyclists-want-more-cycle-lan...
Chris Boardman says planners must cater for the 60 per cent of people who want to cycle but are too scared
http://road.cc/content/news/105335-chris-boardman-says-planners-must-cat...
Get people cycling for better health, says Public Health England
http://road.cc/content/news/133785-get-people-cycling-better-health-says...
Road danger is biggest barrier to cycling, says research commissioned by DfT
http://road.cc/content/news/28431-road-danger-biggest-barrier-cycling-sa...
I could cite a whole load more but I think these make the point. The facilities must be in place before they can be used! You cannot expect people to ride in heavy traffic to 'prove' they want to cycle - that's plain ridiculous.
Robert Goodwill is a puppet. The Tories have zero interest in promoting cycling.
There was also an article on here which I did briefly look for, which showed that a local authority scheme (Bristol IIRC) that spent money on a shcme and had massive increase in usage of bikes along it.
Yea there isn't fuel duty when people cycle so Cameron will not be too keen.They will not want to upset the status quo of car driving sheep
it's a case of the floggings will continue until morale improves...
http://road.cc/content/news/136840-uk-has-almost-nine-million-cyclists-c...
That's an astonishing 8.7 milion voters and potential voters.
If you take that attitude you would never build anything. Can you imagine it:
"Oh well there is no one living on that green field site over there so there is no point building houses on it as no one would use it."
-or-
"Oh well there is no one using a high speed rail link to London so there is no point building one"
It is dangerously short sited. The experiance of any road/cycle building scheme is that if you build it it will be used.
If there is conflict between cyclists and motorists because the one fails to give way to the other then there needs to be education.
Frustrating.
So 9 million cyclists (as mentioned in another article on here) is not enough then?
Not sure what number needs to be reached before it is considered to be enough use.
I get that in small towns and the like, cycling infrastructure seems like a big expenditure for relatively few people, but in any city or large town there are surely enough people already to more than justify the cost of building decent infrastructure.
Maybe it's the investing in something they might not get to take the credit for that puts them off?
“There are also concerns about the potential for conflict between cyclists and motor vehicles where these routes cross roads, regardless of whether cyclists have priority"
And of course god forbid we should actually enforce something so unpopular with motorists. Have they really just given up on enforcing anything to do with driving?
How about a critical mass demo once a month? As this will create the required average cycle numbers, and highlight the congestion of the current facilities, and show that right of way is not an issue when there are enough bikes on the roads, we should get segregated lanes?
Yet another case of people paying lip service to show they are doing something, which amounts to very little, as they don't really want anything to happen.
Minister in charge of doing not-very-much. Same as usual then.
There's loads of evidence that roads simply fill up as you build more. I would guess that this applies equally to cycle lanes.
Nice big, free, secure parking sites in town centres and cleverly designed town centres that actively prevent cars from getting in while visible encouraging cyclists will encourage people to ride to work or shop.
What isn't working is repeated 'crackdowns' on would be cyclists that either don't know the rules yet or are too afraid of traffic to follow them.
Transport ministers are all about avoiding spending on transport. They're shills for the Treasury.
He's a chip off the old block. Mantra straight from the British Rail book - don't run a decent service, no one will use it, we can scrap it as not wanted. Compare the North London line under BR with it now, branded Overground, under TFL. The phrase is 'suppressed demand'. Build it and they will come.
Did you miss the additional £15 billion for roads announced the other week?
Wait for more casualties - then they may reconsider and postpone the question…
Robert Goodwill may as well not be in that job, he's not doing anything for cycling. He is pathetic.
He plainly sees his role as making excuses on behalf of the DfT, and explaining why they can't/won't do anything. What we need is a transport minister with responsibility for cycling who is actually interested in improving the lot of cyclists in the UK.
0 out of 10, Mr Goodwill.
When this government was formed, I thought "Oh well, at least Dave Cameron rides a bike, so we might get something for cycling".
* tumbleweeds *
Certainly not good will by nature.
As car usage is falling I assume that no more roads will be built, and as car usage is falling, you don't need so many roads? We can convert roads to cycleways and pedestrian paths.
oh....