Birmingham's Cycle Revolution will cause traffic chaos, warns council's Tory opposition leader

"keep bicycles off the road"

This is what most drivers think. It is not just a tory political position. This is why many of them will take action to ram you off the road.

I used to cycle along the Hagley road and I didn't think it was too bad, but then I suppose that is the issue, we end up thinking things aren't too bad rather than thinking that things are good. Certainly, I wouldn't have liked to learn my road craft on it though.

There are really two ways to get people cycling, you can either incentivise it to make it seem like the best option, I mean Birmingham City Council have an app that you can log your miles and gain points for (and what do points make, prizes!), certainly infrastructure has a lot to play. The other option is to make the car journeys terrible to dissuade people to drive.

It is a weird reality that cars will still in a queue for longer than my entire commute is and yet they stay in their metal boxes, even when the car and I reach the start of the queue at the same time I still arrive in the city centre before them and that is without pushing on too hard.

The simple trouble is that Birmingham Council has little to no idea of what good cycling infrastructure is. Cycle paths that where they meet roundabouts you can only go left. Street furniture in the middle of paths. The idea of infrastructure is shared use pathways, but doing nothing to give the bike the priority over minor junctions or to the pavement surface to make them more traversable. They consider cyclists just to be a form of pedestrian.

The guy has a bit of a point on th Hagley Road. I'm not sure how they could modify the road to be acceptable to cycle along. To put this in context for people it is a 4 lane very narrow road with buses constantly stopping lots of turnings and cross roads. If a bus is on the inside with a car in lane 2 the car has to straddle the centre line to pass its that narrow. Reducing it down to 2 lanes would increase traffic but that would probably be acceptable to cyclists unfortunately that is already planned for the Tram system last I heard. I hate driving down it I don't think I'd be brave enough to ride down it.

The thing that “causes serious congestion” is cars.

Here’s some typical congestion on the route of my journey earlier today courtesy of google maps.

What is visible here is lots of cars parked on top of painted on images of bikes on the road, whilst cyclists try and squeeze past the cars that are stuck there. It would be nice if there were even some dashed lines to make motorists give cyclists (who are also trying to get to work by the way) some room instead of randomly positioning themselves so that they can see round the bend or flirt with the person in the car in front or whatever.

My 5.3 mile journey today according to Google should take 31 minutes by bike. By car “in current traffic" at 10:30am 35 minutes. It would take even longer by car at 8.30am.

Yawn.

Forget the current generation. They are entrenched in automobile dependency and won't change now. We build for the youngsters. Get the infrastructure right for them and it'll be right for when they're grown up into accepting bike transport as the norm, and for everyone that follows - their kids and grandkids.

Canal towpaths and parks are not more than a small part of the solution. Not everyone lives right by a park or a canal, so what about the (large) parts of a journey before and after the park/canal?

Plus, canal towpaths often have gravel surfaces, so aren't suitable for all bikes; and they're slow, with steps, narrow sections by bridges, and pedestrians to negotiate. Finally, to persuade people out of their cars, cycle paths need to be visible.

To be fair to some Conservatives, they are surprisingly enlightened when it comes to cycling. However, there are a few Birmingham Conservatives around Harborne and Edgbaston who are utterly blinkered, and appear to have a visceral hatred of bikes and the people who ride them. Logic doesn't seem to come into it - the fact that their arguments are idiotic won't make them change their minds. Thankfully, they are gradually becoming a tiny and irrelevant minority.

Just stop it Birmingham. Give someone else the outrageous funds you're pissing up the wall.

The traffic in Brum is very reason I started cycling! My journey to work is 35 mins by car or 15 mins by bike. It also has the benefit of saving me on fuel, parking and gym fees.

Sure, increasing cycling infrastructure will cause more congestion but that will only increase the size of the carrot that encourages cycling as a form of transport.

Standard short term thinking from brum local politicians; standard anti-bike stance from the comedy of Tory councillors. Nothing new really.

Dick

I commute down Hagley Road by bike and it is not pleasant. The side roads are even worse as drivers use them as rat runs. There are a handful of folks I see every day on bikes and thousands sitting in cars in traffic jams.

Birmingham needs a radical rethink on transport and this numpty councillor is stuck in the car centric past so little hope for us.

Bugger should move to South Tyneside. He'd fit right in with the mindset here,which is still stuck in the 70s "build more roads to reduce congestion" rut.

Please focus on what is good and happening regarding cycling in places like Brum and not give publicity to rabid petrophiles like Alden

This just shows the attitude issue facing the whole population.
People would rather sit in their cars in a traffic jam than walk or ride somewhere.
Okay it might take a bit longer, however you won't need to go to the gym later, also you will arrive at work more awake and happier (as long as the cars are not driven by lunatics).
Most adults would benefit from more activity to improve their fitness....this in turn will reduce obesity and CHD and diabetes and depression and the list goes on and on....
By improving the health of the population the NHS would save millions-allowing more to be spent on development and boosting the economy, improving the country as a whole.

However this won't happen because it would require people to get out their cars and off their ass to actually do something...
*rant over*

How a Tory Councillor not "getting" cyclist is news is beyond me.

In other news today, Bear shits in the woods and the Pope is in fact Catholic, who'd of guessed.

Brum is not that bad to ride around if you are road savvy, if not then yeah it is a problem. I firmly believe cycling facilities should be put on main roads and not tucked away on canals etc.

The Tories in Brum remember removed Bus Lanes as of course for them the car is king which goes against the national trend in cities. for most roads they can not be expanded anyway so as car use gets more, well you will get worse anyway.

He's right, of course. Most people won't give up their cars. It doesn't matter what you provide. Because most people are still instrisically lazy. And, those who aren't, consider that they are a special case because of the school run, or the need to shop or insert excuse here.

And he's right that we do need to sort it so that we don't all choke.

So one method here might be to start cycle provision and, when all the cars are in utter gridlock, people might start to think about the alternatives.

I don't know Birmingham well enough, but I can say it's the worst place i've ever ridden my bike.