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There's quite a good article on the state of cycling in Britain on The Guardian website.
It covers a number of topics often discussed here, so I thought I'd flag it for anyone who was interested.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/21/cycling-changing-at-speed-britain-keeping-pace
The very first paragraph says it all.
Based on an elite group of sports people, we expect the general public to do something with only a very tangable similarity.
When Hamilton won the F1, were all the poloticians out saying we'd drive more?
I belive the Wonen's rugby has gone quite well recently, are all the kids now drinking John Smiths and buying Barber wax jackets?
An interesting summary.
It still prompts me to question the idea of transforming the UK into a "cycling nation" Rather than simply seeking to break people's dependence on cars and give them viable, affordable 'active transport' options, one of which, would obviously be cycling.
The article does start out by mentioning the 2008 Olympics and the UK's competitive cycling success' (almost 18 years ago now!) being seen as an (overhyped?) catalyst for mass public cycling adoption, but I think we've all understood now that's almost the polar opposite of what it achieved. Holding up sporting achievements doesn't necessarily make muggles want to trundle to the office on a Brompton, Just like professional Football's biggest side benefit is no longer kids getting all "Jumpers for goalposts" but their Dads pissing money away online betting...
The same message that's been about for a long time persists, if you want people to cycle in/around towns and cities, you need to look at normalising bicycle use, and providing useful infrastructure for people to ride to the places they might reasonably want to go without lots of conflict with motorised traffic.
If people feel it's safer and/or more convenient to ride, walk, take busses they will, in places where this has been enabled the benefits are obvious.
The thing is that the demand is there, which was demonstrated by the larger numbers of people out and about during the pandemic when the roads were quieter. But there’s been enormous backsliding since then (and Greater Manchester is a particular example, where <10% of the ten-year network plan has been delivered in seven years, momentum on further delivery has stalled, and the active travel branding has been repurposed for buses). Having to have the same arguments over and over again for every single piece of infrastructure is also exhausting, and the lack of courage of supposedly progressive politicians in the face of a shouty minority is disappointing.
Theres a new episode of Streets Ahead about the massively disappointing draft Third Cycling & Walking Strategy which I assume will touch on a lot of this.
https://shows.acast.com/streets-ahead/episodes/outputs-not-outcomes-cwis3
The thing is that the demand is there, which was demonstrated by the larger numbers of people out and about during the pandemic when the roads were quieter.
Dunno perhaps more like a bit from column 'A' a bit from Column 'B' I reckon. The lack of traffic, a bit of cabin fever plus some social meeja encouragement created some "fair-weather leisure cyclists" perhaps, but for the most part people weren't cycling for transport or utility. Hence the drop-off and cycling as transport never really got normalised.
It's not really "backsliding" if people never actually considered a bicycle as an alternative to their car, just a fun diversion while the world imploded around them...
It's great that people bought bikes and used them, but those same people never lost their car-brained behaviour patterns, mostly because nothing really changed.
We need to drop the rose-tinted view of short blips in leisure cycling, prompted by unusual events or fashions as paradigm shifts, the UK is still very much on a US trajectory.
It's not really "backsliding" if people never actually considered a bicycle as an alternative to their car, just a fun diversion while the world imploded around them...
Political backsliding, as in making a massive song and dance about how they’re going to build a network safely usable by a 12yo, then not actually delivering, then quietly shelving it all having spent a load of taxpayers’ money on consultations. We’ve seen this in GM, I gather W Mids is similar, I’ve no reason to believe it’s any different anywhere in England outside London.
There is massive latent demand. That the horror show that is the Leith Walk cycle lane is now (IIRC) the most used cycle lane in Scotland tells you that it doesn’t take much for people to start thinking about cycling as an option.
The very first paragraph says it all.
Based on an elite group of sports people, we expect the general public to do something with only a very tangable similarity.
This is why bike brands focussed on racing and top rider's shredits do pretty much nothing for cycling uptake overall. It's fair to say a brand who makes MTBs doesn't owe transportation cycling much and has no need to do anything in that area, but most big brands sell city and hybrids of some sort now. And most enthusiast leisure riders are more likely to use a bike for transport.
Where are the emotive, inspiring messages about cycling for those who just like using a bike to get about as a lifestyle choice rather than it being a sport-leisure activity?
If people feel it's safer and/or more convenient to ride, walk, take busses they will, in places where this has been enabled the benefits are obvious.
it doesn’t take much for people to start thinking about cycling as an option.
That's it. The infrastructure or road conditions need to support it and the will to use it or the interest to try an alternative also needs to be there.
It is more than just infrastructure though. I ride my bike 3-4 times a week 52 weeks a year but I would never commute on a bike as I can't be bothered with it. I want to waste as little time as possible getting to work and back and I like to cycle at times I choose which are never 8-9am or 4-5pm.
Cycling makeup during pandemic simply cannot be used as more interest in cycling generally as cycling was one of the few things you could do if you wanted to go outside each day. And although quiet roads made it ALOT more enjoyable, expecting roads to ever get close to that quiet is never going to happen.
And although quiet roads made it ALOT more enjoyable, expecting roads to ever get close to that quiet is never going to happen.
No-one is expecting that, but eg. adequate bike lanes on urban main roads and at least an attempt at roads policing to raise the standard of driving are not unreasonable asks.
We are blessed with a government with a large enough mandate to do all sorts of 'great work' for the benefit of wider society. Unfortunately they are not blessed with the bravery or vision to actually carry any of it out
My local council (Reading) are constantly doing work to improve sustainable and public transport. Whilst some of the projects are of questionable benefit, the constant car centric complaints about how drivers are being hindered leads me to believe that a sizeable portion of the population will never accept anything other than going everywhere by car.
The evidence suggests most people are quietly supportive of increased walking and cycling, less through traffic and more independence for their teenage kids.
But all too often the shouty minority on Facebook is conflated with the actual public mood.
I was pleased they distinguished between legal and illegal bikes but disappointed at the generalisation of what we wear: "fabled middle-aged pedallers snaking through the Surrey Hills or Peak District in DayGlo Lycra". Mind you I've never been to the Surrey Hills.
My local council (Reading) are constantly doing work to improve sustainable and public transport. Whilst some of the projects are of questionable benefit, the constant car centric complaints about how drivers are being hindered leads me to believe that a sizeable portion of the population will never accept anything other than going everywhere by car.
[Waves] Guess Where I am.
Reading's cycling infrastructure is utter bobbins. Yes there are quieter routes to cycle into town (depending on where you live), but they require significant detours from the most obvious/direct options. Then there was the 'Readybike' debacle...
An interesting summary.
It still prompts me to question the idea of transforming the UK into a "cycling nation" Rather than simply seeking to break people's dependence on cars and give them viable, affordable 'active transport' options, one of which, would obviously be cycling.
The article does start out by mentioning the 2008 Olympics and the UK's competitive cycling success' (almost 18 years ago now!) being seen as an (overhyped?) catalyst for mass public cycling adoption, but I think we've all understood now that's almost the polar opposite of what it achieved. Holding up sporting achievements doesn't necessarily make muggles want to trundle to the office on a Brompton, Just like professional Football's biggest side benefit is no longer kids getting all "Jumpers for goalposts" but their Dads pissing money away online betting...
The same message that's been about for a long time persists, if you want people to cycle in/around towns and cities, you need to look at normalising bicycle use, and providing useful infrastructure for people to ride to the places they might reasonably want to go without lots of conflict with motorised traffic.
If people feel it's safer and/or more convenient to ride, walk, take busses they will, in places where this has been enabled the benefits are obvious.
I agree with the above. But we face a load of headwinds in the UK. We seem unable to plan for the long term, there are big interests that chip away and undermine attempts to promote active travel and changing things would require big spending by our government which is committed to its neoliberal austerity economic model.
The car lobby is so powerful in the UK… politicians challenge it at their peril. Whilst I used to be optimistic that this may start to change, our government’s willingness to take unprecedented steps to the ‘right’ in other areas (immigration, trans rights, anti protest legislation, etc) would suggest that they aren’t going to redress the pro car bias that we see in spending, transport policy and safety any time soon.
We had people in Welsh Govt who were trying very hard to do the right thing for public transport and active travel. Lee Waters took so much flack for things like the 20mph limit that it impacted on his wellbeing. Now he has gone, progress here seems to have stalled. Swansea Council is chipping away at active travel routes but they are constantly knocked back by the anti cycling lobby, legal and land ownership issues on just the easy to do routes. They haven’t even tried doing what they need to do and take space from cars to give over to active travel.
In my opinion, for us to just start working towards building what our neighbouring countries have we would need very strong and committed political action and leadership. Unless Polanski can succeed, I am not sure where that would come from.
The car lobby is so powerful in the UK
We are so car centric and opportunities to break away from that aren't taken
For example, the other night I went for a walk with the dog to see the xmas decorations in nearby streets. Decided to walk round some relatively new builds that I'd never been up to. As I walked into the street I discovered the pavement disappears. It's a small development, but they've built it in such a way that walking to your neighbours would involve walking on the road, and for kids out playing, they have no option but to be on the road. Until we stop doing this kind of thing, we'll never break the car is king mentality. We can't even build walkable neighbourhoods apparently, never mind cycling friendly infrastructure.
See for yourselves
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hXs19n4fExGjWXTp8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hCD1KCpHgn48AbKR6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/v6ea6HNiQp1AfNeF8
The car lobby is so powerful in the UK
We are so car centric and opportunities to break away from that aren't taken
For example, the other night I went for a walk with the dog to see the xmas decorations in nearby streets. Decided to walk round some relatively new builds that I'd never been up to. As I walked into the street I discovered the pavement disappears. It's a small development, but they've built it in such a way that walking to your neighbours would involve walking on the road, and for kids out playing, they have no option but to be on the road. Until we stop doing this kind of thing, we'll never break the car is king mentality. We can't even build walkable neighbourhoods apparently, never mind cycling friendly infrastructure.
Even if they do build cycle and walking paths in a new development, they do so in isolation and the new development is simply not connected to a coherent wider network.
But it goes beyond physical infrastructure. I work in a large public sector organisation that really should know better. But in nearly every meeting I go to which is attended by managers and senior staff, I am the only one who cycles and if I travel by train, I’m in a small minority. I understand why on an individual level, but the idea of actively influencing and managing how people get to a meeting isn’t even considered.
Maybe we need legislation to mandate that cars come in one boring colour, with health warnings printed on them, limited maximum acceleration capability and location specific speed limiters.
A lot of this comes down to leadership, which is where the current government is sorely lacking. Of course it might have helped if they’d not sacked a SoST who was all over her brief and making the right noises about walking and cycling as enablers for the government’s other missions, over what appeared to be trivia.
car centric complaints about how drivers are being hindered leads me to believe that a sizeable portion of the population will never accept anything other than going everywhere by car.
And most people used to smoke, at some point Government actually has to govern, we know transport is screwing the environment in a large number of ways, we accept people being killed and maimed, we accept the impact of obesity on the NHS, etc.
@mrmo This is it exactly - we really can’t afford not to invest in walking & cycling. And if politicians would have the courage of their convictions rather than being reactive to a shouty minority…
sort of relevant to this thread
.its complicated.....
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9yd1xk9d7o
one thing that does need to be sorted is dedicated parking areas for hire bike/scooters- we have lots in Milton Keynes the redway cycling infrastructure here is great and its perfect for ebikes/scotters but Nothing gets the local Facebook groups nore anti-cycling than ebikes abandoned across the pavement
One of the things I liked with the Guardian article was that, finally, we had mainstream media talking about illegal e-motorbikes and the damage these do to the general view of cycling & cyclists. It also highlights a general apathy around applying the law & sorting the problem out.
Within this are a distinct breed of machine: often startlingly rapid electric contraptions powered by vast rear-wheel hub motors and a collection of zip-tied batteries, many ridden by gig economy riders for delivery companies. These are not ebikes, which are strictly defined by law. They are in effect a form of electric motorbike, entirely illegal but rarely challenged by police.
“It’s a massive image problem for cycling because more or less everyone conflates the two things,” Tranter says. “You could tackle this more or less overnight by forcing delivery companies to make checks, for example monitoring riders’ speeds. But it seems we’d rather just moan about it.”
Tackle it overnight by the police doing their job. These are uninsured motorbikes in plain sight.
Some hope. Problem A is that cycling takes effort so that counts most of the population out straight away. B is the inconvenience. How do you ride to work if the kids have to go to schools that are not on the way? And pedalling with the kids is slower. Pain in the arse getting a weeks shopping as well. C. Cycling is becoming all about "leisure". Lets drive some where to ride our bikes.
Expecting a government to do anything is pointless. Too many conflicting points of view. Current mob are no better than any other. For example, in my view they are too soft on crime, immigration and defence. Others will differ and there is the problem. I would like to see a government banning new cars. End. We don't need them but will they ? Nope. Good way to lose the next election.
No-one is expecting that, but eg. adequate bike lanes on urban main roads and at least an attempt at roads policing to raise the standard of driving are not unreasonable asks.
I won't hold my breath and even if they did exist I would still drive to work and back. Coming from a person who cycles a lot it is nothing to do with laziness and all to do with convenience, which I am guessing is the main challenge to shift anything considerably.
I just noticed that one of the photos is or Cy on an early Soul.
even if they did exist I would still drive to work and back.
You would, others might not. Don’t forget that 1:4 households in the UK, and 1:3 round here, don’t have a car, and buses remain expensive and unreliable. This is all about giving people a choice, and the evidence is that if people feel safe cycling to work, school or the shops, then a lot of them do it.
Tackle it overnight by the police doing their job. These are uninsured motorbikes in plain sight.
They can’t even police driving.
sacked a SoST who was all over her brief and making the right noises about walking and cycling as enablers for the government’s other missions, over what appeared to be trivia
... makes you think
sacked a SoST who was all over her brief and making the right noises about walking and cycling as enablers for the government’s other missions, over what appeared to be trivia
... makes you think
Chiefly makes you think that HMG hasn’t a clue what it’s doing beyond Labour Party factional warfare.