Can Chris Boardman lead new Active Travel England to real change?

On the BBC article why is he riding without a helmet?

And there in a nutshell is an illustration of the stupidity of the British public in general, and an indication of what an impossible task Boardman has.

Let’s start a list of things people should do but aren’t a legal requirement that might stop them getting injured

I’ll go first.
1, banging on about cyclists not wearing helmets.

And there in a nutshell is an illustration of the stupidity of the British public in general, and an indication of what an impossible task Boardman has.

Maybe it’s you who’s the stupid one?

They never mention how to tackle the issue of squeezing new walking and cycling infrastructure into the UKs narrow and overcrowded car dominated roads & towns.

But the issue I was alluding to, and this is where Chris will have his work cut out for him is shifting car culture into shoes and onto bicycles. Just look at the mentality of the commutes at any primary school drop off / collection, people put their precious cargo into tanks and drive 300 meters because it’s safer, the irony being that by doing so they are the danger.

RE: the picture of Oxford Street above, years ago I put forward to TFL the idea of pedestrianizing it. It’s served along its length by an underground tube line with 3 stations for longer jaunts. I proposed an aerial mono rail along its length to cover shorter journey, leaving the street below for pedestrians. They thanked me for my input and declined. In the USA there has been some work in removing cars from city centres, if they can do it, we should be able!

Re the helmet thing, all of the dead cyclists I’ve seen have been from contact with vehicles and have sustained head, chest & pelvis injuries where a helmet won’t help you, removing the cars & HGV from your journey will help you. Sure an isolated head injury can kill you, but it’s more likely from a simple fall, so maybe where your helmet on the cycle path!!! Everyone has a right to make their own informed decision based on the risk involved.

A dedicated cycle path on the otherside of the Bridgewater canal would be good.

A lot of misunderstandings on here about the dutch expoerience

In the 70s there was rising child deaths on the roads.  The solution the dutch did was to take some of the road network away from cars and use it for pedestrians and cyclists instead and turned town squares that were parking into public spaces instead.  this made car ownership and urban driving harder but made walking and cycling easier.  the result was more people took up cycling

I have never seen shared pavements used in the netherlands.  it would not work by and large

In urban areas they have a 30 kph speed limit of residential streets.  In these areas there are no cycleways – instead bikes and pedestrians have priority over car drivers

Main urban roads have a 45 kph limit ( 50???) and they all have segregated cycleways on them

Out of town main roads have segregated cycleways or alternative routs posted  Out of town minor roads?  pedestrian and cycle priority

There have also been some new urban roads put in to bypass busy areas – bikes not allowed on them

Its a total falsehood to say that the UK cannot follow this example if the political will was there.  Dutch cities are more crowded than UK ones.  the dutch are also very pragmatic about things.

this explains it well

On helmets – please lets not rehash old arguments on this thread.  Its well proven that even promoting cycle helmets reduces the health of the population and leads to increased deaths from diseases of inactivity

A good summation of the data here

https://www.cyclinguk.org/campaigning/views-and-briefings/cycle-helmets

The short answer is no he won’t. Becoming part of the political establishment will make him less effective not more

Its not so much that as without political will he will be constantly fighting for resources.  Unfortunatly the car lobby just has too much power in the UK

the dutch got public support by making it about children getting killed so creating safe spaces for children.  The UK we just put children in cars

@sharkey

I fear the same limitations here, the news report mentions £5million government funding which is peanuts. I think I read new cycle lanes cost £500k per km

That’s the funding to set up the office. From that funding they’ll run studies, develop plans and importantly, business cases for further investment in specific infrastructure projects. These business cases are individually reviewed and if successful, funded. I would also expect that the £5m will be periodically reviewed and if the office is making an impact it will be extended, if not, then “other” action will be taken.

Even in light of the above I think that £5m is too little for a task of this magnitude, and with such potential economic impacts (reduced health care bills, climate related liabilities etc).

Even in light of the above I think that £5m is too little for a task of this magnitude, and with such potential economic impacts (reduced health care bills, climate related liabilities etc).

Details are a bit scarce mostly because the media are shite but it is more funding than that and I believe the idea is that ATE will hold the purse strings of the actual funding for the schemes as well.

These are quite big points, I feel.

Unfortunatly the car lobby just has too much power in the UK

The automotive industry is one of the big drivers in our economy, not just through manufacturing and sales but through the creation of credit. The power imbalance is obvious but I can’t help but feel its still vastly underestimated.

the dutch got public support by making it about children getting killed so creating safe spaces for children. The UK we just put children in cars

In the 70s huge numbers of children were being killed, because it was a time when most, if not all, children still played out. And many people would have remembered a time before traffic got crazy. The damage being caused was clear in the minds of the public. We’ve lived with it so long now that we’ve normalised an entirely new world where kids can’t play out and we’ve somehow told ourselves that’s OK.

The benefits are blindingly obvious when you’re willing to look at the evidence with an open mind, but the hurdles are huge in 21st century Britain.

Chris Boardman is a good choice for this and a great ambassador for all things cycling. However, as proven above, his particular stance on not wearing a helmet always seems to cloud the points he is trying to get across. I wish he’d just put one on for the photo op TBH!

However, as proven above, his particular stance on not wearing a helmet always seems to cloud the points he is trying to get across. I wish he’d just put one on for the photo op TBH!

His point is that cycling needs to be normalised. Currently, it’s something that you get dressed up to do – lycra and armour and lights and hi vis. You’re literally going out to war.

The point is that if you build PROPER cycle lanes (not random bits of paint half way down a pavement that stop at every junction), cycling is just upwardly mobile pedestrian-ing. You don’t wear a walking helmet or a shower helmet or a driving helmet. There’s an element of risk in all of those activities – you might slip in the shower and bang your head – but if you remove the primary source of danger and accidents, cycling, as a means of transport, is incredibly safe, not something you need to get dressed up for.

If I “go out for a bike ride”, I wear my helmet (and lycra). If I rent a Santander Cycles to ride a km across town, I don’t need any of that.

However, as proven above, his particular stance on not wearing a helmet always seems to cloud the points he is trying to get across.

it clouds the point to already keen recreational cyclists who see helmets as normal.
they/you are not the target audience.

it clouds the point to already keen recreational cyclists who see helmets as normal.
they/you are not the target audience.

Well put.

If anyone knows what they’re doing, it’s CB.

Hopefully he can help make the case for cycling and associated facilities, rather than everyone just getting electric cars to respond to the climate emergency.

I wish he’d just put one on for the photo op TBH!

As above the point is to normalise cycling.  Its also well proven that even promoting helmets puts enough folk off cycling that ill health increases across population – the protective effect across populations is so low and the health promoting effects are so high

As someone who detests riding on the road and will only do so on our tandem, on ‘quiet lanes’ where possible, unless we are going far.
Luckily near us there are more and more ‘shared quiet lanes’ and proper cycling infrastructure being put in place.
However as someone mentioned above vehicles, are getting bigger and there are many more vans and small delivery lorries on the road than even two years ago. These are the very type of driver (always in a hurry), who are inconsiderate, rude, impatient and just think they own the road. On every single journey we take riding the tandem there is some form of abuse, close pass action or just plain dangerous driving. I really hope Chris can make a difference.

@tjagain

I have never seen shared pavements used in the netherlands. it would not work by and large

Actually there may well be more km of “shared pavements” in the Netherlands than segregated cycleways. Outside cities, where pedestrian traffic is very low, they often build high quality cycleways which the small number of pedestrians walking can safely use.

Described at the bottom half of this blogpost https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/do-the-dutch-create-shared-use-pavements-like-us/

This would be the right solution for a lot of ‘town to town’ cycleways in the UK. Alongside the A48 between Newport and Chepstow for example theres a narrow, badly maintained, partly overgrown pavement alongside the road. A few years ago it was reclassified as a shared use cycleway by putting some signs on it… It’s crap – too narrow, gives way at every sideroad (“Cyclists Dismount”). https://goo.gl/maps/s112mfGjyNGzHbZx6

Overgrown by hedge and verge – https://goo.gl/maps/1wskxoKk9iHXD8UQA

Swaps sides of the road at some points with no protection to get you from one side to the other. https://goo.gl/maps/xS4VoH5kcf3AEfN89

But much of that road have ample space to create a proper route and shared use would be no problem with the relative levels of cyclists and pedestrians. And that’s before you start removing the turning pockets and crosshatched/overtaking sections that only get used by people who are dangerously speeding anyway.

On the city in the other hand. No.

Shared use is the worst possible solution which is why its rare in the netherlands and the idea there is more shared use than proper provision is not my experience from a fair amount of cycling in the netherlands both urban and rural

Even when they are in the some space they are normally segregated by lines

I stand by the fact I have never seen one

Have you cycled much in the netherlands?

edit: I think we are also slightly at cross purposes.  In the UK shared use is “put bikes on the pavement”  In the netherlands even the example you gave is ” build a wide cycleway and allow the rare pedestrian users to use it”  Not the same thing

@bunnyhop I’d be having strong words with the “Captain” 🙂

Unfortunatly the car lobby just has too much power in the UK

After the last week of haranguing and consternation by drivers, I’m wondering if many realise that they are now being demoted from primary to shared road users. It would explain much of the froth.

Sandwich = He needs to wear earplugs for the amount of screaming I do (with close passes). A lot of drivers don’t realise we’re on a tandem.

Much ‘frothing’ atm in our local small town from motorists complaining about the amount of money being used to put in suitable cycling lanes. Many residents adamant that they won’t be cycled on.

It’s all well and good saying ‘if the political will were there’, but that’s like saying you could easily get rich if you only had lots of money. Getting the political will is the hard part. And you can’t entirely blame politicians there because voters vote for politicians.

And I don’t care what you say TJ, it would be a lot harder to replicate what the Dutch did here. Not impossible, but a lot harder. For example, Cardiff has grown outwards, and lots of people live in the suburbs like I do. Between here and town are some nasty short sharp hills, these would putt off almost everyone who might say, want to go to the shops. Another huge problem is that it’s 6 miles, including hills, into town, but from here there is nowhere else to go. I can’t pop on a bike for a couple of flat easy miles to a nice neighbourhood place cos there isn’t one. a 12 mile round trip is a lot, even for a Dutch person never mind a Brit who hasn’t grown up doing it. And yes, I know this is the result of bad planning, but it has still happened. So it’d be lovely to ride to a tram or train station but there aren’t any out here – because putting in the required lines would require tunnels and be really expensive. I’d love to see all this rectified but it would cost trillions of pounds across the country which, as I’m sure you’ll agree, would be a pretty hard sell. So don’t talk as if it’s simple.

This is why Dutch style segregated infrastructure isn’t going to happen here. We need key arterial safe cycle roads to replace pinch points and avoid shitty bits of road, but outside that it’ll have to be roads, and we will have to re-design the roads to give a better deal to cyclists. London does a lot of this already, with cycle superhighways as arteries and stuff like one-way back streets being made two-way for bikes. This means that cars can still get down there for their deliveries etc but they are useless as through roads for cars – but perfect for cyclists. We need a British solution we cannot replicate a Dutch one.

They never mention how to tackle the cycle theft epidemic.

Is there an epidemic of ordinary everyday commuter bike theft – or is the theft problem bikes worth four figures?

I wish he’d just put one on for the photo op TBH!

His mission is to get ordinary people who don’t use bikes to consider using them as means of transport for short journeys, making it appear an activity that’s so dangerous you need a helmet, or that you have to carry a helmet round tesco with you, or that will mess up the hair you just spent ten minutes blow drying will do nothing to convince people who don’t cycle to hop on a bike. Further it will reinforce driver (and its seems cyclist!) perceptions that cyclists must wear helmets to be safe.

If he was always seen with a helmet on, I’d drop him a note suggesting occasionally he leave if off to help address exactly the points above!

Molgrips – sorry dude but with the political will of course we could.  the issue is it needs taking roads away from the minority in cars to the majority on public transport, foot and bike.

Have you been to the netherlands?  Its much more crowded with narrower roads, less distance between buildings in town and so on

the key thing is not the segregation – its the urban 30 kph limits with pedestrian and cycle priority.  that could be instituted tomorrow

<soapbox> and another thing… a simple way of making all kinds of traffic safer would be for cars to only use sidelights in street lit areas (particularly 20 & 30mph zones) as with everybody using headlights the amount of glare blinds and obstructs vision. And don’t get me started on cyclists using 2000 lumens on public roads… StVZO the lot of em!!! </soapbox>

its the urban 30 kph limits with pedestrian and cycle priority. that could be instituted tomorrow

many central town areas are 20 freedom units (32kph), and the upcoming highway code changes discussed on this forum give pedestrian and cycle priority if not tomorrow then very soon.

I don’t see a massive cycling utopia just around the corner though, many attitudes need to change.

Respect for 20 mph speed limits is really bad. My road, for example, often sees drivers doing at least twice that.

The 20 limit works ok here. People that were doing 40 in a 30 are now doing 30 in the 20. Plenty of people at around 25 too. Ok, all speeding but better than it was. More importantly it’s much closer to cycling speeds so far less overtaking and it makes sharing the roads better

It’s all well and good saying ‘if the political will were there’, but that’s like saying you could easily get rich if you only had lots of money. Getting the political will is the hard part. And you can’t entirely blame politicians there because voters vote for politicians.

Actually that’s where someone like Chris comes in. He has the public’s respect, he talks sense, is confident in what he believes in and exudes his passion without being preachy. Ordinarily an Olympian would be the last person to be convincing the lazy British public to exercise to work. He also isn’t politically partisan so tories can agree with him just as easily as the loony left.

I used to always say the two big differences between the UK and Netherlands for cycle infrastructure were the hills and the weather. I think ebikes may well partly conker the first, I’m not sure we can do much about the latter although perhaps climate change will help. Certainly the problems you describe for Cardiff are not unique to there and TJ will recognise them in Edinburgh, but my experience of both is far more people are cycling round in Edinburgh. At least part of that must be “normalisation”.

This is why Dutch style segregated infrastructure isn’t going to happen here. We need key arterial safe cycle roads to replace pinch points and avoid shitty bits of road, but outside that it’ll have to be roads, and we will have to re-design the roads to give a better deal to cyclists. London does a lot of this already, with cycle superhighways as arteries and stuff like one-way back streets being made two-way for bikes. This means that cars can still get down there for their deliveries etc but they are useless as through roads for cars – but perfect for cyclists. We need a British solution we cannot replicate a Dutch one.

The dutch solution (and it’s not exclusive to the Netherlands, a trip to Copenhagen or Malmo will have you checking if they’ve been invaded by the dutch!) is not all about segregation – its about priorities. One of the most noticeable things is cyclists get priority at junctions so it becomes quicker and more efficient to take a bike. People stop taking their cars because it’s slow and frustrating – within a decade cycling seems normal and within a generation, we would be looking at other cities like they are mad or selfish with their car use.

<soapbox> and another thing… a simple way of making all kinds of traffic safer would be for cars to only use sidelights in street lit areas (particularly 20 & 30mph zones) as with everybody using headlights the amount of glare blinds and obstructs vision. And don’t get me started on cyclists using 2000 lumens on public roads… StVZO the lot of em!!! </soapbox>

@qwerty – I don’t notice that very often – I think its badly adjusted headlights rather than headlights per se that that are the problem. Probably will improve with more and more self levelling lights and led bulbs that get tinkered with less often? I think side lights only reduces the prospects of longer distance (early warning) retro reflection from cyclists, walkers, runners etc?

The weather in the Netherlands is really not that much different to the south east of England.  Its actually often colder and windier.

Edinburgh does have a high rate of cycling for the UK – I have never really understood why

I’m with Molgrips. I live 7.5 miles from the nearest supermarket. One direction is up over the Ridgeway, the other flatter but longer.

The roads are barely wide enough for 2 cars, they’re never going to add a cycle lane. Never ever.

I 100% get that people living in cities and towns, given funding it could work. To an extent. But to the rest of us, not really.

A final thought for those who think active travel campaigners should only ever be seen in helmets:

If you went out and counted the next 100 cyclists passing your house/office/local shop what would you see 75 wearing helmets? (it might be more, it might be less but its more than 50 and less than 100 so lets say 75). It doesn’t matter if that’s 100 different people of 4 different people doing lots of small journeys.

Now imagine that we are campaigning to get more people on bikes more often. Good for them; good for the environment. We have a choice (A) promote active travel, make it clear its not about elite sport and its convenient; (B) promote cycling provided its wearing a helmet – all other cycling is bad.

We will get either:

A) 105 people riding bikes in the same period (yeah more bikes is good!), 95 wearing helmets (yeah they are nominally safer). But 10 of the original 25 stopped cycling (or stopped cycling for those journeys where in their personal opinion the downside of a helmet tipped the balance away from a bike for convenience. OR

B) 130 people riding bikes – the original 100, plus the 15 new ones who were willing to wear a helmet and the 15 who will try it without.

Obviously, my numbers are hypothetical but if you believe we will get the same number of people riding bikes for short active travel journeys regardless of society’s expectations for helmets you are mistaken. its not comparable to seatbelts where there’s almost zero downside. I was once tutted at for not wearing a helmet to collect my children from a bike event and “setting a bad example”. I never road my bike to collect them again – I just brought the car.

I’m with Molgrips. I live 7.5 miles from the nearest supermarket.

…

100% get that people living in cities and towns, given funding it could work. To an extent. But to the rest of us, not really.

The vast majority of people in the UK live in towns or cities.

If we’re comparing against the Dutch though, what they do goes well beyond installing a few cycle paths. They don’t really do out of town supermarkets for a start. They’re all town centre, like we used to have before retail parks popped up everywhere killing off our town centres. Their entire infrastructure is centred around the idea that everybody should be able to get to where they need to be, regardless of their age, ability, or mode of transport, and it’s all very deliberately designed that way.

It’s true, we are a long way off that and moving increasingly further away. Part of the solution is to bring services back closer to home rather than build infrastructure to take us further away. There’s a lot of joined up thinking required but it’s entirely possible.

Can’t think of a better person for the job than Boardman, but he’s got a huge hill to climb. All the stuff lately about the changes to the highway code show how hard it is to get people to engage in good faith with any of this stuff or actually think for 2 seconds about, for example, why we have insurance requirements for cars and not bikes. Until that sort of conversation actually starts to happen it’s going to be very difficult for him.
Even on here there’s someone going “well, he should wear a helmet in photos then”

Molgrips – sorry dude but with the political will of course we could.

Obviously, but what I am trying to say is that we will never have the political will to spend the enormous amounts of cash required to retro-fit a Dutch style solution to the UK. That is why we need our own solution, not a Dutch one. It will look different.

Have you been to the netherlands?

Yes, I worked there for a few months and I took my bike over and left it at the hotel so I could ride in the evenings. I did loads of riding all over the place.

Its much more crowded with narrower roads, less distance between buildings in town and so on

Hmm I’m not so sure of that. Central Amsterdam is, but it has this sort of hybrid radial/grid street plan so they can easily close every other street and the peds and cyclists can go down there. But that’s only a small part of the city. Most of it is fairly recent development and was build with the wide roads and cycle paths designed in. Yes, we could have done that in the 60s and 70s (and did in places, see Llanederyn and Pentwyn in Cardiff) but we didn’t, so unfortunately from where we are now we would have to retrofit that style of cycle infrastructure at immense cost. I’m not arguing against cycle infrastructure, all I’m saying is that demanding Dutch infrastructure is not necessarily going to work because it’s too easy to say it’s impossible. We need to focus on what IS possible and what’s going to work in reality rather than a hypothetical UK where we had the ‘political will’ to spend trillions on nicer cycling. We need a way to make cycling better that suits our own country where it is now.

One of the most noticeable things is cyclists get priority at junctions so it becomes quicker and more efficient to take a bike

Where cycle paths exist you have to use them, they are mandatory. And that’s not always good. I found stuff like this to be a right ballache because cyclists are subject to traffic lights, and you have to wait ages, and they are every few hundred yards. In places. In that suburban environment it’s not quicker to go by bike, not at all.

That’s not to say that it’s all bad, just that it’s not all perfect.

I’m not arguing against cycle infrastructure, all I’m saying is that demanding Dutch infrastructure is not necessarily going to work because it’s too easy to say it’s impossible. We need to focus on what IS possible and what’s going to work in reality rather than a hypothetical UK where we had the ‘political will’ to spend trillions on nicer cycling. We need a way to make cycling better that suits our own country where it is now.

Very good point.

I just had a look at the map of Cardiff and the entire north-eastern and eastern sector, most of which was built from the 50s on has basically NO local centres of any value. There’s nowhere nice to go for a coffee, get food, or any nice places to simply be. In contrast, in Amsterdam there were loads of neighbourhood high streets with many great little shops, and I reckon most people lived near one of these. The older parts of Cardiff, build in the 20s, have the same sort of thing.

So I think a large part of the problem is that for many people in UK cities there is nowhere worth cycling to within the sort of distance people would just hop on a bike for.