City hubs for cyclists to get Briton on two wheels
The Times, Friday June 20th 2008. Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent
£100m city hubs plan for cyclists to get Britain on two wheels
Disappearing into a broom cupboard with a sweaty red face and wearing Lycra shorts, only to reappear moments later in a suit, but still with a sweaty red face, is a daily ritual for many cycle commuters.
Now they will be able to arrive at their desks as fresh as the person whose only physical exertion has been the walk from the company car park.
Cycle “hubs”, where cyclists can lock their bikes under cover, have a shower and even get a puncture fixed, are one of the ideas being funded in a £100 million programme designed to persuade more people to switch from four wheels to two.
Bristol will get the lion’s share of the money after being selected as Britain’s first official “cycling city”. Another 11 towns and cities will also receive a share of the biggest investment in cycling.
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In addition to creating a hub in the city centre, Bristol will establish a Paris-style on-street bike-hire scheme. For an annual registration fee of about £10 people will be given smartcards that will allow them to unlock bikes from stands at stations and other key locations.
The first half hour is likely to be free as long as the bike is returned to another stand. For longer periods the user will automatically be charged about £1 an hour.
Dedicated cycleways will be created to link the suburbs with the city centre and the number of children receiving cycle training at school will almost double, from 1,100 a year to 2,000.
Thousands of rusting bikes will also be liberated from garden sheds, restored and given to those unable to afford a new mount. The scheme will rely on the public donating their old bikes to a team of mechanics who will be paid to repair them.
Road signs at the end of cycle lanes which demand that “Cyclists Dismount” will be replaced with new signs saying “Cyclists Give Way”.
Road junctions that are dangerous for cyclists will be redesigned to force drivers to slow down. Boxes dedicated to cyclists will be painted on the road at traffic lights, allowing riders to slip through queues of vehicles and get out in front where they will be easily visible.
Bristol intends to double the level of cycling over the next three years by spending just under £23 million, half coming directly from the Government and half from the city council and South Gloucestershire council.
The Department for Transport will distribute a total of £47 million for cycling projects in the selected towns and cities, with each grant being matched locally.
The DfT said that the funding package “aims to encourage 2.5 million more adults and children to take up cycling, improve their fitness and beat the traffic”. In 2000, the Government promised “by 2010 to triple the number of cycling trips”. However, it failed to make clear how it would achieve this and, until yesterday, offered little extra funding.
The latest figures show that the number of cycle trips has fallen, down from an average of 17 trips per person in 2000 to 16 in 2006. The average cyclist made six trips a week by bicycle in 2006, spending just under two hours in the saddle and covering 14 miles.
Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary,said: “A quarter of journeys made every day by car are less than two miles. Cycling could bring real health benefits to millions of adults and children as well as helping them save money and beat congestion.”
Roger Geffen, policy manager of the Cyclists Touring Club, said that introducing properly enforced 20mph limits on all residential roads would be far more effective at encouraging cycling than spending millions of pounds creating a few dedicated cycle lanes.
He said: “The whole road network needs to be cycle-friendly because cyclists have as widespread destinations as anyone else and may not want to follow a cycle route. The hub idea is interesting but unless it’s close to where people work some of the time advantage of cycling would be lost.”
Bicycle towns
Bristol £11.4m
Blackpool £2.84m
Cambridge £3.6m
Chester £2.4m
Colchester £2.1m
Leighton Buzzard/Linslade £600,000
Shrewsbury £1.5m
Southend £3.2m
Southport £1.8m
Stoke £4.8m
Woking £1.82m
York £3.68m