British to make largest ever investment in cycling

Qualitymark

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/12/david-cameron-largest-investment-cycling

Wonder when this might happen here.

Captain Havoc

That's great news. I think the British realise that spending money on bike infrastructure and getting more bikes on the road is far less expensive and less of a headache than trying to get more cars on the road or ease traffic congestion (I think they would if they could though).

Squidgy Black

If Britain goes through with this, and it's done well, then I'd expect to see our government attempt to do something on a much smaller scale about ten years later. That seems to be the way it works

Harrybelafonte

stetyrrell wrote: »

If Britain goes through with this, and it's done well, then I'd expect to see our government attempt to do something on a much smaller scale about ten years later. That seems to be the way it works

Like the bike rental scheme you mean?

Squidgy Black

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

Like the bike rental scheme you mean?

After the French government that time. And besides, Borris bikes were a government scheme completely payed for by the British government, Dublin Bikes were JCD's idea simply put in place by DCC.

bambergbike

£77m of infrastructure spending (the sum just announced) is nothing like enough money to change cycling from a marginalized, stigmatized, under-utilized mode to one that very large numbers of people will see as a quick, comfortable, safe, cheap and environmentally-friendly way to get from A to B.

Cycling in the UK is subject to a lot of "churn" - people start cycling, and then they give up again because it isn't working for them. There are all sorts of reasons for that, but ultimately it is a major problem that politics should sort out because there is an ecomomic and a human cost involved in having people marooned in their homes or in their cars or on buses when they could be making speedier and healthier journeys in an environmentally-friendly way instead.

If I was trying to promote cycling in the UK on a shoestring in an era of austerity (austerity that doesn't seem to impact other areas of current UK transport spending!) I would admit I was working with a limited budget and ask myself what use could best be made of very limited resources. I would suspend all new capital investment on "stuff for cyclists" for a year or so and blow the entire budget on law enforcement. I'd rather have everyone in the country know someone who knows someone who got 3 penalty points for closely overtaking a cyclist than have a tiny number of junctions fixed and driver behaviour around cyclists as awful as ever.

I wouldn't announce that I was "going Dutch" unless I was allocating billions rather than millions to cycling. If Cameron had said look, we're broke, but we do have the political will to bend over backwards to make cycling work for a much broader cross-section of people (including children and the elderly!)... now that would be interesting.

n-dawg

Qualitymark wrote: »

BritishEnglish to make largest ever investment in cycling
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...stment-cycling

Wonder when this might happen here.

Fixed that for you...

smacl

bambergbike wrote: »

£77m of infrastructure spending (the sum just announced) is nothing like enough money to change cycling from a marginalized, stigmatized, under-utilized mode to one that very large numbers of people will see as a quick, comfortable, safe, cheap and environmentally-friendly way to get from A to B.

Little more than tokenism in UK infrastructural terms, when you look at projects like CrossRail weighing in at £15.9 billion.

ednwireland

bambergbike wrote: »

£77m of infrastructure spending (the sum just announced) is nothing like enough money to change cycling from a marginalized, stigmatized, under-utilized mode to one that very large numbers of people will see as a quick, comfortable, safe, cheap and environmentally-friendly way to get from A to B.
.

tory tokenism, its what they are good at, 77 million over 8 cities

petethedrummer

77 million will buy plenty of white paint.

ashleey

Not down here it won't. Ask Kilkenny and Carlow county council how much they spent painting the 'cycle lane' into the hard shoulder on the road between the 2 places.

Chiparus

http://www.smartertravel.ie/sites/default/files/uploads/NCN%20Application%20Form-Tramore%20Final.pdf


310k for white lines in Waterford

Harrybelafonte

stetyrrell wrote: »

After the French government that time. And besides, Borris bikes were a government scheme completely payed for by the British government, Dublin Bikes were JCD's idea simply put in place by DCC.

You said we followed Britan's ideas, you never mentioned France. It doesn't matter whether it was a JCD idea or not DCC adopted it.

Qualitymark

We do tend to slavishly follow Britain's ideas and policies, with some dark results. It would do us more good to keep an eye on the success of initiatives in, say, Denmark, which has a comparable size and population, and arguably more creativity.
But this particular idea is good. Griping that it's too little is pointless - it's a good start.