Start a
cycling revolution — and save lives and money, MPs urge
Philip Pank
and Kaya Burgess: Last updated at 12:02AM, April 24 2013
David Cameron is being urged to start a cycling revolution as a
cross-party group of MPs and peers calls for the transformation of Britain’s streets.
The recommendations come
after a four-month parliamentary inquiry, inspired by The Times Cities Fit for Cycling
campaign, into how to encourage more cycling and
to protect those on the roads.
The inquiry’s proposals include:
• A default 20mph speed limit on residential streets.
• Access for all schoolchildren to cycle training.
• Better road surfaces and junctions.
• Widespread segregated cycle routes.
• Improved lorry design and driver training.
• Stricter enforcement of road traffic law.
The inquiry report also calls for an increase in funding on cycle
infrastructure to £10 a head.
A petition
has been set up on the Government site calling on
the Prime Minister to implement the recommendations in the report.
Health and Transport ministers say that they are trying to encourage more
cycling as a way of reducing congestion, cutting pollution and helping beat an
obesity epidemic that costs the NHS £5 billion a year.
Martin Gibbs, policy director at British Cycling, said: “The Prime Minister is a good friend of cycling and cycles himself.
With his backing we can apply the focus we used to turn ourselves into a
leading cycle sport nation to embed cycling across the whole of society so that
it becomes a normal everyday choice which appeals to everyone.”
And other national newspapers have taken up the story:
MPs spell
out Britain's bold cycling future
All-party cycling group gives a
template to increase cycling levels ten-fold. But is there the
political boldness to do it?
Cyclists commuting in London.
Photograph: Antonio Olmos
So, after three months of work, six evidence sessions and
thousands of words of speculation, not least from me, we finally have a report.
On immediate glance – and at time
of writing I've only seen the summary, not the full thing – the conclusions of
the Get Britain Cycling inquiry, set up by the all-party parliamentary cycling group
(APPCG), could hardly make more sense.
Oddly, the one thing that gives
me hope comes in the curious form of Cameron's Eton and Oxford contemporary,
and supposed political nemesis, Boris Johnson.
I was sceptical when Johnson
talked of a cycling masterplan for London. But then I was amazed when I saw the boldness and scope of his
eventual proposals, and the vigor with which he backed them.
Johnson's actions show we can be
surprised, and they also offer a useful template for Cameron. You could even
argue that such is the rivalry between the pair that the prime minister might
be half-tempted to show he can be audacious, too.
Maybe not, but here's hoping.
Whatever happens, all credit to Julian Huppert, his co-chair Ian Austin, the other APPCG members, and of
course the Times. It provided much of the impetus for the inquiry, largely
funded it and has promised to harry Cameron until he signs up to its recommendations.
Good for them.
MPs call for investment in
cycling
©Sophie
Elgort
April 24, 2013 10:20 am
By Mark Odell, Transport Correspondent
Ministers are in danger of
“squandering the Olympic legacy and failing to create a healthier and more
active” society if the government does not act now to promote cycling,
according to a parliamentary committee.
The report by a cross-party committee of MPs and peers said
the success of British cyclists at last year’s Olympic
Games and the Tour de France “helped cycling catch the
public’s attention” but warns that to sustain that interest, the government
needs to act to improve safety by changing road layouts, incorporate cycling
into road planning and educating children and drivers.
In London, Boris Johnson, the
mayor, has said he will boost spending on cycling to
£12.50 per head, and there are now twice as many cyclists in the city as there
were in 2000. The introduction of a congestion zone that motor traffic must pay
to enter in central London and efforts by many of the capital’s boroughs to
discourage car use, has seen more people take to bikes in the capital, although
safety, as elsewhere in the country, is still a big concern.
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