A mild, at times, February has turned thoughts, perhaps prematurely, to Spring. Snowdrops have been and are almost gone, tree blossom, crocus and daffodils are in bloom (at least in the Deep South) and my pond fish are feeding. Above all, I sense a growing feeling of optimism throughout much of the UK Cycle genus.
The London Bike Show was well attended; the number of electric bikes on show and the crazy Street Velodrome stood out for me. I plan to catch Street Velodrome in the street, later in the project.
Electric bikes are boosting off the shelves and appealing to a much wider demographic. Neglected bikes are being brought back to life, perhaps nudged by Brexit. Cycling infrastructure schemes are being implemented not only in congested and polluted cities but also on my rural doorstep. The 2017 season’s cycling events are hitting the roads, tracks and trails, and the UK Government’s Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, a call to action for cycling and walking in England, is due to be published sometime this year.
Will Chris Grayling’s strategy be a filip or a blocking car door to progress? Discouragingly, The DFT has just announced £4M in awards across 19 English Councils for tech projects that ‘will cut congestion, speed up vehicle journeys and clean up the environment’. £182,000 of that goes to Dorset to provide advance congestion warnings for drivers on the A31 using an app (presumably a slightly less distracting hands free app), except that there is no viable diversion past congestion on the A31 other than to crawl through, and add to, the congestion and pollution in Bournemouth!
These awards do not take a single vehicle off the road, just pass them through slightly more efficiently. Whereas replacing car journeys with cycle journeys …….
Perhaps that (much bigger) investment will appear in The Strategy paper.
