The Cycling City
Bristol is Britain’s first “cycling city“, according to Ruth Kelly. The project, across Bristol and eleven other towns, is to cost £94 million and aims to get an extra 2.5 million cycling. Ruth Kelly said that
A quarter of journeys made every day by car are less than two miles…
Cycling is an alternative that could bring real health benefits to millions of adults and children, as well as helping them save money and beat congestion.
The first step in persuading people to leave their cars at home is to offer them a real choice.
Providing a step change in cycling facilities, dedicated cycle lanes, more training and information will have a big impact on how people choose to travel.
I can’t really disagree with a word of that. It would massively benefit individuals and the environment to cycle more.
There is one very simple, pretty cheap, and effective way to get people to cycle more - make is safer, by increasing the number of cycle lanes. Frankly, all new roads and all repaired roads should have cycle lanes included as a matter of course.
The problem with current cycle lanes is that they are invariably not in the right place - along my route to work, so little of it has cycle lanes, and the bits that do are the bits that are wide enough for it to make no difference.
This iniative is a good idea. I just hope it works.
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