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An open letter on the Nice Way Code

An open letter on the Nice Way Code

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I was among the “key stakeholders” who were consulted on the Nice Way Code advertising campaign, I strongly advised against the approach taken and tried to warn them that it was likely to result in a backlash from many ordinary people. However, my advice was ignored (I should add that I was not alone in expressing unease at the tone and message being sent by the Ad campaign). It was clear from the outset that it was never going to create a “culture of tolerance” on Scotland’s roads, after all this sort of respect approach has been around for 100 years, and there is no evidence that any such campaign has worked so far.

Sally Hinchcliffe, one of the organisers of Pedal on Parliament, who helped draft the letter, said: “I’ve never seen such anger online – and this was in response to what should have been an innocuous campaign asking people to get along. Instead, we’ve felt we were being demonised for running red lights, treated as though we’re a separate species, and told to ‘grow up’ for cycling on pavements. The tone was really misjudged and seemed, if anything, to make out that it would be our fault if we were hit by a car – even though statistics show that when people are knocked off their bikes it’s far more likely to have been the driver at fault than the cyclist. I’m a law-abiding cyclist, like everyone else I know who rides a bike, and to have our own government seemingly pandering to this stereotype of cyclists as lawless and a danger to themselves is really galling.” It also has to be remembered that this campaign has been launched at a time when the number of people being killed on the roads while riding a bicycle is rising (as are the number of pedestrian fatalities). This is something which Cycling Scotland would rather not talk about, prefering to state that the total number of deaths on the roads is down (this is due to reduced numbers of fatalities among car occupants, at a time when people are driving less distance and at lower top speeds due to the recession).

The Nice Way Code was launched by the Scottish Transport Minister Keith Brown MSP on the 5th August 2013, and was immediately met with large scale derision. Many people, across Scotland and beyond, feel that is it a massive waste of public money and as a result they have joined forces to write an open letter to the Scottish Government, asking for the Nice Way Code campaign to be scrapped. The campaign, which was intended to promote ‘mutual respect’ among road users, has triggered widespread anger among cyclists who feel that the adverts – particularly one showing a cyclist running a red light. The adverts have attracted controversy on social media with thousands of negative comments, blogs and tweets (and spoof twitter accounts) coming from cyclists and non cyclists alike, far beyond Scotland. The letter immediately garnered dozens of signatures as soon as it was posted on Facebook and tweeted, with over 80 people signed up in just over 24 hours. This letter has now been sent to a wide range of Scottish newspapers, the First Minster Alex Salmond MSP and cc’d to Keith Brown MSP.

The letter reads:

The Nice Way Code is failing in its own terms

At the launch of the Nice Way Code, Transport Minister Keith Brown said, “The Nice Way Code campaign seeks to build a culture of tolerance and patience between cyclists, motorists, pedestrians and all other road users across Scotland.” However, everything that has come out of this campaign – which was paid for out of the Active Travel budget – seems likely instead to create conflict, reinforcing divisions between people based merely on their mode of transport. One advert encourages cyclists not to run red lights simply in order not to give other cyclists a bad name (and not because it’s dangerous and discourteous, not least to pedestrians) – lumping all cyclists together and implying bad behaviour by a tiny minority justifies hostility to everyone who chooses to ride a bike.

As cyclists we are used to hearing from a few uninformed drivers that ‘all’ cyclists run red lights, ride on the pavement, hold up traffic and generally deserve to be treated like obstacles on the road. But we never expected our own government to run adverts saying the same thing. As nine cyclists have died on Scotland’s roads already this year, it’s unsurprising that this campaign seems to have angered almost everyone who regularly rides a bike.

Safer roads will not come from lecturing people and pandering to stereotypes. We believe they will come from rethinking our current emphasis on designing roads purely for motor traffic and redesigning them to remove the sort of conflicts these adverts reflect. Pending that, it’s clear that many people who don’t ride bikes themselves are unaware of the needs of cyclists on the road. A campaign that really aimed to build a culture of patience and tolerance could have helped to educate them about these things, and to get cyclists, drivers and pedestrians to see things from each others’ point of view. Calling cyclists names is not it.

We urge the Scottish government to recognise that it has made a mistake and to pull this campaign before it ramps up tensions on the road even further. We suggest that it takes this opportunity to start a real dialogue between road users about how we can recognise that we are all people, and behave accordingly.

Signatories

Adrian Roberts, Dalkeith
Alan Munro, Pedal on Parliament, Glasgow
Andrew Lamberton, Edinburgh EH6
Andrew W.D. Smith
Andy Lulham, Crawley
Andy Preece, Glasgow
Anthony Robson, Edinburgh, EH15
Barnaby Dellar, EH15
Barry O’Rourke EH23
Ben Cooper, Kinetics, Glasgow
Bill Kennedy, Currie, Edinburgh
Bill Telfer, Langholm
Brian Mackenzie, Inverness
Bruce MacDonald, Edinburgh, EH11
C.A. Looby, Edinburgh
Chris Byrne, Edinburgh
Chris Hill, CityCyclingEdinburgh.info
Christine Helliwell, Edinburgh
Colin Davidson,
Colin Lindsay, Edinburgh
Dave du Feu, Linlithgow
Dave Holladay, Glasgow, G3
David Brennan, Pedal on Parliament, Glasgow
David Edgar, Glasgow
David Gardiner, Laid Back Bikes, Edinburgh
David Hembrow, Assen, The Netherlands
David McKeever, Glasgow
David Monaghan, Edinburgh, EH10
David Morrison, Edinburgh, EH6
David Wilcox, Bristol
Davie Park, Edinburgh, EH11
Denise Marshall, Falkirk
Diana Laing, Edinburgh
Diane Adams, Edinburgh, EH10
Dougie Overbars, Edinburgh
Duncan MacLaren, Edinburgh
Duncan Wallace, Edinburgh, EH11
Eva Viktoria Ballin, Edinburgh
Fran Henderson
Garry Dawes, South Shields
Graeme Hart, Hart’s Cyclery, Edinburgh
Grant Mason, Edinburgh
Heidi Docherty, Edinburgh
Henry Whaley, Edinburgh, EH12
Hugh Thomas, Pedal on Parliament, Edinburgh
Ian Bruce, Edinburgh
James Thomson, Kinross
Jemma Smith
Jenny Wilson, Edinburgh
John and Rosie Rutherford, Dumfries
Karen Sutherland, Gorgie, Edinburgh
Keith Walters, Dumfries
Ken Murray, Edinburgh
Keridwen Jones, Edinburgh, Spokes member
Kim Harding, Pedal on Parliament, Edinburgh
Lee Kindness, Edinburgh, EH15
Lynne and Ian McNicoll, Edinburgh
Mark Macrae, Edinburgh
Mark Treasure, Chair, Cycling Embassy of Great Britain
Martyn Wells, Edinburgh, EH10
Neil Bowie, Carse of Gowrie, Perth
Niall Anderson, Edinburgh
Nigel Shoosmith
Paul Jakma, Glasgow
Paul Milne, Dunbar
Philip Ward
Richard Pelling, Fyvie, Aberdeenshire
Robert Gormley, Edinburgh
Ronald Brunton, Edinburgh
Rory Fitzpatrick, EH11
Ros Gasson, Edinburgh
Ruari Wilson
Ruth Kirk, East Kilbride
Sally Hinchcliffe, Pedal on Parliament & Cycling Dumfries, Dumfries
Sara Dorman, Pedal on Parliament
Scott Hutchinson, Edinburgh
Scott Simpson
Sean Allan, Edinburgh EH8
Shan Parfitt, Aberdeen
Shaun McDonald, Edinburgh / Ipswich
Stephan Matthiesen, Edinburgh
Sweyn Hunter, Kirkwall, Orkney
Tom Orr, Edinburgh EH21
Tom Russell EH15
Tony Stuart KY11
Ulli Harding, Edinburgh
Verity Leigh, Edinburgh

Thoughts on the Ghost Bikes

Thoughts on the Ghost Bikes

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Yesterday I was at Holyrood for the placing of two Ghost Bikes outside the Scottish Parliament. There was also a Tombstone showing the numbers of people who have been killed while riding a bicycle on Scotland’s roads over the last five years (the tally on the Tombstone showed 35 deaths). Following the press call, the tombstone was moved to the Meadows, as this is probably the busiest cycle path in Edinburgh. What we didn’t know at the time of the press call was that the tally on the tombstone had become out of date already. Another person had died, bringing the total for this year to nine, which equals the total for 2012, and it’s only July. As a consequence, the following press coverage was sombre. However, it wasn’t long before the usual voices started blithely blaming the victims, rather than the real issues on our roads.

It should be remembered that changing mode of transport doesn’t necessarily make people more or less careful, but it does change the amount of damage that they can do to others. When you are in control of heavy and dangerous machinery , a moment’s inattention can be fatal, but not necessarily for the operator. One of the paradox effects of modern car safety design has been to convince drivers that they are invulnerable, and this has increased the risk to others.

The solution to this is to take a harm reduction approach: A) restrict speed (and therefore the risk of harm to others) where motor vehicles and more vulnerable road users are mixed (and enforce speed limits). B) provide safe space for vulnerable road users, separated from motor vehicles where speed and volume of motor vehicles can not be reduced. C) place the responsibility for safety on those most capable of doing harm and hold them responsible when they do harm. This third point is a very real problem, there is a grim joke that if you want to get away with murder, use a car. Of course most deaths on the roads are not premeditated, but a report by the insurance company AXA has calculated that there are over 800 deaths a year on British roads due to “disrespectful driving”.

If our roads are to be made safer, we have to change the culture of driving. This CAN be done, just look at France. Twenty years ago French drivers where notorious for their driving habits, and yet today ask anyone who has cycled in France recently, and you will hear glowing reports about safe driving. What brought about this change? The use of the legal system to change driver behaviour, the introduction of the strictest Strict Liability laws in Europe (note: the UK is one of only five countries not to have such a law), a law requiring drivers to give cyclists road space, and strict enforcement of the speed limits. All of this has combined to make France a major destination for cycle tourism (although not all cyclists think that French drivers are that safe).

Culture is something that can change and something we have to change to make the roads safer. There is also the suggestion that we can’t have mass cycling here because we don’t have a “cycling culture”, but there is no reason why we could not have a “cycling culture” here, we just need a safer road environment. This is not just good for “cyclists”, it is good for pedestrians too, and we are all pedestrians at some point.

Until this happens we are, sadly, going to see more Ghost Bikes appearing on our streets.

The nine cyclists who have died on Scotland’s roads so far this year are:

  • Alastair Dudgeon, 51, Kincardine (A985) 6th January
  • Alistair MacBean, 74, Inverness (A82) 22nd January
  • Charles Aimer, 42, Errol (A90) 17th March
  • Craig Tetshill, 21, Gorthleck (unclassified road) 16th May
  • Kyle Allan, 8, Aberdeen (Great Northern Road) 21st May
  • David Wallace, 52, Perth (West Mains Avenue) 12th June
  • Douglas Brown, 79, West Lothian (B9080), 11th July
  • Connor Shields, 14, Ellon (A975), 17th July
  • Mary Brook, 59, Drumnadrochit (A831), 22nd July

When will this madness end?

Proposed parking experiment in Edinburgh

Proposed parking experiment in Edinburgh

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Dear Councillors,

Following on from the future of local transport debate the other evening, I would like to propose a simple parking experiment. It would not cost much and should be fairly straight forward to carry out.

I suggest that the council gets four or five Car Bike Ports, puts them in parking bays around the city, and then monitor what happens. If you were to leave them in a single bay for no more than a few months at a time, you would only have to use Temporary Traffic Regulation Orders (TTROs). Or you could have them moved between bays on the same street every few days, so that you would even need to bother with the TTROs.

As it is purely short term experiment there should be to much planning needed and as the Car Bike Ports were originally commissioned by the London Festival of Architecture, the Street Scape people shouldn’t have a problem. The Car Bike Ports could even be rented to keep the cost down. Although I suspect that by the end of the experiment there would be a clamour from the local trader for keeping them.

So are you wiling to give it a go?

Kim

It would be great to see something like this in Edinburgh:

Car Bike port

Cycle parking in Edinburgh, where have we got to?

Cycle parking in Edinburgh, where have we got to?

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Three years ago I wrote a blog post called Cycle parking, please can we have more…, where I suggested that there was a need for better cycle parking facilities in Edinburgh, and particularly in the tenement areas of the city. A year on, I thought I had found a possible solution (although the Cycledock website suggests there is a problem with the company).

I then found that Spokes were also looking at the problems of cycle parking in Edinburgh and were lobbing on the issue. Moving forward along the time-line, a year ago it was starting to look like all the lobbying and campaigning was about to pay off, as the City of Edinburgh Council proposed a £50,000 pilot on-street residential cycle parking scheme.

I put in an application to be a part of the pilot scheme, as did one of the owners in the next stair. We were delighted when we were told that our street was to be included in the scheme, this was in March (four months after the closing date for application). A site visit was arranged for May, which proved to be very positive. We discussed: problems with cycle storage for our tenemented street, the range of available on-street solutions, security, issues around management and maintenance, even a setting up a ‘Not for Profit’ Locker Management business. It was agreed that secure, covered cycle parking was a must (maybe something similar to this) and that lockers were also an option. Following the meeting, copies of the minutes were circulated (in July), which owed the next steps:

  1. Produce drawings showing positions and types of facilities.
  2. Initiate TRO [Traffic Regulation Order] process for removal/relocation of Parking Permit Holder spaces.
  3. Approach Streetscape with proposals showing locations and types of lockers.
  4. Investigate security certification.
  5. Produce ‘final’ design drawings for consultation with all parties.
  6. Procurement.

That all sounds great, but that was the last my neighbour and I have heard.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Edinburgh people are being asked to remove bike lockers from their front gardens. All of which leaves one wondering what is going on at the City of Edinburgh council.

Update 16th Oct 2012 – Received an e-mail today to saying:

Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

We are still considering the points raised during the initial
consultation meetings (and some additional issues that we have become
aware of since), but I hope to have some preliminary designs ready by
the end of this month to discuss with all the applicants.

So it looks like there will be further progress soon.

A proposed eight point manifesto for safer cycling

A proposed eight point manifesto for safer cycling

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The Times has launched a public campaign and 8-point manifesto calling for cities to be made fit for cyclists:

  1. Lorries entering a city centre should be required by law to fit sensors, audible turning alarms, extra mirrors and safety bars to stop cyclists being thrown under the wheels.
  2. The 500 most dangerous road junctions must be identified, redesigned or fitted with priority traffic lights for cyclists and Trixi mirrors that allow lorry drivers to see cyclists on their near-side.
  3. A national audit of cycling to find out how many people cycle in Britain and how cyclists are killed or injured should be held to underpin effective cycle safety.
  4. Two per cent of the Highways Agency budget should be earmarked for next generation cycle routes, providing £100 million a year towards world-class cycling infrastructure. Each year cities should be graded on the quality of cycling provision.
  5. The training of cyclists and drivers must improve and cycle safety should become a core part of the driving test.
  6. 20mph should become the default speed limit in residential areas where there are no cycle lanes.
  7. Businesses should be invited to sponsor cycleways and cycling super-highways, mirroring the Barclays-backed bicycle hire scheme in London.
  8. Every city, even those without an elected mayor, should appoint a cycling commissioner to push home reforms.

Personally I find this a disappointing mishmash of ideas and lacking in ambition. I think that we can do better, so here is my version:

Active travel is a great idea as it achieves so many policy objectives: it is clean, it is green, it reduces congestion in towns and cities, and it is healthy (active people, such as regular cyclists, live longer). In addition, people who use active ways of travel to get to work are more productive, and it is relatively cheap and therefore has great potential to save money (the future savings in health cost alone make worthwhile).

  1. Commitment to cycling: Cycling is booming in Britain and said to be worth £3 billion to the economy. But while in the Netherlands some £10-£20 per head is invested in cycling. In Scotland it is nearer £2-£3. In England the best achieved was the 2005-2011 Cycling City and Towns project, which invested around £10 per head and achieved significant growth in everyday cycle use. The Scottish government should invest 5% of its £2bn annual transport budget in active travel (cycling and walking). This is exactly in line with its own ‘Low Carbon Scotland’ proposal for £1.32bn over 11 years, and with the per-head figure which The Netherlands spends on cycling alone. Scottish local authorities should invest, from their own internal transport budgets, a proportion at least equal to their existing commuter cycling modal share, as the City of Edinburgh Council has done. Bearing in mind that the Cycling Action Plan for Scotland aim is “By 2020, 10% of all journeys taken in Scotland will be by bike.“
     
  2. Improved provision for cycling: this must include a commitment to reviewing major roads and junctions, prioritising dedicated space for cyclists where speed limits are not already 20mph and ensuring quality infrastructure which ensures safe reintroduction of cyclists to the highway where relevant. This should be done following best practice from places which have a cycling modal share of 20% or greater. Local Transport Note (LTN) 2/08 and Cycling by Design 2010 should be scrapped as neither is truly fit for purpose (although the latter is better than the former). The important thing is to get rid of the concept of “dual networks” cycling should be safe for everyone, not just the quick and the bold. The Dutch and the Danes have developed their best practice over 30 years of trial and error, we have the opportunity to learn what works and avoid repeating the mistakes.
     
  3. Slower speeds: in residential and built up areas. There are significant road safety benefits with a 20 mph speed limit. National government must commit to supporting, encouraging and funding local authorities to follow many of their peers and make the change to 20mph.
     
  4. Encouragement of cycling – Smarter Travel Choices. National Government and local authorities must commit to supporting safe and active travel within a wider programme of ‘smarter choices’ investment. By committing to this policy direction, we are more likely to see a joined-up package of measures. A good example of this is the “Better way to work” campaign which was run in Edinburgh last year.
     
  5. Improved road traffic law and enforcement: Traffic law must do more to protect the most vulnerable road users such as cyclists, pedestrians, children and older people. In addition, traffic policing teams much be given more resource to ensure that existing laws can be enforced more effectively. Sentencing must be appropriate when drivers cause harm, and fines should be related to income as following the Swiss model.
     
  6. A focus on Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs): heavy lorries are associated with a disproportionately high risk of death or very serious injury to cyclists and pedestrians. Despite being just 6% of road traffic, lorries are involved in around 20% of all cyclists’ fatalities. Government policies must ensure a commitment to the roll-out of a comprehensive package of measures to reduce the risk of HGVs to cyclists and pedestrians.
     
  7. A strategic and joined-up programme of road user training: to include better information, provision and training for all road user types including cyclists from an early age.
     
  8. Improved data: the information that records how many people are cycling is very poor at the national level and inconsistent at the local level. This makes it difficult to monitor what is happening and which interventions have greatest impact. At a minimum, counts should be carried out twice a year using standardised protocols for data collection and handling. Where possible, electronic counters with displays should be used to count the number of cyclists passing certain routes. This both raises awareness and creates a community feeling among cyclists, as well as being a good evaluation instrument to monitor the success of the project.

If these eight points were to be taken on board and fully implemented, we could make this a happier and healthier country.

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How do you get more people to ride bicycles

How do you get more people to ride bicycles

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Having spent far too much time trying to find how other places achieved the high cycling rates they have, I have come to the conclusion that there are two factors which can increase cycling rates and make cycling feel ”normal”.

First: provide usable, high quality (although not necessary expensive) cycling specific infrastructure. Lot of people have bikes and will use them more if they feel it is safe and covenant to do so. This is something which is slowly coming about, with the emphasis on the word “slowly”, and is not helped by so much money being wasted on poor quality unusable cycling infrastructure, which is not fit for purpose. But that is for another post.

Then: emotional marketing, and this is something I would like to discuss in this blog post.

It is important to make riding a bicycle feel like a normal thing to do, for a number of reasons, not least because people are then more likely to support (and demand) the provision of usable cycling infrastructure.

A large proportion of the UK population knows how to ride a bicycle and indeed own at least one bike. Sadly, most bikes are at the back of a shed gathering dust. So at some stage in their lives people felt that riding a bicycle was an ordinary and normal thing to do. However, most adults no longer ride bicycles on a regular basis, and cycling as an adult is no longer seen as normal. For more on why this is the case, I recommend reading Dave Horton’s work on the fear of cycling.

So how do we overcome this fear of cycling? This is where emotional marketing comes in, which is about selling a lifestyle, making it look attractive and desirable. If you are wondering what this has to do with transport, well the motor industry spends about £830m a year on advertising, much of which can been seen as emotional marketing. They are selling a lifestyle: making driving seem ordinary and aspirational at the same time. However, the advertising rarely, if ever shows congestion, the roads are always empty, suggesting this should be the default way to travel. The reality, as we all know, is often very different, but the marketing makes people forget these downsides, and believe there is no other way.

Now obviously the cycling industry doesn’t have the same sort of money for advertising as the motor industry, and many in bike business just aren’t interested in cycling as transport (rather than sports & leisure), but increasingly bicycles are being used in lifestyle advertising. So things are starting to move our way. A number of cities in mainland Europe have started to run marketing campaigns to promote cycling as a means of urban transport, notably Bozen/Bolzano, Munich, and Copenhagen.

These broad promotional campaigns are intended to “sell” the idea of bicycling to those who currently don’t cycle, and to create a positive image for cycling among the public in general. In the same way that the motor industry uses advertising, this promotes a certain lifestyle, successful cycling campaigns appeal to the emotions of their audiences to sell the idea of cycling as a positive lifestyle choice. They use emotion-based sales pitches rather than logic-based ones, and this has generally been proven to be more successful. However, it is important to note that simply encouraging people to cycle more without making it easy to do and attractive will not succeed. These campaigns are not a substitute for providing good, usable, cycling infrastructure. They can, however, play an important role in encouraging people to ask for something better. It is about hearts and minds. After all, if people don’t know there is a better option than the one they have, they aren’t going to ask for it.

These city (or regional) marketing campaigns are well funded formal campaigns, but they aren’t the only form of emotional marketing of cycling going on. At a more informal level, there is the global “Cycle Chic” movement. This is a collection of blogs inspired by the original Cycle Chic blog (better known as Copenhagen Cycle Chic) which started from a single photo and has developed into an international consultancy. These blogs are mostly individual enterprises which aim to celebrate ordinary people, riding bicycles in ordinary clothes, in cities and towns around the world. The message they are sending is: look, there are people just like you riding bicycles as transport, if they can, so can you. As the strap line of Edinburgh Cycle Chic puts it, “Because you don’t have to wear Lycra”. It is the activity of these blogs, documenting people riding on the streets that have attracted the attention of the fashion industry, which is increasingly using bicycles as props in its advertising. If there is one industry which can out-spend all others and influence lifestyles, it is the fashion industry. It also has the power to reach people who are not engaged by traditional cycle industry marketing. In the UK, research carried out by Sustrans in early 2009 found that 79 per cent of British women never cycle at all, but 69% of those would cycle if they felt it was safe.

For some reason there are some existing cyclists in the English speaking world who find the Cycle Chic movement disturbing, but I am really not sure why. Cycling is an activity which just about everybody can do, and it has a lot of potential as everyday short range transport, so where is the problem in promoting it as such? Part of the problem may lie in the fact that cycling can mean many different things, as Graeme Obree says: “It’s is a sport, it’s a pastime and it’s a form of transport. You don’t football down to the shops”.

A lot of the opposition to disquiet about the idea of Cycle Chic appears to come from what can loosely be termed the “Lycra brigade”, who seem to feel that they are in some way being criticised by the emphasis on riding in ordinary clothes. They rather miss the point, Cycle Chic is not about them, no one is saying “Thou shalt not wear Lycra!”. The country which probably has more cycling clubs per head of population and the most fanatical cycle racing fans, is The Netherlands. This is also the country with more people cycling in normal clothes on an everyday basis, there is no reason why this should have a negative effect on cycling as sport.

For those who like to cycle fast or over long distances, there is a case for wearing technical clothing, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, this sort of cycling is never going to appeal to the masses, even the most popular mass participation sports in the UK only engage about 5% of the population each. However, everyone makes short journeys of the sort of distance which can easily be covered by bicycle, and the whole point of Cycle Chic is to show that anyone can ride a bicycle as a means of everyday transport, and that you don’t have to be an athlete to do it.

There are also a small number of people who criticise the idea of Cycle Chic on supposed “safety” grounds. Saying that people should wear hi-visibility clothing and cycle helmets while cycling in order to be safe, this is a totally false argument, as I have pointed out before. Sadly a number of these people seem to think that emphasising high-vis and helmets in cycling campaigns will somehow encourage people to take up cycling. The truth is it won’t, most people are risk adverse. Telling them that they will be safe if they dress in a certain way, while ignoring the real source of the problem, will simply put them off. This has been shown over the last 20+ years by the failure of these “safety” campaigns to raise cycling levels to those seen on the European mainland, and shows it is clearly time for a fresh approach in the UK. There are lessons to be learnt from our near neighbours across the North Sea, where they have shown that the cycling infrastructure and emotional marketing approaches work, especially if employed in tandem.

Cycle parking, a new opportunity in Edinburgh?

Cycle parking, a new opportunity in Edinburgh?

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Some time ago I wrote a post called Cycle parking, please can we have more… in which I flagged up issue surrounding cycle parking in Edinburgh and the particular problems for tenement dwellers. Finally things are starting to change, as a result of lobbying by Spokes the City of Edinburgh Council has proposed a Pilot of on-street residential cycle parking. They say:

“The City of Edinburgh Council is committed to increasing the percentage of all journeys in the city by bike to 10% by 2020. One of the biggest barriers to cycling in the city is a lack of suitable cycle parking for residents in tenement areas. In recognition of this, the Council is considering providing on-street cycle parking in areas with tenement residences. This will initially be done on a trial basis at a small number of locations. We are planning to trial:

  • covered cycle racks;
  • individual lockers; and
  • uncovered cycle racks.

So if you are interested for your tenement/flat area, please talk to your neighbours and apply by 9th December 2011. Application form [pdf 4.4MB] application form [doc 764k].

However, it should be noted: “Applications are subject to being selected on the basis of suitability and feasibility. We cannot guarantee that locations that are selected will be installed. Should you require any further information please contact cycling@edinburgh.gov.uk”

I hope to see this project going ahead, but the “suitability and feasibility” clause does worry me that the Council is not fully committed to “increasing the percentage of all journeys in the city by bike to 10% by 2020”. As I have seen existing cycle infrastructure around the city quietly disappearing, such as well used Sheffield stands being removed and not replaced when pavements are relaid, and cycle lanes being converted into on street car parking. Still this initiative does give me hope for the future!

Life is more beautiful by bicycle

Life is more beautiful by bicycle

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I recently spotted this Ad by Decathlon and was so charmed by it I had to put it up here:

The strap line reads “Life is more beautiful by bicycle” and who could argue with that?

 

Thanks to Cycling in Auckland for putting me on to it.

NB, the original You Tube video had been pulled, so I found another copy on Vimeo.

Bringing home the harvest… (part 2) the BIG pumpkin

Bringing home the harvest… (part 2) the BIG pumpkin

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In my first post on Bringing home the harvest I wrote about how I was unsure as to just how we were going to get the biggest pumpkin of this year home. The ideal solution would be a cargo bike, but where to get a hold of one?

However, before I go any further I think I should just introduce the biggest pumpkin we have grown year…

The biggest pumpkin this year?? No not that one.

No not that one! This one…

The biggest pumpkin this year!

Right, so now you get some idea of the scale of the problem, there was no way that thing was going to fit in a pannier. So the options were either hire/borrow a cargo bike, borrow/hire a bicycle trailer, or get a friend with a car to drive it back for us. Well, the last one was a sign of desperation, the preferred option was either one of the first two solutions. So where to get either a hold of a cargo bike or a trailer? I knew that the Bike Station do have a number of cargo bikes, and that there used to be something about hiring cargo (and vintage) bikes on their website (alas no longer), so I sent them an e-mail asking about it. So far, I have yet to get a reply.

Having failed to get a response from the Bike Station, I decided to experiment with the new social media and posted up a request to hire/borrow a cargo bike or a bike trailer, on Twitter and on a local cycling forum. The first reply was from the cycling forum with an offer of a Revolution child trailer. I also received offers of another cycle trailer from Greener Leith on Twitter and a Nihola family trike, also on Twitter. The Twitter offers came in just after I had accepted the offer on the cycling forum.

So far, so good, but of course things in the real world never run as smoothly as in the virtual world. I was discussing the collection arrangements with the person who offered the loan of the bike trailer (we will call her S) over the forum’s Private Messaging (PM) system, when we both lost the PM thread. Her PM thread disappeared first, so we started a new one, at which point I should have taken note and made a backup (or just written it all down on paper). Then I lost the PM tread about about an hour before I had planned to pick up the trailer, just as I was about to confirm the details. Therefore, I didn’t have S’s phone number or address, I just knew that she lived (conveniently) part way between my home and the allotment. Fortunately, I noticed that the forum admin was on-line, so I e-mailed him to ask if he could pass my phone number to S. Ten minutes later S phoned me and we were able to get things back on track, phew.

From the PM discussions I had had with S, I knew both my bikes might have a problem mounting the towing hitch, on the CdF because there is a protective cuff around the rear drop outs, and on the Norco because the rack mount is very close to the QR skewer. I took the Norco anyway, and sure enough, the towing hitch didn’t fit. Fortunately Ulli had brought her Trek, which was an easy fit. Having picked up the trailer, it was on to the allotment to load up the pumpkin, and also to do a wee bit of harvesting of other things and tiding up before the winter. Given the size of the pumpkin, we decided that it was best strapped into the child harness in the trailer, to stop it moving about in transit.

The biggest pumpkin this year...

After a short discussion, it was decided that we would take it in turns to cycle the pumpkin home. I don’t normally like riding Ulli’s bike, but in this case I was going to make an exception. Ulli took the first half of the ride and chose to go along via the canal, I expected her to struggle a wee bit on the road up to the canal, but she managed it fine. However, on the short down hill section from the bridge to the tow path, she found the limitations of her brakes and was lucky not to go straight into the canal. We got some interesting/ed looks and comments as we proceeded along the tow path, especially when people saw the pumpkin. The most pleasing comment was from a couple with a push chair, who, on seeing the trailer, said “we could do with one of those”.

Crossing the Meadows with the BIG pumpkin in tow

It wasn’t until we got to the Meadows that I was finally given the chance to have a go at towing the trailer, it was an interesting experience. Pulling away required a bit more effort that usual, probably as the bike needed to be in a lower gear than usual and wasn’t, first lesson leant. While getting up to speed, there was an odd slight jerking, but this stopped once I was at cruising speed. The loaded trailer was surprisingly stable and easy to ride with, for the most part other traffic gave us plenty of space. However, there was one idiot who misjudged the length of cyclist and trailer, and had to stop mid overtake when the on coming driver started flashing lights. (There had to be one, sigh.) Overall it was a great way to get the harvest home.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, it weighed in at 16.4 Kg!!

Bringing home the harvest…

Bringing home the harvest…

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It is that time of year, when the leaves start to drop and the hearth in the living room starts to fill with a random range of fruit and veg…

Potatoes and pumpkins

Yes, it is harvest time at the allotment, and getting the harvest home is always an interesting exercise, especially as I haven’t owned a car since 1994. I have considered joining the City Car Club, but somehow I can quite bring myself to do so, as we can bring most stuff home by bike. For the last load I brought back, the panniers weighed in at 18.6Kg! One of the pumpkins was 7.4Kg by itself. It is not the one above (those are just wee ones), it is the one below…

The second biggest pumpkin

…when I took the photo I left the chair up against the table in order to give scale, it is 35cm across. However, this isn’t the largest pumpkin this year, no that one is at least twice the size and is still on the allotment awaiting collection. The ideal solution would be a cargo bike, a Dutch Bakfiets or a Danish BULLITT, I have to admit I really like the idea of a “fast cargo bike”. As always, the the ideal number of bikes is i=n+1, or as, have seen elsewhere i=n+1(-1=D) where (-1=D) keeps the number of bikes one below the number which would lead to divorce.

In the meantime, I have to figure out how to get the harvest home before Halloween, just in case someone tries to climb the fence…

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