Boris, Pickles, Gehl; 3 men, 3 different approaches to cycling

This week I’ve had the opportunity to speak with three very different people, with very different approaches as to how we should go about growing cycling rates here in the UK.

Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, is a very excited man. He believes his localism and decentralisation bill – which will deliver the biggest shake up to planning laws since the 1940s – will bring about a new era of civic responsibility and will deliver planning power to local people. “Cities will be given control of their own destinies” he said, speaking at The Economist’s conference on Urban Planning and Liveable Cities. He is lifting the Labour-imposed restriction on car parking places allowed in new developments, supposedly under the guise of discouraging street parking, which he considers anti-social. What he couldn’t explain was how this would stop an excess of multi-car households coming about, and exactly how many on-street parking spots (a source of revenue) he expects local Councils to remove considering the wide-ranging budget cuts his Government are currently imposing on them. (Hackney, for example, will have to swallow a 25% budget cut over the next 5 years). I asked him; “As Secretary of State for Communities, and given the known effects that over-use of private cars has on local communities in terms of urban blight, noise pollution, obesity etc, how do you reconcile and balance these issues with your declaring the end to the so-called war on the motorist?”
His answer was unequivocally blunt: “Don’t be such a puritan. Not all of us can pedal up and down in rubber knickers you know; we need to find balance. Of course, let’s encourage cycling and walking, and we need to make cycling safer, but let us not treat people in cars like the enemy!”

Cycling in London - no rubber knickers in sight...

Later that day I was at a public transport forum in Greenford listening to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The civic centre was packed, and passions were running high. But Boris was keen to stress he was doing all he could to promote cycling; “We are going through a neo-Victorian age of investment in transport infrastructure... ..By investing in the long term infrastructure we will pull the city – and indeed the whole of the UK – out of recession.” So far, so positive, and the Mayor explained he’d be keen to expand the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme to West London if only a certain bank cared to throw in an additional £25million. Boris was adamant in his resolve; “We are creating a safer, greener city where people can feel free to ride their bikes to school, to work, to the shops.” But serious questions came back from the audience; how could the Mayor expect everyday and ordinary people to ride when bike theft is so prevalent, when traffic volumes are so high, when much of the cycle network as it currently stands throws you in to the most dangerous spots and is often incomplete at the most difficult places to navigate? In a poll of the audience approximately 50% were in favour of more pavement riding and more shared pedestrian walkways if it meant completing more cycle routes away from the more dangerous and difficult spots in the road. Boris came back with soundbites about Sheffield stands, hints about introducing a Ciclovia every Sunday here in London, and promises to ‘look into’ facing off a potential ban on bikes on Crossrail, but his ideas as to what to actually do to make cycling accessible for all were vague at best. When questioned how he intended to encourage more children and women to cycle under current road conditions, Boris went into soundbite meltdown; “As Mayor, I want to make all roads safe for cyclists... ..everyone who uses the roads in London should expect to find cyclists there and should take good care of them... ..It is getting safer all the time, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. Cycling has gone up 110% - 120% - in 10 years and KSIs have gone down by a fifth. Whenever we have a fatality I personally look in to see what has happened.” It’s great that Boris is pro-cycling and makes the right noises about getting on your bike in the first place – you can’t buy that sort of PR. But, to bring about a cycling revolution (or achieve 5% modal share for bikes, as Boris desires) you need concrete answers and solutions to people’s safety concerns and need to make provision for cyclists the primary priority, especially at difficult and dangerous junctions. Indeed, former Mayor of Bogota Enrique Peñalosa, who we met last week, achieved 5% modal share for bicycles by constructing some 300km of segregated cycleways and by restricting city centre street parking.


“It’s safe, but doesn’t always feel like it” is no foundation on which to build mass cycle rates by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed earlier that day Jenny Jones - Green party London Assembly member - had quizzed the Mayor, claiming his current planned cycling initiatives were going to fall short of the 5% modal share target by 820,000 additional cycle journeys every day. Considering at present only 500,000 cycle journeys (or 2.6% modal share) currently take place across Greater London each day it would seem that the golden 5% is quite some way off. (Read ‘Utter Tripe in the Outer Boroughs’ and weep)

Streets for people?

On the same day as my encounters with Mr Pickles and Mr Johnson and their questionable future for cycling, I also had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Professor Jan Gehl wherein he described his life’s work in Copenhagen and some of his ideas for London. His message was clear and concise; if a city is sweet to it’s people, the people will be sweet to the city. Gehl is an urban architect who concentrates on the space between buildings – the public realm – and has built his career around creating city spaces for people. He believes that by prioritising pedestrians and cyclists you make a lively, safe, sustainable and pleasant city. In his native Copenhagen, they have resolved that “in this city, everything will be done to invite people to walk and bicycle as much as possible in the course of their daily lives.” I think the emphasis on inviting cyclists as oppose to expecting them to endure current conditions is a very striking point. In Copenhagen some 37% of commuters choose to get to work by bike. A brave new world? On that Gehl is clear; “We do not have to think like 1960s traffic engineers for ever – times are changing.” Gehl believes that building bike lanes is not about bikes per se, but about providing a cheap, clean, economical, sustainable and safe new transport network for the city. It’s integrated, too. You can take bikes on trains and the metro in Copenhagen and all city taxis are fitted with bicycle racks – all part and parcel of spoiling your walkers and cyclists and inviting people to ride. The benefits are clear on many levels, not least in terms of economy. Danish research has found that for every KM cycled, society saves 30 cents. For every KM driven, society looses 20 cents. Biking is not just about having fun and being ‘green’; it pays, too.

Why then, are the likes of Boris Johnson and Eric Pickles so far behind the times here? Where is their definitive vision for bringing about mass cycling here in London? The previous Mayor commissioned Gehl to write a hefty report on London some 7 years ago back in 2004 (PDF). Key recommendations included finding a better balance between traffic and other city users, and improving conditions for walkers and cyclists in the city. These state clearly that the Mayor, as a visionary torch bearer for cycling, should:


Create a cycling policy for London, setting out goals to be achieved.
(Done, see TfL’s “Cycling Revolution”)


Establish good and convenient bicycle parking facilities.
(In fairness, Boris is overseeing the instalment of some 60,000 Sheffield stands)


Run campaigns to encourage cycling and to create greater awareness about cyclists in traffic.
(Done and done; there was TfL’s snazzy ‘Catch up with the bicycle’ campaign (ongoing) and those weird safety adverts with the enormous bikes rolling around a bank robbery)


Provide clear marking at intersections.
(On the cycle superhighways, yes, elsewhere less so)


Create a safe, coherent network of good connected routes.
(Hmm. Less successful here. Boris withdrew funding from the London Cycle Network + which was, to be frank, not great to start with either)


And...


Create safe, raised cycle lanes, separated from traffic by kerbs.
(Ah. Yes. Of course... That explains everything...)


The more I research this subject the stronger my feelings are that there is an inherent appetite to cycle amongst Londonders if only they perceived it to be safe (subjectively and actual). Never more urgent has the mantra “Build it and they will come” been, and yet this seems to be the one thing which is ignored by politicians at all levels. It’s all well and good having a fancy plan, and snazzy adverts, but unless people – ALL people – feel happy on a bike in London then all endeavours to attempt to bring about mass cycling in London are bound to fail.


I’ll leave you with Professor Gehl’s speech from the Liveable Cities conference in the hope that by spreading his good advice and common sense approach to provisions for cyclists, someone at a higher level might actually start to listen and do something about this all.... View the video on The Economist conference website, here.



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