Blog
Read All About It!
It IS Cycling Madness. What a Waste of Money!
Was there any market research or even a pilot scheme before the Department for Transport and HM Treasury approved this spend?
£1.2 billion long-term plan to make cycling and walking the natural choice for your shorter journeys.
Your Journeys on your bike?
To work, the weekly shop, the football match, dining out, an evening concert, the pub, Friday night out, family outings with the kids, dance clubs, choral societies …
And an aging population, hills, dark nights, cold, wet and windy weather, inhaling toxic carcinogenic fumes, unguarded moments by anyone and the serious risk of broken bones …or worse.
“The government wants cycling and walking to become the norm < for you> by 2040 and will target funding innovative ways to encourage people onto a bike or to use their own two feet for shorter journeys.Plans include specific objectives to double cycling, reduce cycling accidents and increase the proportion of 5 to 10-year-olds walking to school to 55% by 2025″.
“The £1.2 billion of <your money> is allocated as follows:
£50 million to provide cycling proficiency training for further 1.3 million children £101 million to improve cycling infrastructure and expand cycle routes between the city centres, local communities, and key employment and retail sites
£85 million to make improvements to 200 sections of roads for cyclists
£80 million for safety and awareness training for cyclists, extra secure cycle storage, bike repair, maintenance courses and road safety measures £389.5 million for councils to invest in walking and cycling schemes
£476.4 million from local growth funding to support walking and cycling
In addition, the government is investing an extra:
£5 million on improving cycle facilities at railway stations
£1 million on Living Streets’ outreach programmes to encourage children to walk to school
£1 million on Cycling UK’s ‘Big Bike Revival’ scheme which provides free bike maintenance and cycling classes.”
And for an illustration of built-in chronic inertia it would be difficult to beat this:
“ Under the Infrastructure Act 2015 , the government is required to set a ‘Cycling and walking investment strategy’ for England. This is the first of a series of shorter term, 5 year strategies to support the long-term ambition to make walking and cycling the natural choice for shorter journeys by 2040.”
The insanity is entrenched. It will need another Act of Parliament to undo the damage. The Department of Transport in London has allowed itself to be hijacked by an ego-centric, auto-phobic cycling lobby, Sustrans, saying they want to slow traffic down – media silent as the grave.Theirs. It would appear to be totally unaware of the urban environment North of Watford, UK’s narrow, twisting urban streets and the imminent arrival of thousands of electric cars.
And a lot more work for the NHS.
And is Market Research a bit too expensive for the Treasury?
Please share with your friends and colleagues
Latest Posts:
- Please get the message. Prioritise fast chargers for EV for 21st Century travel. Cycle lanes are for yesterday. — You now have all-revealing photos and Next Door.co.uk’s 79% Gosforth poll. Cycle lanes are not the future. I have been trying to flag this...
- “Crap” Cycle lanes increase the toxic fumes on Gosforth High Street, Newcastle and scarcely any cyclists! UGH — THIS IS AN UNHOLY MESS! Not the only one. Gosforth High Street is a section of the main arterial road that starts at the...
- Do’s and Don’ts for Human Rights Lawyers … and Play Fair 🙏 — PLEASE SHARE
- My last word in the matter. This IS a black mark on the legal profession — I asked a firm of solicitors to draft a pre-action protocol letter that an assistant Local Government Ombudsman said I should secure from a...
- THE WORLD OF LABOUR’S LAWYERS AND THE REAL WORLD -A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY — Why do some lawyers think that I am wrong, and why do I think that they are? And they do think it. One lawyer...
- Do not Scrap GCSEs. Give pupils a choice of their exam! Let all children achieve. Respect diversity – Ignore inequality. Aspire to a degree or 5 Stars — When I was the chair of Governors of Barbara Priestman School – it was a great school for children with physical disabilities and learning...
- Seek and you will find — Are you, like me, tired of Andrew Marr and Emily Maitlis constantly flying like vultures over a dying body? Look for people when they...
- I don’t think Karl Marx would have been a Rotarian — I am not a badge person. I do not usually wear my Rotary badge. Most Rotarians do. Maybe I feel it looks a bit...
- Why did I write and stage “Death of a Nightingale”? — Why did I write and stage Death of a Nightingale for a month in the New End Theatre in London? The answer at 3...
- My 4th Student Podcast Part 2 Cycle Lanes & Sustrans. The media’s best kept secret — Student Podcast No 4 Part 2 exposes the cycling lobby, Sustrans, responsible for idiotic pop-up cycle lanes nationwide. It calls the £2bn spend on...
Leave a Reply