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SUSTRANS CONFUSES CYCLING TO WORK (in London) WITH RECREATIONAL CYCLING AND BRINGS MORE CONGESTION AND MORE HEALTH & SAFETY RISKS IN UK TOWNS & CITIES.

Sustrans asserts cyclists’ equal right to road space. I keep asserting that we are equal only sometimes, unequal most times and different always. Fair Play is a much better mantra than Equality here.

• Sustrans wants 4 out of 5 of your local journeys to be cycling, walking, or on public transport but not  in your own car by 2020. (In Newcastle read this as one car driver in 5 to abandon the car in favour of the bike for journeys under five miles.)

• “Design streets to slow down traffic to make life safer for cyclists and pedestrians” – regardless of difficulties for the emergency ambulance, police and fire services and cost in time and road rage for the general public. In Bristol they encouraged the Council to spend over £2m on 20 mph signs. 

• Promote cycling in towns and cities with cyclists inhaling toxic carcinogenic diesel fumes from buses, cars and lorries on narrow cycle lanes on busy main roads, and at constant risk of injury. They kid themselves that this can be made safe and health giving. (In Bristol recorded cycling injuries up over 60% since 1994 – Sustrans’ “Zero Vision” truly!)

• At enormous public expense – and always asking for more for cyclists (even when in Newcastle they scarcely exist) –  put joined up narrow cycle lanes on busy roads when cyclists do not cycle in single file in rush hour. Ignore local factors, especially existing narrow main roads in towns & cities and the weather in Northern Britain – wetter, windier, and usually five degrees colder than the South.
  

THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF POUNDS BY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN GIVEN MORE MILLIONS TO BUY IN THEIR SERVICES.

Do you really think that this was a good idea? Today’s Times 1.2.2016 says “it is estimated that the driverless and semi-autonomous global car market will be worth £900 billion by 2025.”

Read more posts here and see a case study in their folly in Newcastle on Tyne – happening now!