Voies Verte

Green ways in France - the traffic free parcours velo. Like most European countries, France is actively adding traffic free routes for recreational cycling called Voies Verte. We tried a number on our recent tour. My favourite was the Voie Verte de la Moselotte, which starts in Remiremont and ends in Cornimont-La Bresse. It's part of the Voie Verte des Hautes Vosges utilising an old railway track taking you past steep sided gorges, wood mills, granite quarries and old settlements with weaving mills. It's very quiet, very beautiful and best of all it climbs gently into the heart of the high Vosges mountains.

Urban Cycling Best Practice - UK leaders find out more

MPs and Lords from the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group visited the Netherlands with officials from British cycling organisations to look at the Dutch cycling culture and integrated transport solutions. Carlton Reid of Quickrelease tv produced an excellent 12 minute document of this trip.

Bike and Trains Study Tour, Netherlands from Quickrelease.tv on Vimeo.

It should be mandatory viewing for every council department that is resposible for urban transport. Too often in Britain we say we are different and conclude that cycling in Holland is so popular because their country is flat. This video looks beyond that and highlights all the compelling reasons why urban centres benefit from swapping car usage with bicycle usage. The big message appears to be that people want to do it because it is easier than the hassle of taking the car and finding parking.

The sooner councils realise their car centric view of urban planning can be very different, the better. If they can encourage cycle use, people will cycle more, given the right environment to feel safe, links with public transport and secure places to park a bike. It can be the catalyst to urban regeneration. Our towns are emtpy shells with little or no life and increasingly with fewer shops. People have no reason to visit towns any more. Part of this is the car centric mindset and that means drivers look for somewhere that's easy to get to and free to park, hence the large out of town shopping centres. Despite a 'commitment' to cycle facilities we only see random implementations such as short cycle lanes, cycle lanes only on one side of the street, cycle stands at one new development but not another. I understand there is policy governing this but there must be so many get out clauses such as 'If the road is only so wide you can leave out the cycle lane'.

Councils have had their heads in the sand too long and now preside over ghost towns with no restaurants, few arts facilities, empty and closed pubs but plenty of parking meters. It's time to wake up. I hope the MPs and Lords can spread the word and create the self powered culture we so desperately need. It won't happen overnight but a fresh approach will help it happen sooner. First step: send the relevent responsible local government officer from each council to the Velo-city conference in Brussels 12-15 May and make them all travel there with a bicycle.

Budapest - cycling city?

I'm interested in comparing how good cycling is in other towns and cities, especially abroad. When considering alternatives for motorised transport, the humble bicycle is an obvious choice for getting around town. It's efficiency for getting from A to B is good and often better than the car and the ability to get places that cars cannot, often means time saved parking and accessing urban facilities such as shops, libraries, restaurants etc.

On a recent trip to Budapest, Psychalist was on the lookout for cycling facilities and how the Hungarian cyclists cope with their city. There were plenty of bikes around town and I got the impression cycling there is increasing in popularity.

One of my first impressions was of a busy and vibrant city that is pretty much dominated by cars. Many of the urban roads have been designed with the motorist in mind. Multi-lane highways course efficiently through the city using underpasses and flyovers to keep the traffic moving. This of course is a disinsentive to take up the bike. Conversely the cost of fuel is an incentive to cycle, being a similar price to fuel anywhere else in Europe. That said, the roads were very busy.

In 2004 Hungarians staged their first official critical mass bike ride to raise the awareness of the needs of cyclists and further the cause of improving cycling facilities. Every year since, they have had increasing numbers of cyclists taking part with an estimated 50,000 cyclists last year. Their efforts have been rewarded by getting cycling on the political agenda and being part of the urban planning. Appearently the number of people using bikes in Budapest on a daily basis has doubled each year since the first critical mass ride, showing the power of this peaceful form of demonstration.

For cycling, some parts of Budapest fare better than others. Along the Danube river and wider avenues, there are cycle tracks. These are well used as are the bridges to cross the river. Mixing with the pedestrians is a bit of a problem although most people seem to cope with it. Bicycle bells were heard often. In the busier parts of town, the roads are less suitable for riders. Here, the only cyclists appeared to be couriers, of which we saw a few. Some were riding fixed gear racers and others mountain bikes.

There are a few bike hire places in Budapest renting bikes for the day or for longer tours. A lot of the bikes we saw were quite smart bikes. The majority of them were mountain bikes, some racers and tourers and less so the urban bikes more commonly seen in western European cities. Schwinn started making bikes in Hungary in a joint venture with Csepel Bicycle, shortly after the change from communism in 1988. This was a common brand seen around the city including a fat wheeled cruiser but many other makes were also on show, most of them I hadn't heard of before.

There are many parks around the city for recreational use. The weekend proved to be a popular spot for joggers and riders to get their exercise.

I concluded Budapest isn't on the same level as other European cities for cycling but that shouldn't put anyone off cycling there as it has much better facilities than most towns, including the one I live in.

Major cities trying to raise awareness of cycling, hold regular critical mass bike rides around town. This Sunday April 20th (Earth day), Budapest is staging its annual critical mass ride. If you are in Budapest at the weekend I'm sure you could join in. Meet at Deák Ferenc tér, 5th District, 4:30pm.

Could we get a mass critical enough to have one in Blackburn?

Eurostar update

I noticed a few visitors to Psychalist have been searching for information on travelling on Eurostar with bicycles. Since I posted about options for travelling by train with a bike, the policy at Eurostar has changed. There is now greater choice for how you take a bike on Eurostar trains. Previously, cycles had to be booked as checked luggage and were not guaranteed to arrive on the same train. This option is still available but now cycle touring, where you want to have your bike available on arrival, looks possible using Eurostar.

The Eurostar site now clearly states that, if your bike can be reduced to the size of a suitcase, it can travel on the train as regular luggage without pre-booking. For this, Eurostar advise packing it in a bike bag with handlebars, seat, and wheels removed. Presumably also pedals etc. Not everyone is going to want to go to these lengths, unless they have a folding bike. However, there are other options.

From April 7th it will be possible to travel with a bike on the London, Paris and Brussells routes on the same train as the passenger. Using this option, the bike has to be pre-booked for the journey, costing £20 each way and is subject to space being available. This is good news indeed. I'm interested to know how well this works from anyone who tries it.

Reservations and further information on 08705 850 850 (that's 020 79023103 for anyone not wanting to use their premium rate number) or visit the EuroDespatch Centre in person at St Pancras International.

London to get Velib like bike scheme

£500m over 10yrs: Five point plan:

• £75m scheme to provide 6000 sturdy cycles located around London with 'stations' situated every 300m. Will be free for first 30 mins to registered users, and a £1/30mins after that.

• Around a dozen radial cycling corridors into the city centre

• Bike zones with cycle priority streets, 20Mph limits linking areas.

• Legible London signage to help navigation for cyclists and walkers.

• 'Streets of Gold' urban makeovers linking key local destinations such as schools, shops and stations.

Aim - by 2025 5% of trips to be made by bike (1.7m), 22m on foot and include major investment in cycle parking facilities. Today Mr. Livingstone also announced gas guzzling vehicles will get hit for £25/day to drive within the congestion zone.

London Cycling Campaign
Singletrack Magazine
Times online

Urban cycling gaining popularity

I know lots of statistics are available to show cycling, as a form of commuting, is on the increase. Many cities are experiencing improved uptake in cycling, due in part to the slowdown of journey times by car, an increased awareness of green issues and climate change and also the expense as petrol heads towards £1.10 a litre or £5 a gallon (for US readers, that's somewhere in the region of $8.33 a US gallon). How many of you are actually seeing more cyclists as you ride to work?

I'd have to say, even here in Blackburn, there are probably more people riding their bikes to work. It's not very scientific, I know, but before two or three years ago, I used to see very few cyclists in the rush hour. Now I regularly see one or two each morning and evening, even in the winter. As I'm rarely travelling at the same times, these are often different people. Therefore in my very blunt straw poll, I figure cycling to work is gaining popularity.

According to the Energy Saving Trust, if all commuters left their cars at home one day a week it would reduce the UK’s total CO2 emissions by almost 1 per cent. In the UK 71% of commuters travel by car but only 3% travel by bicycle, so there is a long way to go until we reach the level of bicycle use in countries like China or India. I know, they have the problem of increasing car ownership, but you get the picture. With the average commute being 8.7 miles, the proportion of journeys that could be cycled in less than 30 minutes must be quite high, but potential cyclists need to feel safe on the road.

Councils cannot expect the increase to happen organically and whilst I understand adapting streets to be cycle friendly is beyond the budget of most local authorities, you have to wonder whether they are doing enough when compared with many European cities such as Paris, Copenhagen and Berlin. Here, we have a lack of dedicated cycle lanes and no separation from motorised traffic. The roads are in a poor state with cyclists having to navigate pot-holes, grates and manholes and run the risk of being 'doored' when passing endless lines of parked vehicles.

Even where new developments occur, facilities for cyclists seem to come too far down the list of provisions. An example locally is our town centre, which is constantly having expensive imported paving replaced by other expensive imported paving, yet rarely are cycling facilities added. Blackburn recently spent £1.2m on an improvement scheme at Sudell Cross and added a controversial column of light as an art installation, but no cycle stands for visitors to the local shops. Any cyclists stopping there will have to lock their bikes to the street furniture. Perhaps the planners intended all along for cyclists to park their bikes in the art work braid?



If cycling is increasing locally, from what I can see, it is happening despite any cycling strategy. Any credit should go to the cyclists not to the council. Rather than getting a pat on the back, they should be working out how much more it would increase if they really showed a demonstrable commitment to improving facilities.

Government unveils £110m increase in investment for cycling

The Department for Transport has published a document about an increase in funding for Cycling England over the next three years. Announced on Monday, it will get £20m in 2008/9 and in the following two years will receive £60m. Since it's inception in 2005 Cycling England has received £10m a year to promote cycling. The funds are used to develop cycling in England by creating local cycling schemes and training and education through local authorities.

Local Authorities have to bid for funding for their schemes. This year's deadline is 1st February, so get your skates on councils...