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Twice as many people are cycling to work in London than 10 years ago – and Cambridge has kept its crown as Britain’s unofficial cycling capital.
The figures come from analysis of the 2011 Census, released today. 29% of Cambridge residents cycled to work, 17% in Oxford, and 14% in Hackney and the Isles of Scilly. York and Gosport were the only other areas to top 10%.
The figures confirm the ‘London cycling boom’, with the number of bike commuters doubling from 77,000 (in 2001) to 155,000. Brighton and Bristol also doubled, while Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield experienced increases over 80%.
But nationally, the number of people cycling to work is unchanged – just 2.8%, the same as 2001. In fact, in most areas, the number of cyclists decreased. North Norfolk lost 40% of its cyclists over this period. The Welsh Valleys – Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly – occupied the bottom of the table, with just 0.3% of people cycling to work in Merthyr.
The Census found that men were much more likely to cycle to work (3.9%) than women (1.6%). Cycling was most popular among 30 to 34 year-olds, and among those working in “elementary and professional occupations”. Managers, admin workers and secretaries were the least likely to cycle.
Cherry Allan from CTC said: “It’s good to see cycle-commuting booming in some of our biggest urban areas, but clearly there are many workers elsewhere who could do with more encouragement to see that cycling to work is one of the best, most cost-effective ways of introducing exercise into their daily routines. Promoting the activity to women seems especially important.”
For Sustrans, Rachel Bromley criticised “haphazard” provision. “The public demand is there and many urban councils have made good progress in training and infrastructure as is shown by the outstanding urban cycling results. It shows when decision makers put their minds into increasing cycling, real progress can be made.”
Construction work is underway on a new scenic cycleway to the Dorset coast.
Local activists and Sustrans are aiming to turn the old railway from Maiden Newton to Bridport into a cycle route or ‘trailway’. (See the dotted line on the map.) The 10-mile route would be entirely traffic-free, which is rare in this part of the country.
Now, work has started on a major section of the path, from Bridport to the village of Bradpole. The work is expected to finish in early May, with a formal opening soon after.
Maggie Ray, the mayor of Bridport, said the new path was “great news, especially as a safe route to school”. The trail promoters have praised the support they’ve received from landowners, including the Co-op and builders’ merchants Travis Perkins.
A short section by the coast is already cyclable, though new roads have been built along other parts of the old trackbed. At Maiden Newton, the path would meet the existing National Cycle Network route 26.
The town of Northampton is the latest to sign up to Britain’s bike-hire boom.
The newly named ‘Cycle CoNNect’ scheme, riffing on the area’s NN postcode, starts operation in May. The £150,000 scheme is initially providing 50 bicycles for public hire from 10 docking stations around the town, including the town centre, Brackmills Industrial Estate and the main University campuses.
Michael Clarke, county council cabinet member for transport, said: “As a county council we’re very keen to encourage sustainable forms of transport and this can be a challenge particularly in the current financial climate. However, this relatively low-cost scheme is a clever way of encouraging people to discover the advantages of pedal power.”
Users will need to register as a member of the scheme for free, either online or over the phone. Once you are signed up as a member, you will receive a membership number and PIN. Key in your membership number and PIN at any of the docking stations and select a bike to rent. The bicycle will be released from the electronic locking system for you to cycle away. You can return the bike to any docking station, not just the one you rented it from. Each docking station will display a map of the immediate vicinity and show where the nearest docking stations in the area.
As with most similar schemes, the first 30 minutes of each rental is free of charge. The bikes will cost £1 per hour to rent, capped at £4 per day. If the docking station is full or faulty, you can lock the bike to it using the combination lock attached to the bike, and call Cycle CoNNect to end your hire period.
Revised plans to rebuild an Oxford city roundabout with ‘Cycling City’ money have failed to win over local cycle campaigners.
The Plain, by Magdalen Bridge, is one of the busiest spots in the city. Three routes from East Oxford converge here, funnelling into one road for the city centre – and Oxford’s extremely frequent bus services mean that cyclists must dodge very large vehicles to make their way round. 35 cycling accidents have been reported in the last five years, but many more are believed to have gone unreported.
Oxfordshire County Council is spending a central Government ‘Cycling City Ambition’ grant on roundabout works. It summarises the £1m plan:
“The scheme aims to encourage greater levels of cycling by addressing one of the key barriers/perceptive deterrents to increased cycling into and out of Oxford city centre. It would be on the basis that the preferred option is keeping cyclists on the carriageway and making it safer for them by reducing road space, tightening geometry of The Plain roundabout junction.”
The works will make the approach roads to the roundabout narrower, “promoting slower traffic speeds and thus making it safer for cyclists”. The plans would still allow coaches to park on the side of the road to pick up children from the nearby school, and retain the large loading bay used occasionally by Sainsbury’s delivery lorries.
The council claims that shared-use paths would have a “negative impact on pedestrians and other vulnerable users”, and that “there is insufficient space to provide facilities for cyclists completely off the carriageway – in any case, there would be a high level of conflict with vehicles at crossing points”.
But local cyclists have been underwhelmed by the plans. Simon Hunt, chairman of the city’s campaign group Cyclox, told the Oxford Mail that “We don’t think these changes go far enough”. An objection from a local CTC councillor, seen by cycle.travel, expresses bewilderment at “the particularly stubborn reluctance to acknowledge ‘hybrid’, Copenhagen-style or any type of segregated provision”.
Oxfordshire County Council has kept open the remote possibility of a Dutch-style segregated solution at a later date. It says: “Given that this scheme is stage one of a two stage scheme that would address the wider approaches to the junction, the concept of some sort of semi-segregated cycle lanes on the roundabout could be revisited at a later stage, when funding allows.”
Update: As expected, the plans were approved at a council meeting on Thursday 27th. Cyclox said it was disappointed, commenting: “These changes will hardly make any difference.”
London has no shortage of weird road layouts, but perhaps rather fewer wonderful ones. Now Transport for London is seeking to combine the two with a programme to fund “creative and original on-street projects”.
The Future Streets Incubator Fund has a comparatively modest £1.8m, to be spent over three years to make more streets “where people can socialise and interact”. According to London Mayor, Boris Johnson:
“Anything and everything will be considered, however weird and wonderful. We want to harness the creativity of Londoners and put their ingenuity on the map.”
Similar projects funded recently by TfL include a scheme to co-ordinate deliveries around Baker Street, so lorries are on the street for fewer hours of the day; a cycle freight and pitstop (pictured) service in Bankside; and a commercial vehicle reduction scheme in the West End. But the scheme is now setting its sights higher, pointing to a Brooklyn car park replaced with a tree-lined public plaza, ‘street tennis’ in Toronto, and Bogota’s famous car-free Ciclovia Sundays.
Local boroughs, Business Improvement Districts, and community projects are invited to apply to the fund by emailing incubator@tfl.gov.uk.
Meanwhile, 17-year old blogger MaidstoneOnBike has recently garnered attention for his well-thought through redesigns of TfL’s proposed junction schemes at Kings Cross and Elephant & Castle. We can’t think of any better way for TfL to support “the creativity of Londoners” (or, ok, nearby residents) than by adopting these sensible, community-endorsed schemes.
Made in the Cotswolds. Published by Éditions Système D Ltd.
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