The marriage of success to failure

STOP PRESS: Since writing this  in 2008, when even the historic  success by British riders in the Beijing Olympics failed to  motivate the British government to improve road safety for cyclists, I occasionally have pause to ask, do I need to reappraise my brutal assessment of how British politics has wilfully failed cycling this past half-century. 

I did the same after the 2012  London Olympic Games, when British riders again scooped a multitude of medals.

During this time no government has ever considered  putting up the necessary funding to put cycling at the centre of the integrated transport system Britain lacks.

The answer is, no, I don’t need to change a thing. The government is still providing peanuts for cycling.

In the November  2015 issue of  Cycle, the magazine of the CTC national cyclists’ organisation, an article postulated that  unless the government can agree funding by April 2016, the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy  they signed up to, will not run.

The report forecast  that investment  in cycling will halve, from the current miserable and totally inadequate £2 per head of population  to £1 per head.  That is10 times less than the minimum funding needed (£500m per annum) to make cycling safer on the roads.

Come March 2016, one week before April kicked in, the government announced their funding.

They had been asked to provide £450m a year for England outside of London, which equates to £10 per head of population.  Instead, the government announced £300m across five years.

That equates to £1.39 per head of population.

So that means everything in this chapter stands.

In fact, funding is now lower than it has been for years.

Why is this?

It is because in the Book of Transport, the bible written by the powerful Motor Lobby, it is written, Thou shalt not fund cycling.

Our cyclists are celebrated multi Olympic and World champions. Two of them have won the Tour de France – Bradley Wiggins once and Chris Froome twice. Some riders have been Knighted or made Dames.

Yet despite this celebration of our elite riders, the prospect remains remote that the roads will ever be made safer for cyclists, be they sporting cyclists or the  tens of thousands of ordinary cyclists, too. They will  remain as dangerous to cyclists as ever.

It has been suggested that the Sir David Brailsford, the guru largely responsible for Britain’s international cycling successes and who in 2015 guided Chris Froome to his second Tour de France victory and Britain’s third following Bradley Wiggins historic first in 2012, should now  apply his logistical brilliance in the pursuit of excellence to the wider cycling cause.

Good idea.

Because the CTC, the national cyclists’ organisation and a bastion of cyclists’ rights for over 100 years, who tirelessly lobby Parliament to improve cyclists safety, are banging their clever heads against a brick wall, bless their saddle bags. They don’t appear to realise that their excellent campaigning is going nowhere.

I have watched them for 40 years and have come to the conclusion that like hamsters in a wheel, they are going round and round and round, in a race to nowhere.

Nothing will change until someone finds a radical new way of tackling the government’s unwillingness to put their money where the mouth is.

Could Sir Dave Brailsford for that man?

 I imagine that in order to provide a solution he would first need to understand the problems.

Look now further, Dave.  It’s all here.

How is it that parliament continues to fail cyclists, he will ask.

Why is it that Britain continues to lag decades behind

other European countries in improving cycling safety on the roads?

How can we move forward?

Well, Dave, here’s your starter, to get you going.

According to the chairman of the now disbanded Cycling England, – scrapped by the Tories – you will first have to address the  institutionalised discrimination against cyclists which exists among Local Authorities.

The same might also be said of central government  which over the course of several parliaments these past five decades that I have been on the case, have very conveniently passed the buck to Local Authorities to improve the road infrastructure for cyclists.  But never provided them with the necessary money – now put at £500m funding per annum - necessary for them to make a start.

London has made a start and and is held an as example for the rest of the country to follow,

But London’s cycling infrastructure is rubbish,

according to a Dutch blogger who rode around it on his bike with  his wife.

He describes the Capital’s cycle network as “abysmal”.

One commentator responding to this blog said London is about 100 years behind the Netherlands in cycling development! He said they could do much to copy the Dutch, but that means asking them how to do it. And they won’t do that.

Why won’t they do that?

I don’t know.

MPs do a good talk, but that’s about it.

Many of them are genuinely concerned and want to help. But they are stymied by …..I don’t know what. By indifference at Cabinet level, at Treasury level.

During my time reporting on the many cycling campaign initiatives I can recall enthusiastically running stories on the promises made by various prominent politicians who have supported the case for improving cycling safety on the roads.

Each time I was convinced change would come. But it  never has, in any meaningful way. There have only ever been small investments which make little or no difference.

I feel we have been conned. Nothing much has ever changed.

I recall the  Friends of the Earth’s “Reclaim the Roads”  campaign in the mid 1970s, and the presentation of a report on how to do this presented to 10 Downing Street.

I thought, that’s it. Things will get begin to improve.

There was the British Medical Association’s report calling for action to encourage cycling to improve the health of the nation. There have been countless number of excellent reports presented Government by the CTC, the national cycling organisation.

One of the most convincing was entitled “Costing the Benefits”,  presenting the the economic case for cycling.

There is a design guide on how to build cycling infrastructure into the road system, endorsed by the Government and sent to every Local Authority in the land.

There is the National Cycling Strategy launched in 1996 without any money.

And each and everyone of these reports is gathering dust on shelves.

Engineers, when they do put in cycling facilities, such as the shared use cycle lanes on pavements – the preferred option – will maybe look at the Design Guide to see what it recommends, then discard what it says and build what they see fit.

Which is generally unfit for use.

The Highways Agency admits its engineers and planners have little experience in planning and designing for cyclists.

The only man attempting to improve the roads for cycling has been Mayor of London Boris Johnson, but even here, the “safety” of his Cycling Superhighways was illusionary. As I write, work has begun with his Cross London cycle route.

Most of the other town centre stuff in Britain, with a few exceptions,  is crap. There is not one town or city with a half-decent cycle network. 

Why – with the all professional expertise, all the expert opinion – has nothing been done on the scale necessary? Even that most impressive campaign in The Times - Cities fit for Cycling, and the Get Britain Cycling Report it inspired promoted by cycling friendly Liberal Democrat Julian Huppert has failed to wrest decent money from the Treasury. Why is this? Any attempt to find an answer will be lengthy.

Where to start?

More next week.