(pictures: A shared cycling and walking bridge spanning a major road in Stockholm)
Work
begins on Wigan scheme
MIGHT we one day look back and say that Wigan is
where the Greater Manchester cycling revolution began in 2019?
I don’t want to get carried away, not after so many
false dawns in the UK, but as I type this there are shovels at work on the Wigan canal
towpath. Work has begun on Olympic
champion Chris Boardman’s blue print for Greater Manchester, the first major
city wide cycling and walking network in the UK.
It’s called the Bee Network and it will run to 1000
miles across 10 boroughs at an estimated cost of £1.5bn, serving 2.7 million
people.
Today, about 250
million car journeys a year, of less than one kilometre each, are made by
people in Manchester. Those trips could
be a 15-minute walk or a five-minute bike ride.
Many are for the
school run. In the Netherlands, 50 per
cent of school children cycle to school, compared to less than 2 per cent in
Manchester.
The Bee Network
aims to address this by providing a safe alternative choice to always driving.
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, who appointed Boardman as Cycling
and Walking Commissioner, says.- “Greater Manchester has a long
history of doing innovative things and our approach to the Bee Network is no
different.”
“If we’re to cut congestion and clean up our
air, decisive action is needed. I want to make Greater Manchester one of the
top 10 places in the world to live and its action of this sort which will help
to deliver that promise.”
This first section being constructed now is known
locally as the “Muddy Mile”, along a stretch of waterway in Astley. It will run
from Wigan Pier, through Leigh and across the
Salford boundary to Monton and Patricroft. And presumably the mud will be a
goner.
The £212,000 project is being funded by the Mayor’s Cycling and Walking Challenge Fund, The
Bridgewater Canal Company and Wigan Council.
We shouldn’t be surprised if Boardman’s grand plan succeeds.
As an athlete he earned the moniker of professor for his dedicated application
of sports science to deliver his goals. Principal among them his famous
Barcelona Olympic gold in 1992, which launched British cycling on its
trajectory to greatness. And boosted Manchester’s bid to build Britain’s first
indoor velodrome.
If Manchester sets the cycling trend, will other towns and cities follow?
So can Boardman bring the same clear eyed perspective in his sporting achievements to his latest desire to make cycling safer across
the nation? And so enable the humble bike at last to be a major player in the
integrated transport system so urgently needed to help reduce the carbon
burning which otherwise promises to be the death of us.
Boardman’s is an ambitious project and it has wide
public support.
Currently there are
42 schemes in the plans for the Bee network of cycling and walking routes
across Greater Manchester.
They include 319
new and upgraded crossings and junctions and 70 miles of segregated new cycling
routes.
Some of these
schemes are still to be approved by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority
(GMCA). Burnham has pledged £115m of the £160m received from the government’s
Transforming Cities Fund for local transport improvements while £88m will come
from local contributions.
So far they’ve
got 204 million in committed spend across 42 projects and they are seeking
additional funding.
Plans include a
cycling and walking corridor in Rochdale; a route between Manchester Piccadilly
and Victoria stations; a cycling and walking bridge to link Stockport railway
station with a proposed new interchange;
a continuous cycling and walking
corridor between Salford Quays and Manchester city centre; and a ‘Mini Holland’
scheme in Levenshulme. As the name
implies, “Mini Holland” aims to emulate the street layouts in Holland
prioritising cycling and walking over motor traffic.
All the schemes are
due to be completed by 2023, said a Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM)
spokeswoman. Investment in the schemes will represent around £18 per head per
year on cycling and walking for the next four years, a massive increase on
central government’s pathetic investment in cycling which has dropped to less
than a £1 per head!
Mayor Burnham has risen to the challenge
You may recall Boardman’s bitter disappointment a
couple of years ago at former prime minister David Cameron’s decision not to provide Cabinet backing for the Get
Britain Cycling Report, by far the most comprehensive transport
blueprint for cycling across England.
Cameron, like a host of leading politicians before
him, said cycling development should be left to the Local Authorities, knowing
full well they don’t have the funding and in many cases nor do they have the
political will.
Burnham has risen to the challenge in Manchester and
who better than Boardman to realise them.
Their work has inspired two other Local Authorities to appoint their own
cycling Czars.
They are the former BMX international and world
track cycling champion Shanaze Reade in the West Midlands and Paralympic
swimming and cycling Olympic champion Dame Sarah Storey in Sheffield.
