Black day for cycling as six councils reject pop-up cycle lanes

Here we go.

"Councils put brakes on cycling schemes in England after backlash"...says The Guardian today (July16).
The report tells how six councils have cancelled cycle routes funded by the government, as part of their £250 million emergency active travel fund.

This you will recall was as much to do with encouraging people to cycle to avoid using crowded public transport and the risk of catching the Coronavirus, as  to help prevent traffic pollution levels from rising again, after they had fallen dramatically during lockdown.

The six councils who have cancelled cycle routes are: Ealing, Wandsworth, South Gloucestershire, Trafford, Portsmouth and Surrey.

Trafford?

That’s Manchester, which has huge plans for cycling, the best in the country, as my recent blogs have reported. What’s the problem in Trafford?

I dare say we will find out.

Apparently, a number of Conservatives have campaigned against these pop up cycle lane plans, including Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, who lobbied for Surrey county council to remove a cycle lane on Reigate High Street, three days into the planned three-week trial.

He claimed the road was already a “bottle-neck”. 

Now let’s not jump to conclusions and immediately blame the anti-cycling motoring brigades who have friends in high places. Well, not yet, not for a few more paragraphs!

Maybe the placing of the cycle lanes had not been thought through, as is claimed.  

Cycling lanes on our road! Taking road space from our motors!

Correction, your motors. I don’t have one.
The best thing really is simply to flood the roads with cyclists - critical mass style - going about their rightful business as they have every right to do. 
No one objects to more and more cars! So they cannot logically object to more and more cycles, or horseriders for that matter, using the highway. Slow everything down, deter the buggars from driving about and poisoning the air.
They are not motoring roads.

But OK, maybe the pop ups weren’t thought through, perhaps there were other roads where pop up  cycle lanes would have been more suitable, like cul de sacs. 

Why this sudden reaction instead of at least giving them a chance to see how they worked over a trial period?

Did  councils simply put blindfolds on and walk up to a  map and stick pins it, and then say that’s where they’ll go?

Of the cycle plans for Ealing, the local MP said the plans are well intentioned but the scheme was badly thought through.

But if it turns out that the car mad society and the taxi drivers’ organisation -  for whom we all know the roads were made for in the first place  – are behind this, well, then, that wouldn't surprise me.

For in the same story, The Guardian reports 
that eight out of 10 Conservative politicians in London objected to proposed new cycling infrastructure comprising 83 cycle routes between 2013 and 2019.

They included councillors, MPs and members of the House of Lords. Not just the high and mighty but residents associations were seen as likely to oppose cycling schemes, too.
Schemes aiming to make us a healthier nation and reduce pollution and congestion.

In which case, let me just say, well done, what a fabulous bunch you all are.  Really wonderful.  Keep on being absolutely splendid. May you all choke on your own exhausts.