| Topic: | Re:Re:Cyclists and support for local shops | |
| Posted by: | Charlotte Kasner | |
| Date/Time: | 26/03/19 11:52:00 |
| I'm so glad that you believe the results of some studies Mr Watson. That study also showed that only existing cyclists demanded cycling infrastructure and even they did not see it as a high priority for rejuvinating town centres. Cyclists spent the least amount among all shoppers on a daily, weekly and monthly basis - this is a cross-London finding in TfL-commissioned study in a wide variety of town centres. 71% of respondents who didn't cycle said that they never would. Theoretically that leaves 29% of respondents as potential cyclists, but in fact, in spite of heavy promotion, cycling has only had a 1% increase of modal share in a decade. A peer-reviewed study in 3 town centres showed that cycling infrastructure only shifted the location of cyclists, did not attract new cyclists and often worked to the detriment of pedestrians. Facilities were used predominantly for leisure purposes at weekends. An expensive luxury in these times of austerity. A survey of the EWCS showed that there were no improvements to the safety of cyclists suffering fatal or serious accidents and that improvements to minor injury and incident rates were negligable. It also found that access to areas in approximately 8,350 postcodes across 19 different postcode districts is now considerably worse for all other road users. The cycle superhighway on the Embankment, principally used for commuting cyclists in the rush hour, is having an adverse effect on people as far away as Barking, Holloway and Primrose Hill. Approximately 400 hours of time are lost each day because of the resulting congestion, amounting to financial losses of £5.3m per annum. Imagine if that were to happen in a town centre where people go to shop, access medical facilities and enjoy leisure facilities. A doctoral thesis found that women, novice and unconfident cyclists did not want to use segregated lanes because they found other cyclists intimidating. Would you want to swim in the fast lane with people gunning for fitness when you were just learning to float? Car use is decline for a variety of reasons, some also demographic, as more younger people cannot afford to drive. the more, affordable, efficient mass transit options they have, the less need there will be to drive anyway. Pollution from engines is also declining with improvements to petrol engine efficiency, the move away from diesel and derv and increased used of hybrid and electric vehicles. Thus, given that actual numbers of people cycling have increased very little over a decade even when facilities have been provided, and still the vast majority of people say both that they don't want to cycle and show by the behaviour that they are choosing other modes of transport: Is it fair that just 2% of the travelling public should demand and expect a vastly disproportionate amount of very scarce funding to provide segregated cycling facilities? Is it fair that this will take money away from improving the road infrastructure for all users (TfL announced that they would only repair "emergency" potholes, still no signalling improvements on the District line because yet another deferment has been implemented and no step-free access in Chiswick)? Is it fair that this tiny proportion of road users should demand town centre facilities where they will spend the least money whilst leaving all other transport users worse off and, as the ECWS seems to show, will very likely result in huge losses to local businesses? So far, people "not driven by machismo" seem also not to be "driven" to cycle regardless of the facilities provided. The town centre study also found that fewer than 0.5% of people used cycle hire schemes - again a disproportionate amount of discarded and parked cycles to the detriment of town centres for such a tiny number of users and financial benefits only accruing to private companies. We could easily find ourselves in a situation where huge sums of money have been diverted away from spending on public transport that will always be used by vastly more people than those who cycle and that this is the last nail in the coffin for many local businesses. This hypothesis is based on the way that people are actually behaving in London and elsewhere, not on the aspirations of cyclists and local authorities who can only offer the hope that people will behave differently once they have already used up the money on cycling infrastructure. We have already seen this happen with the disastrous traffic-calming infrastructure which actually caused accidents and increased pollution (remember the chicane at Grove Park?) Please, please stop this madness while we have time and do not let us go there again. |