Pedal Power
Issue 164
May 2023
www.ldcuc.org.uk
County Transport News
From Max Hunt
Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP)
Following an enquiry prompted by Neil Parr, County have given this update on the LCWIP.
The development of the Loughborough area LCWIP is well advanced, and the draft LCWIP document is currently anticipated to be subject to a final public engagement exercise late summer this year. This engagement exercise will be advertised through the council’s usual media channels and on our ‘have your say page’ located at: https://www.leicestershire.gov.uk/have-your-say.
In addition to Member updates, all stakeholders and those members of the public that have provided email contact details through previous engagement, and have indicated they wish to receive notification of other LCC active travel engagement, will receive an email advising them of the dates for the engagement and how to get involved once launched.
Other news.
The County Council have begun early work to justify a bid to increase the capacity of the A6 north of Birstall. You have probably noticed the census strips on roads connected to the Epinal Way.
As you would expect, I am pressing the officers to consider reduction in peak travel by other means and modes. However, the Council clearly have their eye on traffic generated by new car dependent housing estates and the East Midlands Freeport with associated commercial and industrial businesses. At the moment the transport strategy and financial support is very unclear.
The County’s current roads development is around Melton Mowbray and the A511 through Coalville. These are multi-million pound projects with costs increasing month by month. The council’s financial situation is “dire” according to senior officers but it seems likely that the council will borrow the money needed to complete the projects if it is not forthcoming from the DfT.
The Zouch Bridge in Hathern is in a hazardous condition and is being checked weekly. This is another heavy call on county finances which will have to be borrowed if a bid isn’t successful and the condition is found to be worsening. A new bridge is planned and designed (to the immediate south of the existing bridge). Meanwhile there is a weight restriction, as you may have seen.
Ed. It is to be hoped that this will incorporate adequate cyclist/pedestrian paths.
The County will soon unveil its new Local Transport Plan (LTP4). However this is awaiting new Government Guidance. You may find this and other commentaries helpful. https://www.systra.co.uk/en/services/article/new-era-local-transport-plans-guidance .
County boundary: I was amused to see, after travelling down a very rickety road between Compton Bassett and Long Clawson, a yellow marker with the Leicestershire County Council in big letters. The road surface improved dramatically!
Kettering setting an example
New dedicated cycle paths, better crossings and revisions to roundabouts are just some of the proposals to improve Kettering’s green travel infrastructure as part of the 10-year Kettering Walking and Cycling Plan, about which a consultation now under way.
The plan aims to encourage more people to walk, cycle and scoot safely, as well as to reduce congestion and road casualties, improve people's health and provide cleaner air and less noise pollution. It’s hoped that, depending on funding, work on some of the projects could start in two to three years.
One of its objectives is to help older people, and anyone who needs safer crossings, to get across the road easily. Another is to establish safe walking and cycling routes that will help businesses, as their staff will have more options allowing them to both exercise and get to work, while also making it much easier and safer for more children to walk or cycle to school.
Potential measures include 'pedestrian priority' streets in the town centre with “courteous cycling” allowed as a trial.
Two roundabouts will be modified to reduce vehicle speeds and a two-way cycle track will be built alongside a main road, with parking restricted to one side of the road to make space for it.
Kettering is not so different to Loughborough, and it is to be hoped that the LCWIP will incorporate similar proposals.
Is Leicestershire incapable?
Active Travel England has released their long-awaited local authority capability ratings for active travel. The ratings are an objective assessment of each authority’s ability to increase active travel and ensure public money is targeted effectively to deliver the most benefits.
Local authorities are rated from 0 to 4 on their capability to make schemes that will support the objectives set out in the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy. The ratings focus primarily on 3 areas:
- local leadership
- plans
- delivery record
Leicestershire achieved a zero rating which is defined as “Local leadership for active travel is not obvious, no significant plans are in place, the authority has delivered only lower complexity schemes.” The only other authorities to share this distinction were Rutland, West Sussex and Worcestershire.
Can we get more women cycling?
Based on a Cycling UK article by Gwenda Owen
In the UK, men make nearly four times more journeys by bike than women. In cycle campaigning, the disparity between the sexes is even greater . This matters because if we only hear the voices of a particular section of society we'll only get solutions to their problems.
Women who join cycling groups can also find themselves in a minority which some find off-putting. Physical activity levels in young girls drops off as they enter teenage years. This really matters because being able to ride a bike is an experience that everyone should be able to enjoy for a myriad of reasons.
You may think that riding a bike is just riding a bike and the barriers that we face are the same but female cyclists know that this is not always so. The types of journeys women make are often more complex. The school run and the harassment women face on a regular basis are just some of the differences which inform how they choose to travel. Poor infrastructure, poor driver behaviour, lack of cycle storage and harassment are all barriers to cycling for women.
More people regularly cycling and walking
The UK Government has revealed that cycling and walking as a form of transport now make up 20% of all activity undertaken by adults in England, with people choosing to switch from cars as a result of the rising cost of living.
The Active Lives survey carried out by Sport England, engaged just under 180,000 people and used data from all England local authorities. The results show that 33 per cent of adults took part in active travel at least twice in November 2022.
In total, 3.2 million more people regularly used active travel in England in the year up to November 2022 than they did in the previous 12 months, with walking and cycling as a form of transport now accounting for around 20 per cent of all minutes of activity taken by adults in England. This is the largest increase in any activity in a given year.
It also revealed that activity levels have returned to pre-pandemic levels, with more adults active in England in 2022 than in the previous year and travel habits seeing the biggest change of all.
Another survey by Sport England in February also found that one in five adults are now walking or cycling rather than using the car due to cost of living increases. Albeit being a smaller survey than the more recent one, these developments surely mark a rise in awareness among the public about the cost efficiency and savings that come along with cycling.
In March, Transport Secretary Mark Harper had announced a £200 million, or two-thirds cut to the active travel budget in England outside London, which was described as “devastating” by Sustrans and “a backward move” by the Walking & Cycling Alliance (WACA), making it “impossible” to meet net zero and cycling and walking targets. Scottish MP Gavin Newlands has pointed out in the Parliament that the spend per head in England, outside of London, would be less than £1, as compared to the £17 in Wales and £50 in Scotland.
Road Casualties in 1932
In 1932 6,667 people were killed on the roads and a further 206,450 recorded as injured. A much higher casualty rate than we see today (sourced from the CTC Gazette of May 1933).
This letter appeared in in the Falkirk Herald, February 4th 1933.
I sometimes wonder if the death-rate on the railways would remain as low if people were allowed to wander across them when they pleased. It is appalling to see how young children are allowed to walk about and even play on a public highway, and it seems more than remarkable to me that the death-rate from this type of accident is so low,
The reason must be perfectly obvious; it is that the motorist of to-day is exceedingly careful, and in my opinion, after over twenty years of motoring, is much more proficient than he has ever been.
It elicited this response.
This is a curious line of thought. Of course it would be dangerous to turn the public loose on the railways. That is why trains run on tracks exclusive to themselves —tracks constructed and maintained by the railway companies at their own expense. Does anybody suppose that motor vehicles would ever have been permitted to run on public roads, instead of on their own special tracks, if their cost in human life and suffering could have been measured in advance.
