Pedal Power

Issue 169
March 2024

AGM – Monday 11th March 2024

This year’s AGM will take place at 7-30pm on Monday 11th March 2024 at the Toby Carvery, Forest Road, Loughborough, LE11 3HU. Please try and attend as we have had difficulty in achieving a quorum in some previous years.

Cycle Path problems on Grange Park Estate

Campaign member Anthony Kay recently spotted workmen erecting a fence to block the access between the Knox Road cycle path and Magnolia Way. When planning permission was granted for the Grange Park estate, this route was designated as a cycle/pedestrian route to connect the new Grange Park estate to the existing Laurel Road / Fairmeadows estate. Since then it has been well used, although a short stretch has not been surfaced due to an issue relating to land ownership of a thin strip of land.

Blocking this route was contrary to the planning permission originally given for the Grange Park Estate. It is also contrary to the policies of both the Borough and County Councils to encourage sustainable and active travel, since the route from Knox Road to Magnolia Way is a short cut available to pedestrians and cyclists but not motorists. In particular, and very importantly, the route provides a safe route to school for pupils at Outwoods Edge School living on the Grange Park estate; the blockage would make their route to school much longer, and might have encouraged some parents to take their children to school by car, with all the harms that this would cause to the children themselves as well as local residents.

After Anthony had contacted Birgitta Worrall, Ward Councillor for Woodthorpe Ward, the Borough Council arranged for the fencing to be removed from the path as it was deemed to be a health and safety risk. She undertook to work with Council officers to establish how this happened and who was responsible.

Our understanding is that William Davis owns the land on the Knox Road side, Ideal Homes on the Magnolia Way side, but there is a narrow strip of land in between owned by Calico Quays Limited which might be the explanation for the sudden appearance of the fence. It is to be hoped that Charnwood B.C. will be able to negotiate an arrangement with the landowners so that a properly surfaced path can be provided.

New Report on Stride and Ride

Based on a Cycling UK article

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has published a new report ‘Stride and ride: England's path from laggard to leader in walking, wheeling, and cycling’ making the case that people across England are missing out on a slew of health, wellbeing and environmental benefits due to half a century of chronic underfunding of the country's streets.

The report provides clear evidence of the multiple benefits that come from investment in walking, wheeling and cycling. This includes the creation of green jobs, boosting economic growth and making our streets safer, in addition to proven health, wellbeing and environmental benefits.

It estimates that increasing the levels of cycling in the UK to those seen in Denmark would save the NHS £17 billion over 20 years by improving people’s health and wellbeing.

Doubling cycling and increasing walking would also prevent 8,300 premature deaths and save £567 million a year through improved air quality.

The report makes clear that investment in walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure offers far better value for the public purse than money spent on road building projects and is at considerably lower cost.

For every £1 spent on so-called active travel, there is an average return on investment of £5.62, compared with just £2.50 for roads. However, spending on walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure can have a maximum return of up to £19 per £1 spent, while some road building projects offer no return on investment at all.

England has some of the lowest cycling and walking rates in Europe, due to the fact that investment in active travel has historically been low across the nation. Fewer than one in five people walk, wheel or cycle on an average day compared to more than one in four across Europe.

Among IPPR’s recommendations is that the government puts in place a ten-year investment guarantee for walking, wheeling and cycling with a commitment to spend at least £35 per head every year on physical infrastructure.

Current spending levels correspond to £24 per head annually in London between 2016 and 2021, while the rest of England spent only £10 per head.

At the same time, spending on roads amounts to an equivalent of £148 per person per year; over ten times the amount spent on active travel. The report also recommends that spending on active travel should be at least 10% of the total transport budget, instead of the 2% it is currently.

Consultation on changing E-cycle Regulations

Based on a Cycling UK article

The Department for Transport has launched a consultation on changing e-cycle regulations to double their maximum power from 250 watts to 500 watts and remove the pedal requirement.

This dramatic increase in power would mean faster acceleration and heavier bikes, plus E-cycles with no pedal requirement would also reduce the health benefits of e-cycling, while blurring the line between e-bikes and electric motorbikes.

The proposed changes are motivated by the wish to make e-cycles more attractive, yet the most commonly cited reason for people not cycling is that they don’t feel safe. E-cycles are already too expensive for many people and the higher powered bikes being proposed would almost certainly be more expensive. The Government’s goal to get more people to enjoy the benefits of e-cycles is to be applauded, but making all forms of cycling more attractive will be more effective rather than essentially reducing the regulations relating to lower powered electric motorbikes, thus introducing a safety risk to pedestrians and others who cycle.

Driverless Cars

Based on a Cycling UK article

Parliament is currently debating legislation that would allow driverless cars. It creates a legal framework for all vehicles which can drive independently of the driver for either part or the entirety of a journey.

Whilst this could benefit society by removing the source of many collisions (driver mistakes), freeing up road space, and decreasing the need for car ownership, it will depend on how they are regulated, since they also have the potential to make our streets more dangerous, particularly for people who travel by foot or cycle.

As it's currently written, the Automated Vehicles Bill would allow driverless cars to be authorised when it has been demonstrated that they drive safely and improve the overall safety of the road system.

These standards are simply far too low; the aim should be significantly better road safety with in particular an improvement in safety for walkers and cyclists. There is a danger that a net safety gain could be achieved because they make car occupants safer, but actually make other road users less safe.

The imbalance between the road users who cause danger and those who are endangered is a significant obstacle to maximising the health, environmental and other benefits of increased walking and cycling. The new law should require that driverless cars must improve safety for all road users, not only those in cars. In particular the legal system must protect cyclists following collisions with driverless cars.

The UK is one of only a few European countries which lack presumed liability. This means that in the UK, when cyclists or pedestrians are injured in collisions with a car, it's their responsibility to prove that the driver caused the collision. This creates an ‘inequality of arms’, because pedestrians and cyclists are much less likely to have insurance and are more likely to be seriously injured in a collision and have trouble recalling the event. This inequality will only be magnified with the introduction of driverless cars, so it will be essential that when vulnerable road users are injured in a collision with an automated vehicle, the vehicle should be assumed to be at fault unless proven otherwise.