(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Birmingham has peddled to victory following Monday’s announcement that the city council was awarded a £17million grant to launch its Cycle Revolution.
The news was welcomed by Councillor James McKay, cabinet member for a Green, Safe and Smart city. ‘I am delighted we will be able to deliver much-needed improvements to Birmingham’s cycle network through this grant. We fully recognise there is untapped potential for cycling to become an integral part of our transport network – for both commuting and leisure purposes – and want to exploit it.’
Councillor McKay was in much need of this win after recently coming under fire following his proposals on the installation of wheelie bins.
The success of Birmingham’s four-month city cycle campaign is due to the collaborative effort of the council, businesses and third sector interest groups.Moreover, by securing the bid Birmingham has beat rival Manchester home of the national cycling centre.
The majority of the £17million will be spent on developing infrastructure, creating 71 miles of new cycle routes and upgrading a further 59 miles by 2016.
Eight of the major arteries into the city will now see new fast cycle lanes created along main roads or shared-use footways. Birmingham’s canal towpaths will undergo significant renovations to create all-weather, off-road network. The funding will also build upon pre-existing cycling networks such as Bike North Birmingham.
However, Chris Lowe chairman of the cycle campaign Push Bikes, did voice minor apprehension due to the time constraints in which the grant has to be spent. “The fact the money has to be spent within a certain time makes me slightly concerned the work will be rushed and not done to a high standard.”
Overall, cycling groups and safety organisations across the city have celebrated the news, welcoming the much over-due cash injection.
Cycle Revolution is also part of Councillor Leader Sir Albert Bores broader plans to create an Integrated Transport Network in Birmingham over the next ten years. The new cycle lanes are one of several strategies to integrate travel in a bid to modernise and increase efficiency of transport within the city.
Birmingham, as a result of this grant, is hoping to triple the amount of journeys made by cycling within the next two years. This will give the city an estimated average of five per cent. Thus, making it a national competitor with the likes of Manchester and Nottingham; who already have around three per cent of journeys being made by bike.
The impetus behind Birmingham’s Cycle Revolution is to generate an alternative mode of transport that, in the words of Councillor McKay provides a “cheaper and more sustainable option.” Yet, in securing this bid the city has also demonstrated its ability to come together collectively and achieve first class status as a national leader.
In reality Birmingham is a city designed for the car. Although efforts to adapt this and reach a cycling average of five per cent are commendable, such a figure is significantly dwarfed when compared to the Netherlands and cities such as Amsterdam, where an estimated seventy per cent of all journeys are made by bike. One cannot help wondering whether Birmingham’s cycling revolution will ever get passed first gear.
Hannah Scarr is a work experience intern at RJF Public Affairs. She is a Politics graduate of the University of Liverpool and interested in localism and has written on the influence of Blairism on contemporary politics.
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the direct access works, but the comment via twitter doesn’t ever finsih submitting a comment.
More cycling is the way to make Birmingham a more inclusive and more sustainable city. Birmingham is so flat there’s no excuse for not using a bike – except for people’s fear of traffic. Until I retired I was commuting a total of 15 miles a day (Moseley to Quinton) and use my bike for shopping (locally, central markets) as well as for recreation. The improvement to main routeways and to the canal towpaths will be very welcome – at present the cycle paths are a (rather dangerous) joke so they do need careful design.
Building cycling into your daily life is a cheap way to get fit as well as getting around – get your quota of exercise as part of your commute and so leave more time in your day for other things.
So this funding (recycled from earlier promises as most of it is) is a welcome start to making our lives a lot pleasanter.
I am all for increased cycle routes and use of the bicycle but having just spent a week in Amsterdam and I being of a certain age and not as mobile as I once was, the fast flowing bicycles in Amsterdam nearly hit me a couple of times and my perception was that pedestrians in Amsterdam are third class citizens, first being cyclists and second motorists.
I am presently working in London for two weeks and I am finding that cyclists in the capital appear to be very aggressive and patently colour blind in the red spectrum as they tend not to stop at red lights.
Could we see the introduction of rickshaws for us older citizens in Birmingham whom might find actual peddling a bit too much now.
There must though come with the increased preponderance of cyclists the need for compulsory insurance of cyclists to cover any damage they may do to pedestrians.
Yes our streets and roads in most of the city are too narrow for bicycle lanes but what we can do now is build in cycle routes as the extension to the Metro is being built in the city and not after the Tarmac has been laid.
Though who will get priority in the pedestrianised parts of the city centre such as New Street when thousands of bicycles use it in the future.
Will we get as in London mass bike ride events that bring traffic to a halt on a Friday night?
As with the reserved lanes for car pooling by star city can we have tandem bicycle lanes as a priority?
I might invest in an electric bike.
Beat Manchester in what respect? Greater Manchester was granted £20m in the same process.
We will maintain our inferiority complex if we perpetually turn everything into a competition that only we are taking part in.