Bristol councillor says £35m set aside for cycling would be better spent on rail

Well how about spending some of the £35 million on putting guards wagons back on trains ?.

Going by bike on a train is a right PITA, and near impossible during the rush hour even with a Brompton so only the most die hard cyclists even attempt it.

A proper guards wagon (or cycle carriage!) setup for easy and quick on off bike access would encourage more bikes onto trains.

For those not old enough to remember, guards wagons were special carriages where freight, bikes etc were loaded and also where the guard used to eat his sarnies.

Surely if you get a load of commuters off the roads onto trains, that would leave more room for cyclists?

In Guildford there is a network of rail tracks but only one station in town and one on a branch line. It has been suggested many times for at least 30 years (I know 'cos I did in the local paper) that stations be built along the various branch lines on the periphery of the town and extinct lines re-opened to bring people into town.

In an ideal world it woudn't be a problem to take a regular bike on the train and I wish the operators would get thier act together in this respect. Folders can be costly and it's not easy to pick up a decent one second-hand for a small sum in the same way that it is with regular bikes.

The new rail station in my home city will have a big underground bicycle parking, with a direct stair connection to the rail platforms. Of course, this is not in the UK, but in The Netherlands, where we know that cycling is complementary to rail.
Old city bike at one end, another old one at the other. Voila. Your commutes just got a ton faster, since you don't need to use the bus or walk.

Sounds like the prospective Tory MP is seriously "off message". Last year the DfT set up the Transport Systems Catapult (https://ts.catapult.org.uk/10-challenges) to integrate modes of transport and make travel slicker for everyone.

Bristol sounds like an ideal candidate for a bit of government & EU transport systems funding.

I've just about had enough of politicians claiming to be in favour of cycling, but doing precisely nothing about funding infrastructure.

Claire Hiscott is a hypocrite, claiming to be enthusiastic about cycling, then trying to derail a good plan to provide proper funding. She is also wrong that cycling cannot suit commuters. In Utrecht, 33% of all journeys are by bike, so why not Bristol? She demonstrates a failure of imagination or research, because she looks around and doesn't see mass cycling, so she assumes it's impossible.

Good on the Bristol mayor. Shame on Claire Hiscott.

Some cycle paths / tracks / lanes are more trouble than they are worth in terms of keeping some fluidity to a ride but ok, some are down right necessary. A lot of money has been wasted creating any little bit of a run for the sake of saying some thing has been done The cycle bridge in Copenhagen on the road cc vid looks great, and there was something like it once for cars back in the 70s and 80s in-between the top end of Victoria Street and Temple Meads. It would be great down around Lewins Mead and the Hay Market.

Wouldn't providing safe, efficient, quick access to and from Rail Network hubs (for example, via a well thought out inner-city Cycle Network) improve the experience of using the rail system more than tinkering about with the rail system itself?

No matter how shiny and spangly the rail system is, it's redundant unless people can easily access it in the first place. Especially, as a previous poster has noted, if the the main Railway Station and the city centre are already quite far apart.

Or more simply; is providing a safe, efficient and pleasant-to-use city Transport Network not of the upmost priority and needs all the money it can get?

The fact that The Netherlands provides ample evidence that "the reality that cycling will never suit a majority of commuters or provide a solution to Bristol’s traffic congestion" is complete narrow-minded, ignorant balderdash doesn't really help her case either.

With just 965 million pounds extra, on top the existing 35 million, they could have an 8.7 mile long tram system like Edinburgh

please all write to her...

claire.hiscott [at] bristol.gov.uk

Rail supporter in Bristol are still peeved that the bristol to bath cycle path was created 25 years ago on the old railway line, there is a perfectly valid view that this could have been a new train/tram line done but the costs are not in the slightest bit comparable.

This comes back to ambition, London cycling modal share 2% target by 2020 5%, Berlin's target 35%!

Well done Bristol for setting 20%.

Another anti-cyclist who always starts their justifications with "Personally, I am very enthusiastic about cycling....".

From the 2011 Census 55% of part-time workers commute less than 5km, and 38% of full-time workers commute less than 5km.

The most effective method for commuting a distance of around 5km is by bicycle.

Spending £35 million on cycling infrastructure is the most cost effective way of tackling the commuter and congestion problem.

It is a no-brainer.

I would also support train & bus investment, but £35m is chicken feed for significant rail projects. The planning application will cost that, and any build probably 10 to 20 times that.

Ref: ONS census data, 2011, Commuting

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/distance-trave...

Whist I don't agree with Councillor Claire Hiscott I can see her point of view and the logic in her reasoning.

Many people travel into Bristol every day to work and travel in the city is very car-centric. It's a pretty typical state-of-affairs but many of us now live substantial distances from our places of work and travel by bike is not a realistic option. Better rail routes and services however would provide a viable aternative to the car.

To give a personal perspective, I live about 30 miles from Bristol and would certainly consider Bristol as a place to work. For me, 30 miles is too far for a cycle commute and as enticing as a metric centry every day might be the travel time would just be too great. I would be able to get a train to Bristol and then ride to my place of work so the presence of a good rail service is actually the key to being able to leave the car at home; the roads might be hostile for cyclists but they aready work.

My big worry when I hear of earmarked cycling budgets is that we end up with more useless segreagted lanes that de-prioritise cycling and make the roads even more hostile for those of us who choose not to behave as glorified pedestrians. Let's hope that this money is well spent on meaningfull infrastructure.

“Personally, I am very enthusiastic about cycling and welcome more being done to promote it and the creation of segregated routes across the city, to enable all those who choose to get around in this way to feel safer."

This is it. She cannot imagine that anyone who doesn't already cycle will do so. As if cyclists arise at random, unbidden, rather than being shaped by conditions.

Why won't it suit the majority of commuters Cllr Hiscott? It's fast, cheap and healthy. Make it safe too and you're on to a winner.

Not quite sure what else you can do with the current Bristol rail structure. My journeys are by train, bike or a combination and, despite the traffic getting worse, parking charges going up etc, I haven't seen an increase in the number of passengers; however, I would say I've seen more bikes being used. I'm always amazed at the increasing levels of misery drivers are prepared to endure when there are other transport options available. I was on 'new territory' yesterday in Bristol and had 2 near misses; so spend the money on cycling! I was in Bristol 'pikeyville' so shouldn't have been too surprised!

A Tory fishing for petrol head votes in the most obvious way. What else is new?

Sounds like the mayor himself seems very much in favour of spending the monies on cycling regardless of what comes out of her face, so it's all good.

I'll tell you what, Give her the £35 million to spend on rail. So long as cycling can take a couple of BILLION from the white elephant that is HS2.....

why do people like cars?

Is it because they isolate the user, is it because they travel from door to door, is it because they appear cheap at the point of use?

Now consider the train, you have a time table, you have to have a way of getting to the train station. At the point of use they aren't particularly cheap, and finally they are full of other people.

Then think about how to travel and how far your traveling. Clifton into the city centre, Is a train really a viable approach, or is the councillor out in South Gloucestershire where a bike ride is a bit far and wants a better train service, afterall a long way from Temple Meads to the city centre!