How to get more Britons on bikes? Don't listen* to existing cyclists for a start say £1m report

There is definitely a divide between those who are involved in cycling and those that may or may not want to cycle. The problem for get people on a bike and generally active is getting them active. All the excuses road infrastucture, danger etc etc etc, is just that an excuse. People who have spent a lot of time avoiding being active. Now that there is a political, social and environmental imperative to be more active.

I agree with the report to a certain point. To encourage people onto there bikes. Different ways need to be applied. I should know my business revolves round just that getting people active and the bike is part of this concept. We have spent 10 years researching how why and what will be people active. We don't have all the answers but we do have applications that have worked for us and new concepts based on proved strategies.

I would love segragated cycle infrastructure but that is never going to happen because road design is sponsored by businesses who are only interested in getting people to spend money by visiting them by car (seeping generalisation but you know what I mean). Our roads are too narrow to provide a safe environment to cycle in as most lanes are only wide enough for one motor vehicle at a time and where there are off-carriageway cycle lanes, they break at side roads to give way, rendering them almost useless. I don't like the trend for labelling motorists and cyclists as them and us as I too am a motorist and wouldn't want to be inconvenienced either in my car or on my bike. So until we get a system like the Dutch have, we're stuffed.

"OH hang on Mr Minister, if too many of these people take to becoming healthy and not using their cars so much, we are going to lose out on their money from our stupidly high taxes on fuel, the smokers might like being healthy and give up, damn another high tax from them gone aswell...NO, i think we'll leave it alone"

I think the argument would run that the savings (reduced road wear, reduced call on the services of the NHS) would offset the declining taxation. It's not just improvement of the health of drivers; it's improvement in the health of those subject to less pollution, and fewer "accidents".

Whilst the report may not be stupid, the PR around the release is astonishingly naiive, and I can see the soundbite being thrown around to justify the next lot of token measures offered to non-motorised transport by the government. Appallingly misjudged by the authors.

I prefer the Bristol way of just painting bicycles on roads likely to be used by cyclists. Coloured lanes are never maintained well enough and break up to become rough and nasty rides fairly quickly. London will discover this soon!

I don't agree with segregating the bikes from the rest of the traffic, unless it can be done *totally* and would have the same freedom of flow that the current road network does. However, the reality of that is that it's not possible, short of mirroring the road network either with skyrails or tunnels.

Equally, given the number of drivers that seem to think cycle lanes are absolutely mandatory and swear, swerve, beep etc if you dare not to use them, the existence of some segregation will further serve to support their unenlightened thinking.

I believe it will create a two-tier system - those that pootle and will use the lanes, and those that use the bike for transport and the free-flowing current network. Only thing is, it'll force the latter group into more conflict situations with the minority of tools in vehicles, which is a hugely negative outcome.

I'm also all for building our way out of recession, BUT if you think about it this way, the government wont be.

So we build some cycle lanes and encourage the population to walk and cycle a lot more, people will not only save on fuel and driving costs, but there will also be a health benefit............OH hang on Mr Minister, if too many of these people take to becoming healthy and not using their cars so much, we are going to lose out on their money from our stupidly high taxes on fuel, the smokers might like being healthy and give up, damn another high tax from them gone aswell...NO, i think we'll leave it alone

I could give many more examples of other things that might make less money, but you get the picture.

The other thing, apart from maybe saving the NHS a tiny amount with people's health and the odd bit of tourism, there is nothing else making cycling paths will gain the country apart from the happiness of cyclist's and well all know, most of the government couldn't give a toss about us

MercuryOne: valid point but you've got to ask WHY is speed now at 38-45mph in 30mph zones - answer is that there is NO (or very little) enforcement. You can put in all the rules and limits you want but if there is no penalty for failing to abide by them, there will be no change.

As for the "is blue paint segregation?" argument, it doesn't have to be. It increases the awareness (even subliminally) of motorists to the fact that cyclists are likely to be present and more importantly, it re-inforces the idea that cycles have a vaild place on the road. I don't believe segregation is the answer, certainly not while we've got the current crop of pathetic excuses that pass as "cycle lanes" (the ones that end in the middle of roundabouts, stop at every junction, have bollards, lampposts and trees in them, you know the type...)

I note the report comments about speed reduction and cycle lanes and people being in favour of walking and cycling - as long as they don't have to bother. I still think (and have been banging on ad nauseum) for years that campaigning for new speed restrictions will help cyclists and pedestrians.

Does anyone know when GB speed limits were set and seriously reviewed on a national basis? In suburbs 30mph after 30 years of creepage now means 38-45mph. I'd like to campaign using local MPs for 25mph in suburban roads, 50mph on B roads and all country lanes and toss the Clarksons a bone by raising motorway limits to 80mph. This is so popular an idea with most people I met it's worth a push surely?

All the chat about expensive cycle lanes is for down the road. In a recession surely speed restructions are long over due when considering cost in fuel? After all - cost in lives since 1990 hasn't really made much difference so far.

I quite like the fact that it actually states cyclist have been regarded as eccentric and odd in the past, something I have found to be very true.

I'm pretty sure that the "don't listen to existing cyclists" exhortation was intended to put the CTC's well-known 'right to vehicular cycling' stance in context.

The reality is that the significant majority of 'potential cyclists' would be more likely to ride if there were more segregated cycle paths which kept cyclists and motorised traffic apart.

You only have to ride the Phoenix Trail (Thame to Princes Risborough) to see how popular segregated facilities are. You will see that they are ordinary people, wearing ordinary clothes - people who don't relate to, or want to be associated with, lycra-clad road warriors who ride assertively on their commute to work.

This research is useful because its starting point is that the bicycle is a legitimate mode of transport and seeks to identify and remove obstacles that prevent cycling being used as a mode of transport.

I think it was a genuine breakthrough for the researchers to discover that no amount of training and 'soft measures' would persuade potential cyclists to get their bikes out unless perceived safety is addressed. And the best way forward is segregated cycle paths.

Hasn't this silly obvious report already been reported? Or are academics not above silly season double-announcements?

No need to put up the congestion charge in London any higher, parking costs a fortune unless you've a company car oark. The thing is to make the roads safer, ban the BMWs for starters.

I quite like this article BUT here we go again with CTC, i am growing more and more frustrated with them, if its not their way its wrong kinda style, who put them at the top and spokesmen for all cyclists? I see them as a bunch of clowns who have no grip on the real issues facing cyclist's not just commuters

It's a real shame that the reaction to this otherwise very sensible and insightful report has been dominated by this controversy about a passage at the end. It couldn't be that some people were just desperate to disagree with it could it? The fact is, though, that lots of committed cycle campaigners aren't all that keen on segregated cycle infrastructure as has been well rehearsed here and on almost any cycling forum in the UK. Given that both the CTC and CycleNation have been supporters of the 'hierarchy of provision' which places separated infrastructure last, perhaps the professor is right to suggest that politicians look elsewhere for guidance? Yes, implementing decent infrastructure requires expertise (and an enormous amount of political will) but the expertise isn't necessarily going to be found among UK based cycling campaigners, but among Dutch and Danish based traffic engineers. Survey after survey has shown that people don't cycle because they're frightened of traffic, and that isn't going to go away just because someone tells them to 'man up and take the lane' - it's going to go away because someone's arranged it so they don't have to go head to head with a double-decker bus to get to the shops. Sure it's daunting because we're starting from a position of years of neglect, but we've got to start somewhere.

I think the law needs to be properly enforced in cycling traffic incidents. There is a huge tendency to brush it off as an accident - when the real issue is poor judgement. Oh - and vehicles with 'blind spots' should be off the road

The also need to make it clear to drivers that aggressive behaviour towards cyclists will not be tolerated. It needs to be viewed in the same way drink driving or speeding is viewed.

My recommendation - Put the congestion charge in London up to £100 per day. It would be incredible the amount of people who would then found how much they loved cycling!