Get Britain Cycling - Comment

The buzz at the Cycle City Expo event was tangible, with early 500 registered delegates all wanting a role in ‘getting Britain cycling’ The challenge, however, will be to translate this enthusiasm into concrete action.

Cycling has come a long way, with transport professionals admitting their mistake at not taking it seriously and The Times campaigning hard on the issue. But much remains the same. The DfT is still wedded to appraisal methods that, factoring in delays to vehicular traffic, may not justify spending on segregated facilities on busy roads that the Get Britain Cycling report recommends.

One answer is to reform the appraisals. Professor Phil Goodwin told me that, if health benefits are captured, “the BCRs for cycling schemes are very much greater that for many major infrastructure schemes, even using traditional appraisal methods”.  Furthermore, not assuming “inexorable rises” in traffic are inevitable will also strengthen the case, he added.

The other answer is to reduce the role of appraisals. Mike Harris, landscape architect, AECOM, said that in Copenhagen they do not work out the cost/benefit ratios of schemes. “They plan their networks based on logic,” Harris added. Andrew Gilligan, the London mayor’s cycling commissioner, meanwhile, told me that appraisals have “become reasons not to do things” and in addition dismissed the need for further surveys.

The vision for a nation where cycling is a mainstream mode of transport seemed self-evident to delegates. But is it self-evident how to implement this, as the commissioner suggests? With a drive for standardised design as well, what role for the profession?

Asked if there is a role for transport planners, Gilligan said: “We still need to model the traffic impacts of schemes carefully.” There is more to it than that, of course. The fact that the cycling commissioner is a journalist speaks of the need for the ‘softer’ skills of communication and persuasion required for implementation. Transport officers and consultants have a role in making that case too.

Watch Lee's interviews with the speakers