Sheffield urged to appoint cycling champion and allow bikes on trams

Step 1: fully integrate public transport with biking (including pedelecs);the investments needed to modify trams, trains and buses (the latter with bike racks at the back?) to carry bikes "safely" are negligible compared to f.i. mere road maintenance due to wear caused by car use.
Step 2: electrify all public transport
Step 3: defossilize electricity generation

Step 1 will save tens of thousands of lifes yearly in the UK alone according to a Sustrans report on combating the health risks caused by exhaust emissions; in fact, the gains would be almost breathtaking (excuse the pun), by slashing expenditure on car infrastructure and national health care (due to an increase in health levels). However, such a bold initiative would meet with fierce resistance of the special interest groups who thrive on the status quo. Which explains why the obvious remains a pipe dream.

Step 2. will massively multiply the gains of step 1

Step 3. will save the planet

And now we would please like to hear the counter-arguments. Anyone? Hello!

One of the key advantages of combining cycling with public transport is that those who might be deterred from making a trip or part of a trip by bike because of conditions that would not put off 'hardened' riders.

In reviewing a project that looked at this issue it was found that many 'non cyclists' would make journeys by bike with the comfort of being able to use a taxi, tram, or bus, to get around the challenging parts of their journey - this might be hills, weather, and noted by many women, riding back late at night through less salubrious parts of their town or city. Informally, in rural areas, bikes go on to modern low floor buses to avoid the substantial risks of riding on an unlit country road at night - for example the Hamilton-Strathaven service, which is both uphill, and invariably into the prevailing wind over the moor top.

Now despite what the administrations say, what actually happens at the front line can be very different as the pictures show. there is a young lady with a bike on the No 73 bus to Stoke Newington heading back from Euston at 23.00 one night, and causing no one any problems, and, taken from a 'special' tram service run by TfGM for conference delegates, a man with a bike waiting to board a Metrolink tram at Eitihad Stadium in Manchester. Even as LCC and CTC met with DLR to discuss the trials of cycle carriage last year those in the meeting looked across from the office to nearby Poplar Station to see a guy with a bike walking along the platform!

Pragmatically the ability to Police the open boarding systems for most tram and light rail networks will never stop every bike from getting aboard, and a draconian regime will deliver confrontations, and potential for major service disruption, so the sensible position is to manage, by providing clear rules about how and when to travel and relay on the soft policing provided by the disapproval from other passengers, and the impossibility of getting on a packed tram.

It is worth noting here that in May1996 the peak hour ban on cycle carriage on Merseyrail trains was dropped, and they have never seen it necessary to re-introduce it, as it largely self polices, and at weekends, organised rail & ride days out can see 20 or more bikes on a single 3-coach train, and as for the Liverpool to Chester bike ride....

In Manchester for example it actually makes sense to get off at tram at the edge of the city core, pretty much at the same places that the cyclists used to get off the trains they used to use before the arrival of the trams blocked them from the useful routes from Bury and Altrincham, initially and now Oldham as well.

One key argument that the experts bring up is 'excursions within the vehicle' - in plain English that's the effects that happen with the rapid acceleration, and dramatic braking of an emergency stop when magnets drop down and 'glue' the tram on to the rails. With such fierce changes in speed people and the items they have with them become projectiles. Well personally I think I'd fare better fielding off a 12-15Kg bike than say a 80-120Kg person or a wheelchair user flying to the front of the tram when the driver drops in full emergency braking, and in most cases the designated place for a bike would be fitted between draught screens or transverse seating.

The DLR trial generated around 1000 additional journeys per month that were captured by their user counts, and it would seem likely that most other systems would experience a similar boost, a detail which might have some interesting results for Birmingham in particular, where use has remained at a plateau over many years, and the stops (on the old railway line between the centres of Birmingham and Wolverhampton) are some distance from places where the passengers live and work along the route.

The really galling detail is perhaps that the trams used in Croydon, Manchester, Blackpool, and Birmingham are practically identical to the same basic models which carry bikes in almost every other city they are used in (Croydon's newest trams were actually added to a production run for Bergen (picture), where the identical vehicles do carry bikes).

In 2007 TfL did commission world specialists TTK to report concerning cycle carriage on the Croydon system, and the recommendation was that a trial of this be set-up - that report has now been sitting in a drawer at TfL for 7 years, with no sign yet that the recommended action will be delivered.

more detail on the report is here

http://www.cyclesheffield.org.uk/2014/04/08/10098/

its a big move beyond doing very little and doinng that grudgingly but I think this line is disappointing as I see nothing in the report will move Sheffield beyond the low average:
"We looked at what is happening in the city and compared Sheffield with other cities. We found that Sheffield compares reasonably well with other cities but we want to do even better"
The terms of reference I recall asked something like "why are so many more bike journeys made in Bristol - a comparable city"
There is nothing best practise in the report all average in my opinion lets hope a champion for cyclists can develop some pace and political will

Allowing bikes on Trams has to be the best step forward for an integrated transport policy. Manchester doesn't allow bikes on trams even though its got £20 million to develop infrastructure. This infrastructure appears to be include putting bike hoops next to the new metro link in Withenshaw. Who in their right mind would leave their bike alone in Withenshaw next to the Metro?