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news
CycletopiaCycletopia: could Euro-style urban cycling have already reached our shores?
It often feels as though a town built for cyclists is but a fantasy, and to look at these cartoons commissioned by the CTC, you'd be convinced of it.
But in fact each of these illustrations (and there are 15 in total) represents a real scheme that's operational in the UK - much as it might look like a European cyclist's dream.
The illustration below shows York's Millennium Bridge, which enables cyclists to cross the River Ouse without negotiating heavy motor traffic.
And this one is of a long distance cycle path; the Comber Greenway in Northern Ireland, a green corridor that provides a safe environment for beginner cyclists to escape Belfast’s busy road network.
Another below shows an urban main road - Old Shoreham Road in Brighton - a wide cycle lane where cyclists have priority over traffic turning out of side roads. At main junctions cyclists are also given a headstart.
CTC Chief Executive Gordon Seabright said: “Great Britain proved this summer that we have the best cyclists in the world. Now, we need to create towns and cities that are world class for cycling.
"There are already great things being done right here in the UK to improve cycling; they just need to happen across all our towns and cities.
"Cycletopia aims to help every local authority learn from what other places are doing to increase the numbers of cyclists and reduce traffic congestion.”
So is a cycling Utopia in the UK rather closer than we think?
Latest Comments
- David9694 2 hours 48 min ago
Theres not one scrap of self-help among drivers is there, it's always someone else's issue.
- Simon E 3 hours 36 min ago
Oh dear. A single bike in a single size in one shop is not indicative of the entire UK market for bicycles. And the slump isn't just bikes, it's...
- hawkinspeter 6 hours 29 min ago
Ridiculed or is it just jealousy?
- Rendel Harris 6 hours 54 min ago
Thank goodness for that. I don't suppose anyone would want you to. You certainly behave like one though.
- Eton Rifle 7 hours 2 min ago
You do see some utterly ridiculous examples of car use....
- Eton Rifle 7 hours 24 min ago
Exactly. Every road death is a tragedy but this is at the "twat deserved it" end of the spectrum, looking at the state of that car.
- Rendel Harris 7 hours 32 min ago
I'm not the editor of this article, nor indeed of anything on this website. One would have thought that didn't require explaining.
- Eton Rifle 7 hours 32 min ago
I think the answer is in your question. I genuinely didn't know he was married to her. It does kinda explain it. Disappointing, nevertheless.
- Daclu Trelub 12 hours 18 min ago
In a perfect world, we'd have a measure of how easily distracted someone is, as part of their driving test....
Add new comment
7 comments
This is patronising and vulgar. Have CTC really switched so quickly to advocating some from of dystopian vision where the Mutaween sanction no form of transport other than cycling?
If this is so, then why do we need segregation or 20mph limits at all?
Worse still, this kind of cutesy, throw back to the past, is not what a modern cycling campaign needs. What about new buildings, and dare I say it, what about a town where things other than cycling happen?
This is definitely an image produced by cyclists for cyclists, and it will do nothing to appeal to the 97% of the UK population who think we are all extremists, and who don't currently cycle to work each day.
Far from being progress, this is just another reason to ask why this is still the case.
Yea, the UK has these but in ones and twos, scattered across the whole UK.
the vast majority of the cycling network is a bit of paint down the side of a wide road where it's not needed by cyclists, but simple and cheap for the local council.
They inevitably disappear as soon as a pinch point or junction appears on the scene. Must be like magnets
Or the cycle routes only exist as a hi-viz highlighter line on the map of cycling routes the council puts out as propaganda.
Come on CTC - Who's side are you actually on here?
It's a bit of a Damascene conversion from CTC, though, isn't it? For example:
Absolutely spot on (road.cc readers don't count as "most people"
) but the first time I've ever heard this from CTC.
@Doctor Fegg, this is indeed welcome. While the examples here are very much the exception, it's good to see CTC support for this kind of thing.
Notably the CTC web pages about "the hierarchy" still give the impression that segregated cycle-paths are an occasional thing which "can sometimes provide useful routes through green open space".
I'm not sure what the CTC is thinking publishing a set of seaside postcard fantasies – what they depict is so unrealistic that they have no impact on me and, I suspect, most of the public at large.
Sure, it's possible to scrape together a small portfolio of passable UK infrastructure but from what of I have seen of the CTC's pronouncements on the subject, they would be well-advised getting themselves over to the Netherlands for a guided study tour to learn what is possible in the real world.
In a word, no.
Frankly, no!
The reason I say that is that each of these schemes is a separate, although laudable, effort by one specific local council to improve one single situation
What happened in The Netherlands was a national realisation and campaign against the dangers vehicles were posing to their children - followed by concerted government action of legislation & rolled out in a methodical and progressive way
Chances of that in blighty - slim to b***er all IMHO