"In a rural county the car is the most used and most important mode of transport," replies councillor to family bike ride organisers

he sounds so Tory

Marshall is standard-issue Tory, as you would expect from his stance. The Lib Dem was doing the Right Thing!

And build new housing estates miles from anywhere with no shops or other facilities.

Does that include in your workplace as well? I'm sure I'm not Robinson Crusoe when I say I've even had co-workers voice their 'opinions' of cyclists to me. 

I'd say our long-term centralisation and the rapid increase in it since the advent of mass motoring means there are two groups of people who both agree on the importance of the car in the country.  First those who enjoy town wages and amenities while having a quiet country home.  These are often Very Important People - like our captains of industry, councillors, MPs, celebrities etc.

There are also those who can continue to survive in the countryside mostly because motor vehicles enable them to reach essential services.  That is sufficient work (jobs having centralised), getting kids to school (same with schools), people to doctors and hospitals etc.

I don't have good ideas about addressing this centuries-old structural change.  I just note that in places with mass cycling there is also (mostly) good, continuous provision outside of major towns and cities.  In the UK you might not even find a footway beside the only road (derestricted) between two villages...

levestane wrote:

Shrewsbury is a town, i.e., not the countryside. In remote rural locations without public transport the car is important, but no more so than other road users including the sheep.

Shropshire is awash with people who live in large detached houses in rural locations and drive their SUVs into town daily (as well as less well-off people who also drive because the bus and train services are so shit). All the housing estates being built are created with no consideration for people who don't (or don't want to) drive a car to get anywhere. There is almost no infrastructure for cycling in Shrewsbury, you're lucky if you can find the disjointed shared paths. It's even worse in the smaller towns.

Councillor Marshall doesn't care about active travel or cycling, walking and all that piffle. As I said yesterday, he's an ostrich. Shropshire council has far too many councillors like this, who simply vote as their leader tells them every time. They are dragging their heels on safety around schools and School Streets - a 'pilot' (to start in February 2024) has finally been announced 3 years after the motion was tabled. It also happened with Rob Wilson's Vision Zero motion in December:

https://andybodders.co.uk/2022/12/18/shropshire-conservative-councillors...

Marshall's tweets on that topic earlier this year were similarly tone-deaf.

There is infrastructure in Shrewsbury, it's just that it's terrible. Where it is separate from the main roads it's in poor condition and confusing. The infrastructure on the main roads is mainly paint - often referred to as murder strips. I assume that the council tick that off as using the active travel budget.

Compare that to Telford, a town created where the car was king in the 70s there's more cycling/walking infrastructure in place, some linking up quite well but again, most of it is in poor condition and ill thought out. Proper investment, a council with a brain and a desire to vastly improve the bare bones that are there could make a real difference.

DonLogan wrote:

There is infrastructure in Shrewsbury, it's just that it's terrible.

Painting a white line down the middle of a few pavements is not cycling infrastructure.

Getting into the town centre (or just about anywhere) is a nightmare, all the arterial roads are relatively narrow and at times very busy. Smithfield Road, Welsh Bridge & Frankwell, Castle Foregate/St Michael Street, Chester Street/Ellesmere Rd, Belle Vue Road & Coleham, Abbey Foregate... I could go on! And that's before you try getting to any of the schools or the college site on London Road or negotiate the halfway-to-gridlock that is Harlescott & Sundorne on weekdays or the Meole Brace roundabout & retail park at the weekend.

High Street and Shoplatch are closed to vehicles 10am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays but the rest of the time the main shopping street is a noisy, congested and polluted rat run for cars (and most of the occupants are not there to go to the shops).

I agree totally - I've experienced a great deal of the roads/routes you mention. 

I should have put quotes around 'infrastructure'. Quite scary that somebody has signed it off and so much of it too. I've found it safer to avoid the roads with the paint (if you can) but then you get drivers who wonder why you're not using the 'perfectly adequate' (I remembered them that time!) cycle lanes.

Simon E wrote:

There is almost no infrastructure for cycling in Shrewsbury, you're lucky if you can find the disjointed shared paths. It's even worse in the smaller towns.

You can cut and paste that statement for North West Kent. Frustratingly the swathe of new developments also have no consideration for providing cycle infra beyond shared paths. What they do do, is add in traffic calming measures that make cycling on the road more dangerous as it encourages MGIF mentality before the road narrows etc.

Adam Sutton wrote:

... What they do do, is add in traffic calming measures that make cycling on the road more dangerous as it encourages MGIF mentality before the road narrows etc.

Of course the highway code is clear not to overtake other road users where there is traffic calming, but of course that's not part of the highway code as understood by drivers.

Adam Sutton wrote:

Simon E wrote:

There is almost no infrastructure for cycling in Shrewsbury, you're lucky if you can find the disjointed shared paths. It's even worse in the smaller towns.

You can cut and paste that statement for North West Kent. Frustratingly the swathe of new developments also have no consideration for providing cycle infra beyond shared paths. What they do do, is add in traffic calming measures that make cycling on the road more dangerous as it encourages MGIF mentality before the road narrows etc.

It's frustrating.  I recently toured round several of Edinburgh's new developments and found they are built for exactly the old model of motor commuting (and shopping, and taking kids to school...).  There appeared minimum thought for active travel e.g. flats with no bike storage - which I think is against their own policies.  West Craigs for example is only 6 miles from the centre on the more cycle-friendly routes.  Could be less than 5 if they made cycle provision along the main arterial roads.

They don't even appear to tie in well with public transport.  Yes - new routes could be added of course - if buses can get through the congestion.

I was down that way the other week visiting the in-laws in Bexleyheath. I decided to plan a route down to Grain which, once I got out of Dartford / other side of the M25, wasn't too bad considering even for shared paths. They mainly seemed to be wide enough to reduce confict and smooth enough that you didn't feel you needed MTB suspension.

Of course he is right. In rural areas a car is, for most people, the only viable option to get around. Buses are few and far between if at all. The village I work in has two a day. One each way (thats one am and one pm) to allow a commute to a local town. If you want to go to the other , bigger town a couple of miles further away you drive, walk or cycle. The latter two won't work for most people. 

Infrastructure isn't possible. How do you put a cycle way along and narrow country road between banks? The danger here is dimwit delivery drivers, sadly those most needed by those unable to drive to the shops or those wanting to reduce their carbon footprint. 

To my mind the only viable solution is to scare idiots into driving safely. Lets say a car confiscation, and life ban for any contact with a cyclist. £10,000 for evey mph overthe limit. You get the drift

I do see some confusion above. Just how the devil can you have a rural town? Somewhat of an oxymoron methinks. 

mattsccm wrote:

Of course he is right. In rural areas a car is, for most people, the only viable option to get around.

Richard Marshall isn't just stating that a car is the only viable option in those places. We all know that already, I lived in such a place for many years. He's not talking about a village with 2 buses a day. He is dismissing Sunday's event because he sees no reason to provide cycling infrastructure in a town of 76,000 people. 250 people going on a Kidical Mass bike ride are irrelevant, you should get a car and drive. Everywhere. No other option is allowed to be viable.

Some councillors and other commenters love to use the idea of Shropshire being a rural county as an excuse but the fact is that, like many places, the bus provision is dire in and around the major towns too. Bus services have been cut and cut and cut, starved of cash after having been privatised and run (mostly by Arriva) solely for profit. And he couldn't give a damn about it. Suck it up, peasants.

The refusal among (mostly Tory) councillors in Shropshire to engage with concepts such as active travel, cycle infrastructure, School Streets, pedestrianisation of the town centres and so on is criminal. And Richard Marshall is one of a number of councillors who are very gung-ho about building yet another bypass around the town, at great financial and environmental cost, despite the Tory-run council already being close to bankruptcy. The wilful incompetence and arrogance is even greater than many people realise.

I get the thing with rural areas. Our bus service is shit and we aren't rural, we are just out of London in Kent. My husband couldn't get to work without the car, he tried public transport and it just doesn't work or is viable. For my London commute I have to cycle 6 miles to a station where there is a half decent service as our local station is served so poorly.

The problem we have as noted is new developments where there is opportunity from the start to build decent infrastructure, they haven't. It's laughable that they are calling the tens of thousands of houses they're building "Ebbsfleet Garden City" which sounds idyllic, because it isn't. They're killing the area with overdevelopment and crap infrastructure, hence we are looking to get out.