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news
palace-530055_1920Cycling UK accuse government of missing 'golden opportunity' to ensure there are less cars on the roads
Cycling UK has called the government's Transport Decarbonisation Plan 'confused' and accused ministers of missing a 'golden opportunity' to halt the growth of road traffic.
The UK’s leading cycling charity was reacting to the publication of the plan, which was unveiled this week by transport secretary, Grant Shapps.
The document, which can be read in full here, sets out the government’s pathway for the transport sector to reach 'net zero' carbon emissions by 2050.
In the plan, the transport secretary promises: "We will deliver the Prime Minister’s bold vision for cycling and walking investing £2 billion over five years with the aim that half of all journeys in towns and cities will be cycled or walked by 2030."
The government also insists there will be 'a world class cycling and walking network in England by 2040'.
Cycling UK however raised concerns that although the plan had some 'interesting ideas' it lacked specific details on how many fewer cars the government expected to see on the roads, and by when.
Roger Geffen, Cycling UK’s policy director, said: “The government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan has finally arrived, eight months late, and it has clearly had a tortuous journey.
"Although it contains some interesting ideas, it seems confused about the overall direction it is going in.
“As we emerge from the pandemic and approach the international COP26 climate summit, this was a golden opportunity to show leadership, by setting targets for how quickly we will halt and reverse the growth of road traffic, and to re-allocate transport spending accordingly.
“At the start of the Plan’s development, Grant Shapps spelled out his vision of a world in which ‘we will use our cars less’. But we still don’t know how much less, or by when.”
Cycling UK says it will offer 'further analysis' of the Transport Decarbonisation Plan in due course.
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19 comments
I'm going to agree with Mr Garrage (or whatever his current pseudonym is) here.
This seems a sensible first step.
Most of us on this forum are regular cyclists and will obviously be pushing for a more aggressive approach from the government.
The problem is that we are not the people who need to be persuaded, the people who need to be persuaded are those who consider driving 500 yards entirely reasonable or those living in neighbourhoods where car use is unavoidable.
If we are too aggressive then we risk a backlash from these people and consequent slower progress.
To use an old adage, It's better for 100 people to reduce their car use by 10% than for 5 people to stop using their cars altogether.
I'm optimistic that this puts us on the right path and closer to a Dutch-esque tipping point.
Here is the "further analysis" from Cycling UK, promised in the final sentence of this article.
Excellent analysis as ever Roger, thank you. As that well worn cliche says this is a "must read."
Fewer?
Indeed!
So much for leaving the forum. Why do you keep changing your username ? What are you trying to achieve ? Btw it's altar.
To the uninitiated, this is user boooobooo aka nigel garrage aka you are cyber bullies aka "attention seeking whore" who gets some sort of perverse gratification from being a wind up merchant.
Please don't be sucked in to debating with them.
F*ck me, thanks for that Boris. Any other pearls of wisdom you'd like to cast before us swine? Firm but gentle nudges? Are you taking the piss? General direction? CUK offering something substantive and constructive? By the time your "general direction" has happened, we'll be swimming like the Germans or burning like the Canadians. It's a bit too late for soothing words, and it's time to take action, not leaving it for our kids.
All I can say is that must be one hell of a rock you've been living under for the past ten years; a totally solid, very thick, impervious rock. But hey, you'e entitled to your opinion, or that of conservative central office, anyway.
It's talking up electric cars and lorries and 'sustainable' jet fuel so driving everywhere, foreign holidays and so on can continue as normal.
There is no drive to for cutting car use or fossil fuels in general. It's a complete and utter joke. Some info here:
https://twitter.com/EdwardALeigh/status/1415623286847938563
In the meantime what happened to all those well-meaning people who were going to drive less after lockdown? All the roads are as stupidly busy as before, especially around the out-of-town shopping centres. Buy, buy, buy.
Completely agree!! Every time we saw comments about Covid-19 being a reset, and changing how we live & work, I just rolled my eyes. All nice in theory, but it was never going to happen. And it's a great shame. And a damning indictment on modern society. People might want change, but everybody else bar themselves.
In fact, things are worse than before the lockdowns....
Yet more Tory bullshit and lies, but still people will vote for them. All you can do is wait and hope people will eventually wake up.
Don't hold your breath though, lies are the new truth.
We'll need to hold our breaths when the water levels rise, but yes, as Goebbels or Stalin said "A lie often repeated becomes the truth." We need a massive change in our media, which pretty much ignores climate change, and in the case of the BBC, has deliberately, consciously, ignored the contribution active travel could make to our lives.
With Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, and General Motors in the top 10 of global advertising spend we will never see the change in media from a heavily motorist bias.
True for most of the media, but not the BBC, so why are they so pro-ecar and flying, and anti-active travel?
It's almost like they're getting money under the table to push a certain agenda...
That's merely one of the suspicions I've been harbouring for the past forty years, but it would be very difficult to prove. On the other hand, proving that they are biased against active travel, cycling in particular, is undeniable, but while they remain judge and jury in their idiotic complaints system, nothing is going to change.
Well, at least if you disagree with the BBC's media output, you can just stop paying for the service
£2bn over five years is going to create a world class cycling network? It will just about scratch the surface. As Roger Geffen says, this is just a wish list of ifs, buts and maybes with no substance, so just like every other transport plan the government has for active travel. No such problems with HS2 or the roads programme, which they have just been forced to admit in court, has to be analysed for its environmental effects.
This Transport Decarbonisation Plan appears to have been sneaked out with very little publicity and it hasn't made a ripple in the msm, unlike the National Food Strategy, which has been widely reported, especially on the BBC, but maybe that's because it's fronted by someone called Dimbleby, and that pretty much guarantees coverage on the Beeb. While I'm on the subject, Mr Dimbleby was interviewed at length on Today, R4, he stated most emphatically that exercise doesn't control weight. This was so obviously wrong that I immediately emailed the prog pointing it out, and that the BBC is supposedly committed to accuracy, but no response, so I sent them a longer one the following day; still no response, so I'll make an official complaint.
If only the Transport report was authored by somebody called Dimbleby the BBC might have featured it.
The £2bn is almost certainly a lie, as the ATF money would have been £400 million last year and this - and it wasn't.
I've started reading the Decarbonising Transport Plan, and it's all over the place - 'drive your cars less, don't drive your cars less'.
Then there's the usual boasting and blather: "world-leading, world-class, levelling-up, world-leading..." on and on.
I agree, the £2bn won't be spent on infrastructure.
Most of it will be spaffed up the wall by paying consultants, contractors, legal teams, consultations, surveys, public engagement exercises...