Campaigning News
Andy Burnham: don’t throw Manchester hire bikes in the canal (Nov 21)
Andy Burnham has pleaded with residents of Greater Manchester not to chuck its latest fleet of hire bikes into the canal when the region’s £17m rental scheme opens this month.
Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and a recent convert to cycling, admitted he was nervous about the launch of the Bee Bikes after their predecessors ended up swimming with the fishes.
“I would just say to people: these are your bikes, we own them. So, please look after them,” he said. “Damaging your own stuff doesn’t make sense.” He insisted he would rather they didn’t call them “Burnham Bikes” but stick to their Sunday name, inspired by Manchester’s civic symbol, the worker bee.
In 2017 Manchester was the first UK city to test dockless bike hire when the Chinese firm Mobike pedalled into town.each month ended up at the bottom of the Manchester Ship Canal and various other waterways. Others were strung up lampposts, abandoned in the Arndale shopping centre, locked in secure car parks and hidden in sheds. A startling number had their locks hacked off – and with them, their inbuilt GPS trackers.
Bee Bikes are owned by Greater Manchester but will be operated for the first five years by Beryl, a private company which runs schemes in the West Midlands, Bournemouth, the Isle of Wight and beyond. They are part of Burnham’s aim to build the UK’s first carbon-neutral transport city region network by 2031, consisting of bikes, buses and trams.
By summer 2022, 1,500 yellow bikes, including 300 electric models, will be available to the public in parts of Manchester, Salford and Trafford. If successful, the fleet will be expanded to cover the whole of Greater Manchester, with more electric bikes in the hilliest suburbs, according to Chris Boardman, the Olympic champion turned Greater Manchester travel commissioner.
He admitted being apprehensive in the run-up to the 18 November launch. “Vandalism is something that you don’t have control over,” he said. But he stressed that Greater Manchester police (GMP) had been involved in planning the scheme, whereas Mobikes were just “dumped on the street” with minimal notice.
As well as being too easy to pinch, Mobikes were also uncomfortable, having only one gear and apparently being designed for tiny people. “I’m only 5ft 8 and I still couldn’t get the saddle to go high enough,” said Boardman. The Bee Bikes have three gears and the saddle can be adjusted to suit riders between 4ft 11in and 6ft 5in (149cm to 195cm). It costs 50p to unlock a pedal bike and 5p a minute of cycling, or £1 to unlock an e-bike and 10p a minute to ride.
Cycle hire stations will typically be between 300 metres and 500 metres apart, ensuring that up to 198,000 residents are never more than a five-minute walk from a bicycle. The bikes should be parked in branded docks, otherwise riders receive fines of £5 or £10 depending on how far away they abandon theirs. Unlike London’s Santander scheme, the dock does not lock the bike in place, but encourages sensible parking.
If the dock is full, users can still leave their bike locked to itself nearby and not get penalised. “It means you never need miss your train because there are no spaces at the station,” said Boardman. A team of 17 Beryl staff will be whizzing around the city redistributing and fixing bikes all day and night, he added.
Phil Ellis, the chief executive of Beryl, insisted he had no hesitation to pitch for the contract. “It might have seemed that Manchester is the wild west, but it wasn’t really. Vandalism was not a unique problem to the city. It happens everywhere. We were thrilled to be selected to run the scheme,” he said.
Ultimately, the success of the Bee Bikes will not be simply down to how many remain roadworthy, but whether Mancunians like to ride them. A lot of that comes down to safety, said Graeme Sherriff, a researcher in healthy active cities at the University of Salford.
“The cycling environment generally is also a challenge. It has to be cycleable if you have a bike hire scheme,” he said. “Currently, Greater Manchester isn’t very cycle-friendly, but it is getting better.”
Boardman is trying to build 1,800 miles of safe walking and cycling routes as part of the Bee Network, but so far only a fraction of the network is complete after wranglings with Greater Manchester’s 10 councils.
LCC , business leaders , Mayor Boris Johnson and his Cycling Commissioner celebrate as East-West Cycle Superhighway opens (6th May)
One short ride for Boris Johnson but a lasting legacy for Londoners – the capital’s Mayor , on his last day in office, opened the new East-West Cycle Superhighway accompanied by dozens of LCC members, including youngsters, as well as his Cycling Commissioner Andrew Gilligan.LCC chair, Ann Kenrick, thanked Johnson for keeping his promise to the 40,000 people who signed the Love London Go Dutch petition that demanded continental standards on London’s cycling highways. Johnson, on his usual steed, was presented with an LCC musette and a matching mechanics apron. Johnson’s Cycling Commissioner was warmly thanked by Campaign’s chair, Mustafa Arif , and proceeded to take a leaf out of the papal handbook by kissing the ground of the new highway which took so many months of lobbying by Johnson, Gilligan , LCC, Cycling Works and others to get built.The first section of highway provides a fully segregated route from the Tower of London to Parliament Square with iconic views en-route. At the east end the existing Cycle Superhighway 3 connects the new section of highway from the Tower to Barking and at the west end the highway is due to be extended to Paddington. The section from Parliament to Hyde Park is currently delayed.Opening the highway both Johnson and Gilligan emphasised that it was vital that the cycling programme, including the East-West highway, is continued. The TfL business plan requires cycling to double by 2026 to cope with the transport demands of the capital’s fast growing population. That view was echoed by the assembled business leaders and cycling activists alike.
Motorist in court receives "slapped wrist"(16th Feb)
A parish councillor was caught on camera 'giving the finger' to some cyclists he forced off a country road into a hedge.Two of the cyclists were injured in the incident in the Teign Valley in Devon one Sunday last July which led to 40 year old councillor James Atkinson admitting careless driving at Christow, Devon, in his Land Rover with personalised plates JIA74 on the B3193.He was fined £140 by Exeter magistrates court who also gave him eight penalty points on his driving licence.Prosecutor Lyndsey Baker said the four cyclists were riding in single file at 25mph when Atkinson roared up behind them and tried to overtake on a blind bend.A car was coming the other way at 20mph and Atkinson veered into the cyclists and they ended up in a hedge and 'a jumble on the floor', she said.Atkinson, of Bridford, Devon, showed no remorse and in a police interview he tried to blame the riders for being four abreast which had forced him to the other side of the road.One of the cyclists described his punishment as 'a slap on the wrist' and no compensation was ordered as the bench said insurers would sort that out.Hair salon boss Rob Peirce from Torquay, Devon, shot the headcam reaction of Atkinson following the incident.Mr Peirce, 48, said:"We were riding single file along that road which is one of the few flat roads we can use. We ride 200 miles a week and we are experienced riders."One of the injured riders was a stranger who suffered a head injury. An ambulance was called for him."My friend Jason Acreman was also hurt. He hasn't been cycling since because of the emotional effect it has had on him."Atkinson's driving was the most aggressive extreme driving we have ever encountered."In my opinion he is going to kill or seriously injure someone. His attitude was outrageous."I am not surprised he has received a slap on the wrist. But he should have been banned – you get a stiffer penalty if you break the speed limit on the motorway than nearly killing two people on their bikes."Mr Acreman, 35, from Torquay, suffered hip, back and shoulder injuries and said:"I heard this beeping from a car and then heard screeching and skidding."I was riding by a hedge and had nowhere to go and was left upside down and hanging out of a tree. I was quite lucky really."Mr Peirce said:"We tried to speak to the driver about what had happened and he gave me his middle finger. I was giving him a piece of my mind that he could have killed people – women and children use this road – and he looked me in the eye and kept swearing at me. A lady driving the other way stopped and confronted him. She rang the police."We were cycling back from Tiverton along the Teign Valley. It was a nice sunny day. Atkinson began hooting along the straight road, it was not the twisty bit."He was aggressively revving his engine and beeping his horn and overtook us on a blind corner and took two of the cyclists out. James is a keen cyclist but has not been out since which is a real shame. One of them was impaled on a hedge fence and the other was left lying in a gutter. The driver did not show a jot of concern."The lady driver went ballistic at him but he sat in his Land Rover with a smug look on his face. It was unbelievable – and then he drove off."
Speed bumps - for cyclists (Feb 16)!
A series of rumble strips (which are in fact cobbles) are being installed in Mount Park, Kensington Gardens in London, as cyclists have been tearing round at upto 20mph, causing danger to pedestrians. Upto 900 cyclists use this path at peak times.
Big rise in court action against reckless cyclists (Jan 16)
The number of cyclists successfully prosecuted for ignoring traffic signs has more than doubled in four years, according to government figures.One minister has labelled cyclists “the biggest challenge for a commuter in London”, as concern over the behaviour of some riders increases.Figures published on the parliament website show that the number of cyclists found guilty of “neglect of traffic directions” rose from 52 in 2010 to 125 in 2014 — the latest year for which data is available.
The total number of cyclists found guilty in a magistrates’ court of “careless driving” has also risen, from 85 to 96
Businesses make cycle plea to Osborne (Oct 15)
A coalition of Britain’s biggest businesses, including GSK, Virgin Trains, Orange and the National Grid, have hit out after it emerged that George Osborne will fail to guarantee funds for safe cycling in the spending review.
The companies, which employ more than 250,000 people and include firms like Abellio, Sky and British Land, will today deliver an open letter to the Chancellor calling on him to invest in cycling as a means of reducing traffic congestion, tackling pollution and boosting public health.
The signatories also include representatives from the worlds of both cycling and motoring, with British Cycling and the AA both calling on Mr Osborne to pledge a budget of between £10 and £20 per capita each year to providing safe cycle routes around Britain.
Ministers were accused of a U-turn last week after The Times learnt that cycling was “off the agenda” for the spending review on November 25, when the government sets out its five-year budgets.
This comes at a time when the Department for Transport is working on Britain’s first “cycling and walking investment strategy”. The government is legally obliged by the Infrastructure Act to set out a five-year strategy for doubling the number of people who commute by bicycle and to set out the resources to be made available.In the letter, the businesses state: “More cycling will make our towns and cities more pleasant, liveable, less congested, less polluted, healthier, happier and more prosperous. This is only possible it more people are able to travel more easily by bicycle.”It adds: “We are a group of businesses employing over 250,000 people and serving 46 million customers in Britain. We contribute to this country. We care a lot about it. And we know there is a problem.”The companies also include Allen & Overy, the international law firm; Severn Trent Water; Broadgate Estates, the property company; Price & Myers, the engineering firm; and New London Architecture.The firms make three demands. The first is that funding for cycling and pedestrian projects must continue after the Local Sustainable Transport Fund ends in April next year. The second is for £10 to £20 per capita per year to be dedicated to cycling provision. And the third is for a “comprehensive, fully-funded” cycling strategy to be published before the 2016 budget.
“We are asking for this because we believe that a modest investment from government now will create jobs in the short term and deliver huge long-term benefits for society,” they state.
Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “This is a group of businesses demanding extra cash for cycling. It’s not lobby groups or the people you would normally expect. Companies, particularly in cities where congestion is pretty dire and where public transport at peak periods is overcrowded, are quite keen that their staff can get to work in the most efficient way possible. If businesses are saying this, the Chancellor should sit up and listen.”Robert Goodwill, the minister of state for cycling, said that a recent trip to Copenhagen left Britain “having to hang our heads in shame” at the relative lack of cycling provision.
Andy Burnham: don’t throw Manchester hire bikes in the canal (Nov 21)
Andy Burnham has pleaded with residents of Greater Manchester not to chuck its latest fleet of hire bikes into the canal when the region’s £17m rental scheme opens this month.
Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and a recent convert to cycling, admitted he was nervous about the launch of the Bee Bikes after their predecessors ended up swimming with the fishes.
“I would just say to people: these are your bikes, we own them. So, please look after them,” he said. “Damaging your own stuff doesn’t make sense.” He insisted he would rather they didn’t call them “Burnham Bikes” but stick to their Sunday name, inspired by Manchester’s civic symbol, the worker bee.
In 2017 Manchester was the first UK city to test dockless bike hire when the Chinese firm Mobike pedalled into town.each month ended up at the bottom of the Manchester Ship Canal and various other waterways. Others were strung up lampposts, abandoned in the Arndale shopping centre, locked in secure car parks and hidden in sheds. A startling number had their locks hacked off – and with them, their inbuilt GPS trackers.
Bee Bikes are owned by Greater Manchester but will be operated for the first five years by Beryl, a private company which runs schemes in the West Midlands, Bournemouth, the Isle of Wight and beyond. They are part of Burnham’s aim to build the UK’s first carbon-neutral transport city region network by 2031, consisting of bikes, buses and trams.
By summer 2022, 1,500 yellow bikes, including 300 electric models, will be available to the public in parts of Manchester, Salford and Trafford. If successful, the fleet will be expanded to cover the whole of Greater Manchester, with more electric bikes in the hilliest suburbs, according to Chris Boardman, the Olympic champion turned Greater Manchester travel commissioner.
He admitted being apprehensive in the run-up to the 18 November launch. “Vandalism is something that you don’t have control over,” he said. But he stressed that Greater Manchester police (GMP) had been involved in planning the scheme, whereas Mobikes were just “dumped on the street” with minimal notice.
As well as being too easy to pinch, Mobikes were also uncomfortable, having only one gear and apparently being designed for tiny people. “I’m only 5ft 8 and I still couldn’t get the saddle to go high enough,” said Boardman. The Bee Bikes have three gears and the saddle can be adjusted to suit riders between 4ft 11in and 6ft 5in (149cm to 195cm). It costs 50p to unlock a pedal bike and 5p a minute of cycling, or £1 to unlock an e-bike and 10p a minute to ride.
Cycle hire stations will typically be between 300 metres and 500 metres apart, ensuring that up to 198,000 residents are never more than a five-minute walk from a bicycle. The bikes should be parked in branded docks, otherwise riders receive fines of £5 or £10 depending on how far away they abandon theirs. Unlike London’s Santander scheme, the dock does not lock the bike in place, but encourages sensible parking.
If the dock is full, users can still leave their bike locked to itself nearby and not get penalised. “It means you never need miss your train because there are no spaces at the station,” said Boardman. A team of 17 Beryl staff will be whizzing around the city redistributing and fixing bikes all day and night, he added.
Phil Ellis, the chief executive of Beryl, insisted he had no hesitation to pitch for the contract. “It might have seemed that Manchester is the wild west, but it wasn’t really. Vandalism was not a unique problem to the city. It happens everywhere. We were thrilled to be selected to run the scheme,” he said.
Ultimately, the success of the Bee Bikes will not be simply down to how many remain roadworthy, but whether Mancunians like to ride them. A lot of that comes down to safety, said Graeme Sherriff, a researcher in healthy active cities at the University of Salford.
“The cycling environment generally is also a challenge. It has to be cycleable if you have a bike hire scheme,” he said. “Currently, Greater Manchester isn’t very cycle-friendly, but it is getting better.”
Boardman is trying to build 1,800 miles of safe walking and cycling routes as part of the Bee Network, but so far only a fraction of the network is complete after wranglings with Greater Manchester’s 10 councils.
LCC , business leaders , Mayor Boris Johnson and his Cycling Commissioner celebrate as East-West Cycle Superhighway opens (6th May)
One short ride for Boris Johnson but a lasting legacy for Londoners – the capital’s Mayor , on his last day in office, opened the new East-West Cycle Superhighway accompanied by dozens of LCC members, including youngsters, as well as his Cycling Commissioner Andrew Gilligan.LCC chair, Ann Kenrick, thanked Johnson for keeping his promise to the 40,000 people who signed the Love London Go Dutch petition that demanded continental standards on London’s cycling highways. Johnson, on his usual steed, was presented with an LCC musette and a matching mechanics apron. Johnson’s Cycling Commissioner was warmly thanked by Campaign’s chair, Mustafa Arif , and proceeded to take a leaf out of the papal handbook by kissing the ground of the new highway which took so many months of lobbying by Johnson, Gilligan , LCC, Cycling Works and others to get built.The first section of highway provides a fully segregated route from the Tower of London to Parliament Square with iconic views en-route. At the east end the existing Cycle Superhighway 3 connects the new section of highway from the Tower to Barking and at the west end the highway is due to be extended to Paddington. The section from Parliament to Hyde Park is currently delayed.Opening the highway both Johnson and Gilligan emphasised that it was vital that the cycling programme, including the East-West highway, is continued. The TfL business plan requires cycling to double by 2026 to cope with the transport demands of the capital’s fast growing population. That view was echoed by the assembled business leaders and cycling activists alike.
Motorist in court receives "slapped wrist"(16th Feb)
A parish councillor was caught on camera 'giving the finger' to some cyclists he forced off a country road into a hedge.Two of the cyclists were injured in the incident in the Teign Valley in Devon one Sunday last July which led to 40 year old councillor James Atkinson admitting careless driving at Christow, Devon, in his Land Rover with personalised plates JIA74 on the B3193.He was fined £140 by Exeter magistrates court who also gave him eight penalty points on his driving licence.Prosecutor Lyndsey Baker said the four cyclists were riding in single file at 25mph when Atkinson roared up behind them and tried to overtake on a blind bend.A car was coming the other way at 20mph and Atkinson veered into the cyclists and they ended up in a hedge and 'a jumble on the floor', she said.Atkinson, of Bridford, Devon, showed no remorse and in a police interview he tried to blame the riders for being four abreast which had forced him to the other side of the road.One of the cyclists described his punishment as 'a slap on the wrist' and no compensation was ordered as the bench said insurers would sort that out.Hair salon boss Rob Peirce from Torquay, Devon, shot the headcam reaction of Atkinson following the incident.Mr Peirce, 48, said:"We were riding single file along that road which is one of the few flat roads we can use. We ride 200 miles a week and we are experienced riders."One of the injured riders was a stranger who suffered a head injury. An ambulance was called for him."My friend Jason Acreman was also hurt. He hasn't been cycling since because of the emotional effect it has had on him."Atkinson's driving was the most aggressive extreme driving we have ever encountered."In my opinion he is going to kill or seriously injure someone. His attitude was outrageous."I am not surprised he has received a slap on the wrist. But he should have been banned – you get a stiffer penalty if you break the speed limit on the motorway than nearly killing two people on their bikes."Mr Acreman, 35, from Torquay, suffered hip, back and shoulder injuries and said:"I heard this beeping from a car and then heard screeching and skidding."I was riding by a hedge and had nowhere to go and was left upside down and hanging out of a tree. I was quite lucky really."Mr Peirce said:"We tried to speak to the driver about what had happened and he gave me his middle finger. I was giving him a piece of my mind that he could have killed people – women and children use this road – and he looked me in the eye and kept swearing at me. A lady driving the other way stopped and confronted him. She rang the police."We were cycling back from Tiverton along the Teign Valley. It was a nice sunny day. Atkinson began hooting along the straight road, it was not the twisty bit."He was aggressively revving his engine and beeping his horn and overtook us on a blind corner and took two of the cyclists out. James is a keen cyclist but has not been out since which is a real shame. One of them was impaled on a hedge fence and the other was left lying in a gutter. The driver did not show a jot of concern."The lady driver went ballistic at him but he sat in his Land Rover with a smug look on his face. It was unbelievable – and then he drove off."
Speed bumps - for cyclists (Feb 16)!
A series of rumble strips (which are in fact cobbles) are being installed in Mount Park, Kensington Gardens in London, as cyclists have been tearing round at upto 20mph, causing danger to pedestrians. Upto 900 cyclists use this path at peak times.
Big rise in court action against reckless cyclists (Jan 16)
The number of cyclists successfully prosecuted for ignoring traffic signs has more than doubled in four years, according to government figures.One minister has labelled cyclists “the biggest challenge for a commuter in London”, as concern over the behaviour of some riders increases.Figures published on the parliament website show that the number of cyclists found guilty of “neglect of traffic directions” rose from 52 in 2010 to 125 in 2014 — the latest year for which data is available.
The total number of cyclists found guilty in a magistrates’ court of “careless driving” has also risen, from 85 to 96
Businesses make cycle plea to Osborne (Oct 15)
A coalition of Britain’s biggest businesses, including GSK, Virgin Trains, Orange and the National Grid, have hit out after it emerged that George Osborne will fail to guarantee funds for safe cycling in the spending review.
The companies, which employ more than 250,000 people and include firms like Abellio, Sky and British Land, will today deliver an open letter to the Chancellor calling on him to invest in cycling as a means of reducing traffic congestion, tackling pollution and boosting public health.
The signatories also include representatives from the worlds of both cycling and motoring, with British Cycling and the AA both calling on Mr Osborne to pledge a budget of between £10 and £20 per capita each year to providing safe cycle routes around Britain.
Ministers were accused of a U-turn last week after The Times learnt that cycling was “off the agenda” for the spending review on November 25, when the government sets out its five-year budgets.
This comes at a time when the Department for Transport is working on Britain’s first “cycling and walking investment strategy”. The government is legally obliged by the Infrastructure Act to set out a five-year strategy for doubling the number of people who commute by bicycle and to set out the resources to be made available.In the letter, the businesses state: “More cycling will make our towns and cities more pleasant, liveable, less congested, less polluted, healthier, happier and more prosperous. This is only possible it more people are able to travel more easily by bicycle.”It adds: “We are a group of businesses employing over 250,000 people and serving 46 million customers in Britain. We contribute to this country. We care a lot about it. And we know there is a problem.”The companies also include Allen & Overy, the international law firm; Severn Trent Water; Broadgate Estates, the property company; Price & Myers, the engineering firm; and New London Architecture.The firms make three demands. The first is that funding for cycling and pedestrian projects must continue after the Local Sustainable Transport Fund ends in April next year. The second is for £10 to £20 per capita per year to be dedicated to cycling provision. And the third is for a “comprehensive, fully-funded” cycling strategy to be published before the 2016 budget.
“We are asking for this because we believe that a modest investment from government now will create jobs in the short term and deliver huge long-term benefits for society,” they state.
Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “This is a group of businesses demanding extra cash for cycling. It’s not lobby groups or the people you would normally expect. Companies, particularly in cities where congestion is pretty dire and where public transport at peak periods is overcrowded, are quite keen that their staff can get to work in the most efficient way possible. If businesses are saying this, the Chancellor should sit up and listen.”Robert Goodwill, the minister of state for cycling, said that a recent trip to Copenhagen left Britain “having to hang our heads in shame” at the relative lack of cycling provision.