080 CYCLING
BICYCLES ARE MORE than just a means of transport, they’re a political hot potato as well. Boris loves them, Grant Shapps wants to stick number plates on them and Rishi Sunak would rather forget all about them and use a car instead. Tey’re accessible, egalitarian, eco- friendly and money-saving or they’re aggressive, dangerous, untaxed and ruining the high street – depending, of course, on who you ask. What isn’t up for debate is that UK cities lag far behind when it comes to being pleasant places to be a person who cycles (as distinct from a ‘cyclist’ who pedals for sport). Te 2022 Global Bicycle Cities Index by insurance company Coya, which rates cities on bike- friendly criteria from infrastructure and weather to accident rates and bike thefts, puts London in 62nd place, behind Tel Aviv, Casablanca and Reykjavik. Te UK’s top entry, at 15, was Bristol, with Edinburgh coming in 34th. Perhaps, it’s not surprising that in Copenhagen, widely regarded as the most bike-friendly city in the world, 62% of commuting journeys are cycled, but in the UK it’s just 4%.
In a time of climate breakdown, obesity and sky-high fuel prices, persuading people to make short journeys under their own steam is clearly sensible. According to the Government’s Decarbonising Transport plan, 58% of all private car journeys are for less than five miles – around half an hour for the average cyclist and half that for the super fit. Given that the average peak time car speed in London is just over seven miles an hour, it’s not an unrealistic plan, but turning Britain’s city dwellers into happy bike users is not proving to be a walk in the park. Much of the fury stems around Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), where cars are banned or restricted. Around 300 have been installed in the last two years or are in the pipeline and they are loved and loathed in passionate measure. For Rosslyn Colderley, director at cycling charity Sustrans England North, getting through-traffic out of residential city neighbourhoods is vital. ‘At the moment planning is massively skewed towards the needs of people who are driving a car, who are essentially a privileged elite – 30% of people in Greater Manchester don’t have access to a car at all. People who are driving into a city are taking their pollution through the areas where the poorer people live and putting their health at risk, so there are social justice aspects to this.
‘It’s a massive improvement when you avoid rat-running through local neighbourhoods, keep cars on the main roads and have neighbourhood streets for people, so they are only accessed by people who live there or need to go there. If you put in bollards or planters, drivers have to take the long way round, which is a nudge towards more cycling and walking. Sustrans is not trying to get rid of cars, just to ditch them for short journeys. What people really want is cleaner air, more opportunities for children to play outside, to get to know their neighbours and have better mental health.’
Yet many of these schemes are hugely unpopular, with complaints of gridlock and pollution in nearby streets, and delays to emergency vehicles. While chancellor, Sunak weighed in on the debate, promising to ‘stop the war on motorists’ and review LTNs if he became prime minister. ‘Te UK is a passionate driving nation because driving provides freedom,’ he said. ‘We need to stop making life difficult for the vast majority of people across the UK who rely on a car as their primary source of transport to healthcare,
employment and other essential day-to-day things.’ With more than 755,098 fines worth nearly £33.6m issued by London councils in a year for drivers straying into the zones, there are many motorists who would raise a cheer to see the back of them. Other countries, with deeper pockets, manage to keep everyone happy with overpasses, such as Copenhagen’s famous Bicycle Snake by Dissing+Weitling, providing space for cyclists without taking it away from motorists, but there are no signs of these coming to the UK.
Left, from top Dissing+Weitling
pioneered one of the design innovations that has helped Copenhagen’s status as one of the best cycling cities in the world. Faced with the same conflict between different road users that London is struggling with now, The City of Copenhagen went with the carrot rather than the stick approach and chose to create a brand new space for cyclists that would encourage people to switch to a bike because of its convenience. The Bicycle Snake or Cykelslangen, which lifted those on two wheels far above pedestrians, is now used by more than 12,000 cyclists a day and has been the inspiration for some of the practice’s other bicycle bridges around the world, including the 7km Xiamen Bicycle Skyway. This is China’s first suspended bicycle bridge, which takes bike trafic out of the crowded trafic below and into the ‘joyful experience’ of the world’s longest bicycle bridge which integrates pedestrian bridges, ramps, roundabouts, bicycle parking, bicycle service pavilions and points of interest
Right
It’s not surprising that a bike-loving nation like the Netherlands would take cycle parking to a whole new level. One of the world’s largest underground parking garages, with room for 8,000 bikes, was designed by Silo and Studio Marsman and aims to transform parking a bike into a museum-type experience with high-ceilings, bright lighting, spacious aisles and smart directional markings. Set under the Koningin Julianaplein in The Hague, right in front of the central station, the parking uses images of the facades of iconic local buildings to create a huge back-lit artwork of the city’s skyline. The project has won a string of design awards including Dezeen Awards Design Project of the Year 2021
MA WEIWEI
RASMUS HJORTSHØJ COAST STUDIO
RASMUS HJORTSHØJ COAST STUDIO
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