cycling


Politicians need to own their choices for our street space 2

The transport and streetscape proposals coming from Bristol’s councils and councillors reveal their priorities and choices. So why are they so reluctant to take ownership of them? Bristol is once again making the news for the poor quality of the cycling and walking infrastructure that it’s building and proposing. First […]


AWWTM: Democratising mobility

Shortly before parliament rose for the summer, an unusually large audience tuned in to the entertaining spectacle of Prime-Minister’s Question Time in a week when a scandal-rag had sunk in its own great scandal. I don’t suppose anybody noticed the interruption of David Ward, the hon. member for Bradford East. […]


Cotch: Flashride for Blackfriars

In 2000, London’s previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, began the process of fixing forty years of mistakes that had been made in the pursuit of the impossible — the comfortable accommodation of mass motor vehicle use in a dense city centre. He recognised that cities are supposed to be places for […]


AWWTM: Once more unto the bridge, dear friends, once more

After the Conservative group of the London Assembly walked out on the first attempt to discuss Jenny Jones’s Blackfriars Bridge motion, the members redeemed themselves somewhat by voting unanimously — all parties, all members — against making Blackfriars Bridge and the Blackfriars Station road junction even worse for cyclists and […]


AWWTM: Won’t somebody please think of the children?

In December 2005, an article of massive importance was published in the British Medical Journal. Doctors counted up the number of children being admitted to A&E with musculoskeletal injuries (breaks and sprains — many of which would have been caused by bicycle-related incidents) on summer weekends  and discovered a startling […]


AWWTM: Risk compensation and bicycle helmets

Some months ago I left a series on bicycle helmets hanging while I got distracted with other things. We had looked at what the best evidence for the efficacy of helmets in preventing injury in the event of a crash is, and some of the reasons why we should be […]


AWWTM: Can drivers be taught a lesson?

M’coblogger Ed thinks there is a case for teaching drivers to behave — specifically by appeals to patriotism. Education programmes are a popular idea amongst cyclists, cash-strapped councils, and road safety types. I dismissed them as a solution that doesn’t work in my own post on revenge and road danger, […]


AWWTM: This pretense of neutrality

On Saturday I wrote about the leaked draft of the Tories’ coalition’s draft new planning policy document: LAs are told to take into account existing local car ownership rates when doing this.  Fair enough, but why aren’t they also told to take into account the elasticity of modal share in […]


AWWTM: Government wakes from electric dream

So Philip Hammond’s policy — his one lonely policy* — of encouraging people to drive electric vehicles has been cut.  The government are still wasting money giving £5,000 subsidies to people who are already able to afford expensive new electric cars (though it will be interesting to see how much […]


AWWTM: How localism works: councils lose power to reject sprawl and congestion

A draft of the National Planning Policy Framework has been leaked.  This is the document that Eric Pickles’s department, Community and Local Government, has been preparing to replace some of the previous government’s policies, rules, and guidelines on development and planning.  It’s supposedly prompted by the Treasury’s belief that economic […]


AWWTM: Shaftesbury Cycle Revival

I went to school in a small Westcountry market town — Shaftesbury, in Dorset.  Built on a chalk hillside, Shaftesbury’s claim to fame is a steep cobbled street of simple picturesque cottages, a street you might recognise from one of the most memorable adverts in British history: Continue reading at […]