From the UK:
We know you, as the Secretary of State, have to make difficult decisions because of the scale of government cutbacks. Transport will be particularly heavily affected.
We are extremely concerned at the rumours emerging that Cycling England and its programmes could be facing the chop. Most worrying would be the loss of the very successful Bikeability child cycle training scheme. We urge you to think twice and look at the facts before considering scrapping these.
As you know, Cycling England is the small but highly effective part of the Department for Transport which deals with getting "more people cycling, more safely, more often". It has achieved an enormous amount with a tiny budget, and is well-aligned to your government's localism agenda.
Cycling: achieving more gains with little money
The Department for Transport's own model (WebTAG) for economic appraisal of cycling schemes give a very high rate of return in transport terms: a benefit:cost ratio of 3:1. Work by Sustrans also gives even higher benefit ratios, up to 33:1 in some cases.
In other words, you can achieve a lot more by putting small amounts of money into cycling, than spending much larger amounts on anything else. Yet current funding of around £60m/year is well under what places like the Netherlands spend. So there is actually much more that could be done.
Comments
UK Bikeability is safe
"Bikeability is safe "says Norman baker Transport Minister as reported in
bikeBiz
Norman Baker told a meeting this morning that Bikeability is safe but he
wouldn't say same for Cycling England
Transport minister Norman Baker has pledged that Bikeability, the cycle
training scheme delivered by Cycling England, CTC and other bodies, would
not be thrown in the flames in the forthcoming 'bonfire of the quangos'.
He made the pledge before an audience of bike trade figures and train
executives at the official opening of CyclePoint in Leeds. This is a bike
parking unit at the front of Leeds station. It has space for 300 bikes,
stored for £1 a day.
The Leeds CyclePoint is operated by Evans Cycles via £500,000 funding from
the Department of Transport working with Network Rail and Abellio of the
Netherlands, co-owner of Northern Rail.
The official opening was carried out by Baker; Anton Volk, CEO of Abellio;
and
Pim Waldeck, the Dutch ambassador in the UK.
[end]
phew!
Cycling England axed
Unfortunately, Cycling England has been axed.