Bath Cycling Summit 2011 - a personal account

This is an annual 'Mini-conference', organised by Cyclebath and Bath and North East Somerset Council to boost cycling and allow people to exchange ideas, and it's hitting its stride - which has good implications for the likes of 'The Globe Connector'.

The following's a personal account from hasty notes, apologies for any misquotes, misrepresentations, omissions etc - get in touch and I'll correct.

This year's event, for keynote speaker, recruited Ben Plowden from Transport for London. Ben's task within TfL is to bring together key projects that promote walking and cycling, road safety and smarter travel.

It being fine, and not wanting to limit things to abstract discussion, we met Ben off the trusty 8.56 train to Penzance. While waiting, enjoying a coffee in the cafe opposite, there was the opportunity to film the morning modal mixing on Bath Station's ramp.

The meetings and greetings happened at the station front, duly causing a bit of an obstruction, so we moved on and ran a quick tour of various attractions for cyclists in Bath - starting off with a trip along Dorchester Street, always guaranteed to provide a good introduction to the pleasures of the city's transport system.

A quick orbit of the busometer followed - to take us across the river. The dual carriageway that takes traffic towards the heart of Widcombe can safely be said to be something that would not be built at the present day. It's now likely to be remodelled to remove the through traffic from Widcombe High Street - something that will bring the remainder of this short section of urban motorway into doubt - and we discussed how more could be done, with a shared use route taking some space from the dual carriageway to form a shared-use route to the station.

Then, to Southgate - via a quick look at the rather abrupt end to the Bristol to Bath route at Churchill Bridge, where the onward route into the city is non existant.

At Southgate, a conversation beneath the 'No cycling' notices sketched in the development of the Southgate Centre and the curious case of the south-to-north cycle route that was marked on council planning maps but which had not materialised on the ground.

The far end of Southgate, the group admired the 'Cycle route' signs through New Orchard Street that had been retrofitted to the Southgate Development after an eighteen month campaign - contrasted with the 'No cycling' signs in the rather wider Southgate that had sprung up rather more quickly, and between Christmas and New Year too.

After this it was high time to cross to Queens Square, the BRLSI and a photocall with Bath's MP Don Foster, courtesy of the Bath Chronicle's photographer Lloyd, who like Sam before him is good at getting the best out of a situation and in the case of the Two Tunnels group, educating various of us into being more media-savvy than we might otherwise be - which is above and beyond the call of duty.

The Summit

On to the conference itself, where the leader of B&NES, Paul Crossley and around sixty others listened to Ben's rich keynote. Ben stressed the value and importance of leadership that was prepared to put the emphasis on cycling and turn the culture of organisations towards cycling provision 'Like sunflowers facing the rising sun'. He asked the valid question

'Why would the people of Bath want the city to be known for cycling excellence.'

One answer being that people on foot and cycle, going down a street, are the highest spenders - they do the most to support a street-scale economy.

He quoted Tescos as an organisation that flourished because it was good at asking:

'What do our customers want'

and then acting on the answer.

London had acted on the premise:

"Knowing what we do about groups that do cycle, how can we increase the 'market share' of cycling among members of those groups"?

Ben Plowden then aired the 'Plowden formula 3p/d - People Place and Purpose/Demand - as the factors which have a play in transport and the strengths of an approach as follows:

• Recruit people somewhat like your existing clientele who cycle
• Ask where the places are to and from which they'll cycle?

After which, don't propose trying to switch the things you can't do on a bike to cycles - concentrate on the things that fit the mode. Since, 'Distance' plays a large part in people's willingness to use non-car means of transport, cycling is in a good position here, because it has a far greater reach than walking and people will find that it's competitive with the car for a lot of the short journeys. Cycling is particularly relevant to Bath because of the distance factor.

Then, we know who might be likely to cycle:

• Urban living people
• Young couples and families
• People with a suburban lifestyle
• High earning professionals

This tells us where is the cycling potential. (And as a separate issue Ian Walker of the University of Bath has researched when individuals are prepared to change their travel habits - it emerges that the chances of this are far greater when they experience other significant changes in their lives, such as a change of career or address)

As well as this, a group who would benefit from using cycles (which are cheap effective transport that boosts confidence) is people who aren't well off at all. The first task there might be to change attitudes to cycling - if it's viewed as something that's only done by well off people in shiny skin tight clothing, that doesn't help. Neither does it help if adult cyclists are suspected of cycling not through choice but perhaps as car drivers who have lost their licence to a drink driving conviction - a not unheard-of question to an adult who turns up at a rural pub on a bike.

London has seen a huge increase in cycling and there is now a critical mass - everyone expects the presence of cycles on the road - and this has safety benefits as well as promoting further growth along the lines of:

"This is what quite a lot of people like me do"
thinks the potential cyclist.

Bath could now be at the tipping point where it sees similar levels of growth - from 1-2% to 10% or more - and the sums of money involved to give cycling a big push are not huge.

The barriers to cycling are there, perceived safety can be a barrier, so let's introduce the Amygdala. Some cycling safety reactions can be laid at its door. This is a part of the brain that's been around for about a billion years and down the ages has helped us to avoid getting mangled by invoking a primitive response to danger. It's a bit simple minded though, and would never in a million years spot the dangers inherent in sitting around playing computer games for years ...

The barriers can be broken down:

Build infrastructure

Routes and cycle parking

Support people when they choose cycling

with training

Promote cycling

with marketing and information

This needs a joined up package of measures for each stage of a journey

Home

Market cycling effectively so that people know it is an option for them.

En route

A clear consistent branded route helps, with active route management and policing, cycle friendly markings and layout.

Destination

Cycle parking and anything else that can 'Pull' people into making trips by cycle.

Cycle nodes

These are places where people and bikes come together - perhaps as simple as a cycle park. It's difficult to catch in predictions and planning, but cycle nodes' change the economy in the locality for the better, changing and increasing footfall in nearby businesses. There's also a particular phenomenon - combined cycle cafes that involve bike repair, food and coffee. Cycling creates niches in the economy in a way that other travel might not.

There are all sorts of challenges - not least in competing demands for road space, safety perceptions, and building a business case for cycling - but there's a big gain to be made from promoting cycling effectively.

Questions to the keynote speaker included the following:

The potential for cycling mode improvements for public transport operators
Was the scale of cycle hire in London versus that in Bath an issue from the point of view of extrapolating the likely success in Bath compared with other places?
A question on how London's Barclay bikes were maintained with an observation on the dearth of good cycle mechanics in Bristol. The answer on the Boris bikes being that the fleet is contracted to be proactively kept in good repair, with faulty machines removed quickly from the pool for repair.
On the question of safety - the amygdula's rubbish at assessing actual risk - so reassurance works really badly - a two pronged approach is better - make real improvements - make training available - the latter really helps build confidence and move an individual to realise that 'I can do this'.
On the matter of how to change the culture of planning and senior officers, the response is 'Leadership' - a long term process which has worked with Transport for London. Ben Plowden is two down from the top of Transport for London and 'Has the ear' of the organisation. The default settings have been changed and Transport for London is 'Wired for cycling'.

Other Speakers

Don Foster, chairing, greeted the police who were in attendance and were to be seen on bikes in Bath, and the leader of the council, Paul Crossley, and introduced the next speaker, Malcolm Dodds from CycleBath, who emphasised the contrast between:

Policy

Lovely noises

Perception

Delays

Malcolm then explored issues around cycle parking - and adult training - with a side swipe at this year's retrograde step, being Victoria Bridge.

Adrian Clarke spoke for the council and stressed how much was in progress, quoting the 5 Arches project, Two Tunnels. He explored progress with the cycle route that's shown the greatest growth, being Pulteney Bridge - which provoked several people to ask what the council's view was on what happened to cyclists at either end of it.

This led to Don questioning the need for slow and expensive traffic orders every time the council needed to make a small tweak to its own road system - there's a lot to be said for doing away with these entirely and he'd had a meeting with the transport minister on the subject.

Wrapping up

The second component of the summit split the room into four groups - subjects up for discussion were progress with the Two Tunnels route and becoming a cycle friendly employer.

The morning concluded with a general discussion. Encouragingly, agreement was reached on a couple of action points. The council was pressed to reinstate the quarterly cycling forum between cycling interests and B&NES as it had been well attended and was making progress. Assistance with policy and culture change was offered by Transport for London.

Food provided from the sponsorship of the event from John's Bikes concluded the Bath Cycling Summit.

And the relevance to 'The Globe Connector' is ...

The cycling summit concerned itself directly with ways to boost cycling in Bath. The Globe Connector will support that aim as it's infrastructure - one of the key elements - high quality branded infrastructure that helps get people from where they live to where they need to be.

There's encouraging signs that infrastructure is now under consideration not in a piecemeal way but counting its contribution to a local network. In short, the 'Globe connector' is happening at the right time and given support will ride the crest of a wave of cycling improvements in and around Bath, joining others such as the 'Two Tunnels' route and the Mangotsfield to Yate path that has recently passed planning permission. Once again, watch this space - and send us messages of support.

Measuring the need for Bath and Bristol's 'Globe Connector'.

We need to be able to show organisations and individuals that there's a demand for this. Part of the bedrock of Bath's Two Tunnels campaign is the 650+ signatures collected in a single weekend in March 2006 - the campaign group still uses this evidence of support to counter arguments that 'No one wants the route'.

We hope that a couple of behind-the-scenes things will fall into place for this link path. When they do, we'll launch an online petition so we can show the public support for 'The Globe Connector'. Watch this space.

Update: we know there's a need and will hopefully not need to demonstrate it as there's now more consideration of building links in a network, so we might put the petition on hold unless it emerges that we do need a lever for this.

Budgetary stuff: when appropriate transport gets left out

Victoria Bridge Road. That was a walking and cycling route.

OK, it's not the best time to launch this campaign, but launched it needs to be - into the teeth of a budget for the UK that for transport is several missed opportunities in one - as noted by Sustrans for starters.

Now, one penny off fuel duty is neither here nor there as far as a tank of fuel is concerned, it's down in the noise, though it makes for a good headline.

That one penny, if collected and spent on provision for cycling and walking, would produce a nationwide transformation in the ease with which many people could get about using their two feet - especially when combined with one of the best inventions in any civilisation anywhere, ever. Something that would help everyone who uses the roads.

It would even pay for repairs to Bath's Victoria Bridge, one of the few crossing points of the river for people on foot or cycle, and a walking route to schools, but out of use since August 2010.

And of course it would help raise the money for schemes like our grandly named 'Globe Connector'.

It's these small links that make all the difference.

New name, New blog / website

If you've landed here from the BSU bicycle user group web site, welcome to the new home for the campaign to promote a connecting route between 'The Globe' roundabout and the Bristol to Bath railway path. Also, a big thank you if you've supported this idea in the past.

This route has been an aspiration for years among people who walk or cycle to the University campus at Newton Park, but it's useful for many others too - and we're delighted to pick this idea up, campaigning for it so that it actually happens.