@mancitycouncil to roll out 20mph speed limit in most residential areas - eventually

Manchester City Council has announced that it intends to set a 20mph speed limit on all non-major residential streets in the city. To begin with it has set up three pilot areas: Miles Platting, Gorton and Hulme. This will be rolled out across the city once Eric Pickles ceases hostilities and reaches his target weight.
The city council state that:

"...we see this as an important move towards a more pleasant and safer environment for residents.  Road safety will improve as a result of reduced traffic speeds, as well as creating a safer and healthier environment for pedestrians and cyclists."

As part of the program, the council is offering community groups grants of £200 for activities which promote the benefits of quieter streets. You can read more about the pilot schemes and will shortly be able to see maps of them here. 

Coming to a road near you?

On the face of it this move represents a huge step forward for cycling in the city and a massive success for the 20s Plenty campaign which has beating this particular drum for a number of years.

To my mind, anything which encourages people to ride or walk and knocks over one of the key barriers to riding simply has to be a good thing. So its chapeau to the city council on this one.

Incidents and accidents

It's been correctly pointed out to me that somebody getting  knocked off their bike and killed by somebody who has possibly been driving dangerously is not best described as an accident. So the previous post from today would have been more accurate if it had referred to an incident or a collision rather than an accident.
I've not edited the original so you can make your own mind up.
Ride safe

The sad flip side of cycling's popularity

Those following cycling safety campaigns and the various ding dongs between riders and various public bodies in London will know that safe cycling is a crucial element of improving rider numbers in the UK.
There is a perception that riding is very dangerous.
Riding around Manchester in the last year, I've witnessed a couple of accidents  involving cars and been involved in one which was fortunately relatively minor.
Fatal accidents seem to be few and far between which is why when it happens on your own doorstep, it is more shocking.
Sadly a 44 woman was killed on her bike on Saturday afternoon. Apparently she was hit by a car somewhere around the junction of Princess Parkway and the Mancunian Way - yes on that massive roundabout. I used to ride this route on my way to work before deciding it was just a matter of time before something bad happened there.

One of the issues with this junction is that the bike lanes lead you to it and then just stop leaving you hanging out to dry.
It's badly planned and may well of contributed to this woman's death. It's desperately sad already but if it was partly somebody trying to follow the lanes, then it' becomes rather unbearable.
We can only hope that there will be fewer accidents and keep pressing for better facilities for those on two wheels.
Nobody ever wants to see white bikes chained to railings.
Ride safe

Will @johnleechmcr help make the streets #cyclesafe ?

The latest stage of the Times' campaign to make the streets safer for cyclists is beginning to unfold.

Those people following the campaign will have received notification to lobby their MP to ask them if they're attending a landmark debate on the Get Britain Cycling report.

So, John Leech MP for Withington, will you be there? 

The debate takes place on September 2 and if you want to badger your MP, you can do so here.

@gmpolice go nuclear on bike riders

I dont often have a go at the fuzz: difficult jobs and all that. True, they don't always endear themselves to the Great British Public but then, that's not really what they're for is it.
But I have to record my disgust, yes DISGUST dear reader, with their actions in fining 400 riders in ten days in Manchester for 'dangerous' riding.
According to the article in the South Manchester Reporter, dangerous activities included: jumping red lights, riding on the pavement, using a mobile when riding and dangerously weaving in and out of traffic.
My considered view on this list of offences is: what a load of shite. 
Under the guise of making cyclists aware of danger, 400 riders got £80 on the spot fines or could opt to have them waived in return for attending a cycling course at a fire station of all places.
The pcso (whatever that is) quoted in the article said - apparently without trying to sound patronising - "Many cyclists we spoke to were not aware of the danger they put themselves in...". Really, I bet they did.
I reckon the conversation went something like this: 

Plod: Evenin' all: are you aware that riding like that is dangerous?
Rider: No, because it isn't.
Plod: Ah, another one of the 'many'

Put brakes on: gettit?

Dont get me wrong, cycling can be dangerous, very dangerous but I'm not sure I know a single cyclist who is not acutely aware of their vulnerability on our roads and what we all need is protection from the law not having it whacked over our heads under the banner of safety.
To me this is a clear symptom of more riders and no improvements in infrastructure.
They even had one of those annoying names for the operation.  This one was called Grimaldi when it should have been called Operation Coppi. Poor show all round. 

Just what is the Cheadle Package?

In follow up to the recent post about extra cycling facilities in Manchester, I have now got some information on the mysteriously named 'Cheadle Package'.
According to local Lib Dems, the package will '... greatly improve the links from Gatley, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme and Heald Green towards Manchester.' 
Billed as a 'Million pound boost to cycling in the Cheadle area', the Cheadle Package actually consists of just over half a million quids work of bike lanes.
The deets are as follows:

• New off-carriageway route along Kingsway from the Gatley lights to the Manchester border.
• New on-carriageway route along Manchester Road from Cheadle towards Parrs Wood
• New safe cycling route (mostly on-road but small section of off road) from Broadway along High Grove Road, Milton Crescent, Wensley Road and Marchbank Drive to join up with Kingsway (and so give a safe route for cyclists wanting to avoid the Kingsway/Gatley Road junction).
• New safe cycling route from Wilmslow Road, Cheadle along Warren Avenue, The Crescent, Hall Street, Brook Road and Mill Lane to join up with Manchester Road.
• New section connecting Grange Avenue, Cheadle Hulme to existing signed route along Queen’s Road.

So, there you have it - the Cheadle Package mystery resolved - thanks to Jon Grieve.

Cheadle, yesterday

@andycronshaw weighs in to cycle safety debate

Wiggo's and Shane Sutton's crashes continue to make headlines and generate many column inches in our newspapers investigation just what should, or could, be done to make riding safer in the UK.
The piece below appeared in the Manchester Evening News a couple of days ago as they continue to weigh in to the debate.

I agree with everything Andy Cronshaw says in the article but would add that being assertive on your bike is one of the best ways of keeping safe.
I've always taken the view that if some loon is beeping their car horn at you, then that's a good thing as it means they've seen that you're in their way.  Or to put it another way, I'd rather somebody shout some obscenity at me rather than knock me off because they 'didn't see me'.
At times it's a really fine line though and you can easily put yourself in more danger but assertiveness is generally good while recklessness is, well, reckless. 

Thanks to @cyclinstructor for the head's up.

@cyclehatred. For women?

Cycling safety has been on the news and political agenda for most of the year mainly thanks to The Times' cities fit for cycling campaign.  While there is still something a little bit odd about The Times taking on this campaign with such gusto - it's like a badly fitting jumper - it is undoubtedly welcome and long may they continue with it.
I have to confess, I don't see The Times every day so I don't know if the campaign appears in print everyday or not.  Things always feel more real wen they're printed on paper don't they?
In the aftermath of Wiggo and Shane Sutton getting knocked off, the focus on cycling safety has intensified. 
The whole churn of media coverage which ensued has highlighted the intensity of feeling from all sides when it comes to cycling with the righteous two-wheelers pleading for better investment on one side and a foul group of unthinking spite-mongers vomiting their embittered rants via social media on the other.
For everybody's entertainment, the @cyclehatred twitter feed captures all this hate and redistributes it to the world.

Reading through the bile, it is clear that some are spoofs, some are from frustrated rational people who 'don't really think  that' but others, you can just tell the ones, really mean some of it.
What is really surprising about it to me, is the amount of women who tweet such horrendous stuff about other people just because of their chosen method of transport.
It's not that I don't believe women are capable of hate - they are often the worst - but it is just so much more unpleasant and unexpected to hear some lass with a cutesy twitter name demanding the death of cyclists like its the most normal thing ever.
No doubt some of these people will have 'runs on fairy dust' stickers in the back windows of their cars which, while I despise, I don't believe they should be killed for possessing.

Rain induced road rage

I'm not going to bang on about the rain again today, well, not directly anyway.  But I am going to bang on about the effect the rain has on road users. For us bicycleists, the effects are well documented and experienced: you get wet, your brakes stop working, you cant see, white lines and tar banding become lethal etc.  As I've argued before, the rain, or rather standing water, can help too by showing up diesel spills and revealing the shitty patchwork state of the roads we walk, ride and drive on.
But I want to explore what happens to the average Carist when the heavens open because it seems to me that people's ability to operate an internal combustion  engine fixed to a chassis and transmission rig, diminishes massively in the wet.
Its obvious to anybody who drives a car that the way you drive in the wet is different to the way you drive in the dry - same as if you ride a bike or motorbike or scooter, drive a JCB, a bus, horse & trap or whatever.  While there is a range of ability to adapt to different road conditions, there is also a palpable change in the attitude of some Carists when it rains and its this that troubles me.

The simple explanation for this is that car drivers are just a bunch of [expletive deleted]s and they are more concerned with trying to get the lights, answer their mobiles or disagreeing with John Humphries' questioning on the Today programme to care about other road users like cyclists.  
The problem with simple explanations is that they are usually wrong.
So what does happen on the roads when it rains? First of all, you probably get more people using them which means there less space for the next enclosed bubble of glacier-melting inhumanity.  I have no figures to back this up, but there's bound to be a cohort of people who will  choose their car as they cant face walking to a bus stop or riding a bike cos of the rain.
Secondly, I think more difficult conditions magnify the abilities and, crucially, inabilities of drivers.  In effect the spectrum of ability becomes wider resulting in the fatal mixture of indecision and nervousness placed cheek and jowl with over-confidence and bravado. 
At the heart of why this matters lies the essence of why the motor car is an inappropriate method of transport in modern cities: impatience. 
While I'm fascinated by technology generally, including cars, I find the hubris of Carists unbearably disgusting and anti-human.  Your car might be able to reach 130mph and go from 0-60 in ten seconds but not on Northumberland Avenue in Old Trafford you cant, and especially not when there's a queue of eight other cars 150 metres ahead of you.
But this does not deter the impatient Carist, as the world caves in around them because a bus has pulled out, the lights have changed or woe betide, somebody wants to use a zebra crossing, impatience grows to dangerous levels.
You can tell I had a run in with a Carist this morning, can't you!
Ride safe

Cycling makes it onto the agenda at Manchester's Labour Party conference

Tis that time of year again when Our Glorious Leaders and opposition parties move their freakshows en masse to some convention centre or other for a week of polished speeches and reasoned debate on the fringes.  Yes, it's party conference season again.
Manchester has done pretty well out of these things in the past few years - the Tories even came here last year which is odd given they have zero councillors and zero MPs.
Usually, the only real effect a party conference at G-Mex, sorry, Manchester Central, has on cycling is that Lower Mosley Street and Windmill Street are shut meaning you have a detour if you usually use that route.

New street furniture offers freestyle opportunities

But, yesterday, Maria Eagle, shadow transport secretary and MP for the good and bad constituency of Garston and Halewood [actually that should be bad and good], actually put cycling and, specifically, cycling safety into her conference speech.
For me this can only a good thing: while cycling was not exactly at the heart of an emerging transport plan, the fact that the cycling lobby has made enough noise to get onto the agenda demonstrates the direction of travel cycling and cycling issues has made in political terms.
The Tories are at it next week in Brum and I for one will be looking at what Patrick McLoughlin might say about cycling and cycling safety.

Long way from home...

Once again the success of Britain's cyclists at the London Olympics is leading to commentary relating to how we can make the UK's roads safer for cyclists.

This is all connected to the thrust to increase participation in cycling.
The discourse goes something like: if more people cycle they will be healthier, it will cost the NHS less money in the long run and traffic congestion will be reduced.  But to achieve this, people need to feel safer on the roads.  There needs to be better infrastructure, better road surfacing and a more 'European' attitude toward cyclists and cycling.
Out on the club run on Sunday I was reminded of the attention which a group of people riding can garner.
On two occasions, random people shouted stuff at us as we rode along.  It's not that what they said was particularly offensive or upsetting in any way, but it demonstrates that for some people, even as cycling is riding the crest of a wave, it will always be an incomprehensible pursuit undertaken by an alien people.
Cycling has revelled in its status as Other and it's often marketed to us as such.  While the Olympians are doing wonders for the sport, we need to champion the everyday cyclist too if the unimpressed are to be educated.
Ride safe.