Achi news desk-
In his role as active travel minister the politician – without any helmet on his head – was celebrating that the £6.5m South City Way had now reached the city centre.
As the cost of living crisis and budget cuts hit home, there are those who resent such schemes, even if they come cheap compared to the rising costs of our highways and motorways.
How can we tell if they work? Well, one way is to look at what cyclists on the safe routes are wearing. Are they in high visibility vests, lycra and helmets? Or, like Harvie and the other bikers in a photo op, in their normal clothes?
Successful mass utility cycling – to use the jargon – looks more like the Green leader and less like Sir Chris Hoy bombing around a velodrome. At least, as far as clothes go.
Chris Boardman, the one-time Olympian who now advises the UK Government on active travel, likes to talk about cyclists dressing for their destination, not their journey. This is important. It tells us if people feel safe and comfortable on their bikes.
That’s why the streets of cities like Amsterdam, Ferrara, Copenhagen and increasingly Paris – where cycling has just overtaken driving – are full of people saddled in their work or school gear.
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Yet as The Herald reported earlier this month, surveys show that many Scots still do not want to cycle. And more than half cite security fears for their reluctance.
No one measures cycling fashion trends. But we know that something has changed over the pandemic: more journeys are being made by bicycle.
The latest gold standard figures, from Transport Statistics Scotland’s annual bulletin quietly published last month, show that cycle traffic in 2022-23 is 16% higher than in 2019-20. Or, to be precise, 422m vehicle kilometres. That’s much, much lower than the 34,375m vehicle/km clocked by cars, a 6% drop since Covid.
In fact, cycling as a mode of transport has gone against all trends. The number of passengers on ferries, planes, trains and buses is down.
However, there is an increase in bicycle traffic from a small base. And there was a small “correction” back in the last year covered by the new statistics, of 3%, as more people returned to work.
There is a long debate in transport circles about where all these extra cycle kilometers will come from. Are there more riders? Or do people who already pedal do a bit more? Are more casual bike users turning into regular commuters? Or is there a slowly but steadily moving conveyor belt with people cycling occasionally and then gradually progressing to, say, regular commuting?
What do authorities need to do to push these trends – with all the climate, health and economic benefits they bring? At the moment, the policy seems to be “build it and they will come”.
And it seems that new cycle paths are generating some of the new traffic.
A spokesperson for Cycling Scotland explained: “Where networks of high quality cycle routes are being built across Scotland, the actual data shows significant growth in the number of people choosing to cycle.
“Traffic surveys have revealed a huge growth in the number of people using the recently completed South City Way cycle path in Glasgow, where bicycles now account for 13% of all street traffic.”
This figure comes from a 48 hour study of all traffic on the route carried out for Cycling Scotland back in September last year. It indicated a clear pattern of commuting – with bikes going one way in the morning, towards the centre, and back in the evening.
The body carried out a management survey of a road that did not have a separate cycleway type, Cathedral Street close to the city centre. Less than 2% of journeys were by bicycle.
Glasgow City Council has counters on its new cycling infrastructure. Take the South City Way – it had more than half a million clicks last year in 2023, up 18% from 2022. The final stage of this route – Glasgow’s busiest – will be completed in the next few weeks.
Other “municipal roads” also experienced a large increase in traffic.
But this is not just happening in Glasgow, the Cycling Scotland spokesman continued.
“Automated cycle counters on Edinburgh’s Leith Walk are recording exceptionally high usage, reaching an all-time high of over 1,800 daily cycle journeys in March,” they said. “Over 100,000 cycle journeys have already been recorded this year.
“These are some of the clearest evidence yet that when Scotland builds good, high-quality cycling infrastructure that reflects everyday journeys, it gets more people cycling, benefiting people’s health and help reduce emissions. With cross-party support for cycling, the plans for infrastructure investment by many councils will enable cycling levels to increase in even more communities.”
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Advocates such as Harvie and Boardman – Britain’s active travel czar – believe that separate cycle lanes are the best way to make people feel safer in the saddle.
Harvie told The Herald: “If we look at the European cities that are doing this right, that have reprioritized road space to make active travel easier – places like Amsterdam, Copenhagen and more recently, Paris – we need continued investment and political will in all cases. level.
“With the biggest ever investment here in Scotland and some good examples of local authority leadership, I am pleased to see that we are making progress.
“We have some great examples of infrastructure that is massively increasing the number of people who choose to cycle locally.
“Building on this means building the infrastructure, creating sustainable local networks of protected infrastructure that people feel comfortable using every day.”
Transport expert Professor Iain Docherty, dean of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Stirling, stressed that there was still a lot of work to be done to provide a safe door-to-door cycling experience for more people.
He said: ‘We know that safe, segregated cycling infrastructure can make a big difference to people’s willingness to cycle, but this means we need to create whole networks off the street.
“Missing sections mean people don’t feel safe throughout their journey, so they won’t make the switch.”
Most politicians support investment in safe cycling. However, there is some disagreement.
Last month one of the SNP’s former cabinet ministers, Alex Neil, clashed with Mhairi Hunter, a former councilor who is close to Nicola Sturgeon. Neil, who is a vocal critic of Harvey and his Oasis, lamented money spent on active travel and called for it to go to housing instead.
“It’s about priorities,” the ex-Twitter told Hunter on X. “Using the money available to defeat poverty is much more important than building cycle lanes. If you did that, Glasgow would be a much more prosperous city.”
A 2023 survey for Sustrans found opposition to spending more on segregated cycle paths running at 25% in Scotland, with support at 59%.
Local and national officials stress that they are just road rebalancing – local authority roads and road infrastructure in Glasgow alone have a fixed asset value around 1000x higher than the new cycleways.
But it’s not just infrastructure that keeps cyclists safe – and encourages more people to pedal. So is better training for those on bikes – and behind wheels.
This was emphasized by the Tories’ transport spokesman. “It is encouraging to see more segregated cycle lanes as this will make people feel safer on bikes,” said Graham Simpson MSP
“But we also need to see investment in training for people who are not confident about getting on a bike.
“Cycling needs to be seen as a normal way of getting around rather than something for the elite.
“Unfortunately, this is another budget that has been cut by the SNP-Greens.”
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Accidents – such as the death of a 56-year-old man in Bearsden last month – affect public confidence. But as cycle traffic rises, accidents fall. There is good data on collisions involving pedal cycles in Scotland going back to the late 1970s. The number reached a peak of 1,930 in 1984, according to the STS. The lowest number ever recorded was 2022, 492.
Back last summer cycling alongside Harvie photo op was SNP councillor, Angus Millar. The local authority’s transport convener was in a blue shirt and chinos – but he was wearing a helmet. He does not believe there is a need to dress up cycling figures in his city.
“Where we have installed safer, segregated cycling infrastructure, we have seen significant growth in cycling with almost 30% increase in use of five main routes last year,” he told The Herald. “That equates to nearly 1.2 million cycle journeys along safer, separate routes and I’m confident we’ll see this number rise again in 2024 as we press ahead with work on new lanes around the city.”
