The first Hackney Cycling Conference took place on June 8th at the Stoke Newington Town Hall and marked another major milestone in the progress of cycling to the political and social forefront. Cycling campaigners, journalists, academics, engineers, professionals and councillors spoke at the event, carefully (and often humorously) laying out the latest understanding of issues affecting cycling.
Hackney is at the forefront of London’s cycling revolution and understanding where it came from and how it got to where it is now can help inform how Croydon Cyclists approach the same objectives. A strong message that came across from the conference was the importance of the relationship developed between the campaigning group and the council. Working together in partnership and avoiding conflict (good politics) enabled them to push through some changes in Hackney to improve the cyclist’s lot, meanwhile easing difficulties arising between cyclists and pedestrians at certain locations.
Hackney’s progress hasn’t come about overnight, however. It benefits from a significant number of cyclists on its roads and its council. This hasn’t come about quite by accident. Hackney is situated very close to the city centre and is poorly served by the London Underground. So most of the city centre can be reached easily by bike, but not particularly easily by other means. Thus the foundation for Hackney’s success is a naturally strong cycle community, and subsequently a higher probability that any given council member would also be a cyclist.
I think what Croydon Cyclists can take away from this is the importance of first developing a strong cyclist community here in Croydon, and also ensuring that community extends within the council. Having cyclists ‘on the inside’ is clearly important to building a working relationship between councillors and campaigners in which both sides understand each other. It’s important to have councillors who understand cycling and who truly “get it”, those who understand cycling as part of a greater vision of London as a more liveable city.
I will list here some of the other interesting ideas circulated at the conference, in hope they provide interesting food for thought.
Patrick Field of the London School of Cycling put forward a number of interesting ideas. He suggests unusual ways to inspire new cyclists, such as parents taking up cycling as a direct consequence of their children receiving bikeability training. That BSOs (Bicycle Shaped Objects), being cycles of such poor quality that they are not capable of being ridden, can have a very damaging affect on how people perceive cycling if these bikes form the basis of their initial experiences.
Patrick also put forward his opinion that the cycle hire scheme and the congestion charging zone have been the key infrastructural interventions assisting cycling’s growth in central London. His justification is quite elegant. Up to this point in London, it has been all too easy to consider citizens and motorists interchangeably, and in general consider normal citizens and cyclists as distinct. All citizens are motorists or aspire to be so. However, the congestion charging zone erodes this interchangeability by making it more difficult to be both citizen and motorist. On the other side, the cycle hire scheme erodes the difference between cyclist and citizen by making it much easier to be a casual cyclist.
As for the biggest driver in cycling’s growth in general? He puts it down to the internet. He suggests that in the modern day, ideas which are not highly profitable do not spread so well as those that are. Cars are big money, cycles are cheap. However, the internet allows ideas to spread amongst the population without strong financial incentives backing it. Where the internet is involved it can always stir the imagination, as a tech savvy generation comes to maturity in idea taking off with the growth of the internet is sure to only gain further traction as the years pass by.
Kathryn King of Kensington and Chelsea borough has been implementing various ideas for promoting cycling. The ideas are often unique and imaginative (ever tried Bike Polo?), and best explored on the associated website, BikeMinded, worth taking a look at.
Roger Geffen of the CTC gave an excellent talk on cycling infrastructure and reframed the segregation vs integration debate in a way that should bury the debate once and for all. Watch this space and I will try to get a link to some materials on his thinking around this.
Think that’s enough for now, more details on how Croydon can take some of these ideas forward coming soon.
When are councils going to start enforcing cycle lanes and advanced stop areas? There’s always cars in both of them. Also, when are they going to get rid of those stupid cycle lanes that try to force cyclists to cycle right up close to parked cars, an accident waiting to happen, someone opens their door without looking and you either hit the door of swerve into the path of a passing vehicle, total death traps. Why do we stand for all this?
Well, some of us don’t stand for it. If you’d like to join us drop us a line at info@croydon-lcc.org.uk At the moment we are cranking up the campaigning and trying to nurture a strong cyclists community here in Croydon. We need people to keep in touch and help out where they can. We can change this.
Hi Kristian. Glad to hear you say that you don’t stand for it but I can assue you that it is still happening all over London and clearly nothing is being done about it. I’m not too sure that the softly, softly British approach that LCC adopt is really working. With Boris in power, unfortunately you’ve got a very tough battle on your hands. I think you need to raise your game, get some serious protest rids taking place during peak times. If you start interfering with Boris’s beloved motorists, you’ll soon get his attention. I can spare two hours pretty much every Monday morning if you’re up for organising something?
Hi Gary,
I can assure you that we do have Boris’ attention and plenty is being done about it. What we need in order to turn the tide is more committed cycling activists who are willing to take the time to understand how the council works in their local boroughs and how to influence it. Simply delaying ordinary people will be damaging as it turns the sympathy of the public against us.
If you want to show your support for cycling through group rides, that’s fine and that’s useful. I recommend you attend July’s critical mass ride which falls on the same night as the Olympics opening ceremony. I hope the ride will proceed peacefully but if you are looking for fireworks then this may still be your best bet.
Hope that helps,
Kristian
Some fair points Kristian. I just feel that too many cyclist are losing their lives whilst Boris just stands by, cuts road safety budgets and speeds up car journeys. Too many families are getting torn apart under Boris Johnson and it’s time we did something about this.
I was thinking of going to the critical mass by the way but I don’t think they really have any agenda do they? I’m more in favour of protests that have a clear and precise message.
We need change and we need change now, not in five years time when another 100 cyclists have lost their lives. Not even that many people lost their lives in the 7/7 bombings yet Boris will have caused several times that many by the end of his term and he’ll still be free to walk the streets.
Something is being done. The London assembly’s transport committee has launched an enquiry into cycling in the capital. Let me put that into context of our conversation; We have their attention and they are asking us “What should we do about cycling in London?”.
Have you responded to this enquiry yet? Do you know what to say? Do you know what policies need to change, which roads and junctions need to be redesigned, which laws need to be amended?
Surely you can see then that responding to the enquiries questions with “We want more protest rides” is absurd? Here’s the crux: We need to look really hard at ourselves and our needs, so we know what we are asking for. We need to help them to help us.
Ok, I’m going to bow to your superiority here Kristian, although I don’t hold out too much hope on things changing. Take for example the issue of cars parking in cycle lanes, this is going to be a hard battle to win as this would inconvenience motorists and there are more motorists than cyclists. One of the many major flaws of democracy is that leaders know that they have to do what’s needed to get re-elected, doing the right thing comes way down the list. So people making the decisions will always want to keep the majority happy, in this case that’s the motorist.
That said, I really do hope that I’m wrong here and that you will have success in making a significant change.