Erstellt am: 29. 2. 2012 - 10:54 Uhr

Cycling in Britain Goes Mainstream

A major British paper puts its weight behind cycling. What relevance might this have for Austria?

A lot of people are beginning to really come out and say that it is really not good enough that so many people are being hurt,” says Kaya Burgess, a journalist at The Times of London, “Cycling isn’t an extreme sport, but it`s getting to be like that.”

According to The Times, more than 27,000 cyclists have been killed or seriously injured on British streets in the past 10 years, including Burgess’ 27-year old colleague and “good friend” Mary Bowers, who was knocked off her bike by a lorry 4 months ago, and who remains unconscious in hospital. That tragedy was the emotional trigger that led the paper to launch an unprecedented cycling safety campaign this month. The project ultimately brought 77 British parliamentarians to debate the issue in a special 4 hour session in the House of Commons. Liberal MP Julian Huppert urged his colleagues to take advantage of this “golden opportunity” to transform cycling in Britain.

the times

The paper has launched an 8-point manifesto laying out how Britain`s notoriously dangerous roads could be made more cycle-friendly. These include a speed reduction on inner-city roads without cycle paths, different phasing for traffic lights to give cyclists a head start, better junction design and trucks being fitted with sensors to make sure they don’t oversee cyclists. 30,000 people have now expressed support for the main points of the Times campaign, including, significantly, David Cameron. The British Prime Minister told parliament that “we do need to do more to try and make cycling safer… we need to get behind campaigns like this.”

So the Times campaign has been credited with turning a niche-interest into a main stream political issue, which is a remarkable turnaround considering that its sister paper, the Sunday Times, explained away the rise in cyclist deaths as recently as 2009 by blaming "zombie cyclists" listening to their Mp3 players. At the time cycling advocates found the comments simplistic, misleading and insulting. But all is forgiven now. The Times has a reputation as a moderate publication which prides itself as 'paper of record' and its vocal support for cycling marks a great boost for the scene. If this marks a shift in the way the public, media and the political elite perceive cyclists, it could herald significant improvements in a country which still lags well behind the European standard in cycling safety.

the times

photo courtesy of The Times

Times journalist Burgess says he has been “positively surprised” by the enthusiasm for the cycle campaign, launched at a time of year that is meteorologically unfavorable for mass cycling enthusiasm. But he modestly shrugs off the idea that The Times is at the forefront of a cycling revolution. He says that there was already a “groundswell of protest” against current conditions and that the paper`s campaign has “hopefully amplified that and brought it to the centre of the agenda.”

A key point is road design. The Times wants people to agree that when a road junction is designed the needs of cyclists are as much at the heart of the design as the needs of the drivers. Interestingly, Burgess suggests many car drivers support the manifesto. He hopes that the long years of suspicion, recriminations and conflict between two-wheelers and four-wheelers might be coming to a welcome end. “If everyone stopped getting angry with each other for a minute they might realize that more road safety would be beneficial to everyone.”

Some cycling groups have criticized The Times’s campaign for focusing too much on the danger involved in cycling, as have rival papers “You could be forgiven for getting the impression that cycling is a practically suicidal activity,” wrote James Randerson in the Guardian, “There is much discussion about the dangers and anecdotes about collisions but not enough about the joy of getting around on two wheels.” Burgess counters that he and his colleagues started the campaign strongly because “a close friend and colleague had been badly hurt” but in their reporting they pointed out that statistically you were more in danger of injury if walking as a pedestrian or driving in a car: “It isn’t inherently a dangerous activity, but if it is to be considered a mainstream way of getting around it does have to be safer, easier and more pleasant.” To be fair, in a rare example of a media cease-fire, the Guardian urged its readers to sign up The Times’ campaign.

bernadette sexton

Burgess says his paper is committed to its campaign on a long term basis. James Harding, a keen cyclist, says he is emotionally engaged with the project” and wants to hold politicians to account for the vague assurances and good-willed sound-bites that they have delivered in recent days. Change is certainly necessary. Two years ago I cycled the gauntlet of London’s Super Cycle Highways – blue strips of spray paint, that seem to owe their name to a bombastic hyperbole common to satellite TV football coverage than any sense of actually been ‘super’. They were narrow, illogical and slippery in the rain. David Cameron wasn’t exaggerating when he told parliament last week that “anyone who has got on a bicycle — particularly in one of our busier cities — knows you are taking your life into your hands every time you do so.”

The waves of the campaign are being felt this side of the English Channel. The Italian paper La Gazzetta dello Sport, with its iconic pink pages and readership of 3 million, has announced that it is replicating the campaign "because it seems perfectly in line with the spirit and tradition of our newspaper and because, four months ago, our colleague, Pier Luigi Todisco, died in Milan while coming to the office by bicycle."

The developments are mean keenly followed here in Austria too. Alec Hager of the cycling lobby group IG Fahrrad says broad parts of The Times' manifesto, particularly reductions in the inner city speed limits, mirror the demands his group has been making for years. But, if reported at all in Austria, those demands have been consigned to the more obscure inside pages. As Hager puts it "When such a mainstream respected paper takes up our issue it opens it up to a whole new audience." Seeing the issues, which have often been side-lined, discussed in a national parliament and a European leader like Cameron paying lip-service to the cause has raised Hager`s expectations. He says would be great if an Austrian paper followed The Times example and presented a similar manifesto to the public. Which publication could he envisage playing such a role? "I can imagine Die Presse saying if the The Times can do it, so can we." There`s a direct challenge.

Doug Culnane, a British born long term resident of Vienna has become an increasingly passionate cycling advocate ever since he realised his young son found cycling in the city terrifying. Culnane hopes that the Times campaign "can also raise the understanding and profile of the cyclist issues in this country." He particularly welcomes the focus on future road design, "Car-oriented road design has made roads more hostile for pedestrians and cyclists. There are many lessons to learn from the Netherlands and other places that have engineered cycling into a normal practical mobility option rather than an extreme sport.”

chris

a recent social media phenomenon

The government says it wants to see the proportion of journeys made by bike to increase from 5% to 15% in the coming years but Culnane fears this won't be possible until road design is changed. "My dream is that my 11 year old son would feel safe enough to be able to cycle to school on his own, as children as young as 8 are able to do in Holland."

Burgess, too, looks to the Netherlands for inspiration in good cycling policy. Better junctions are ideal he says, but in Europe`s older cities, such as Vienna, often there isn’t room for wide extra cycle paths and new street furniture, and yet Dutch cities Amsterdam and Groningen, as well as Copenhagen in Denmark, have come up with simple but effective ways around the problem, such as giving them a three second head start at the lights to make them more visible to drivers.

“It`s about giving cyclists space where there is space and, where there isn’t, making sure the road can be shared making life easier for everyone."