Budget? What Budget !

The Cities Fit for Cycling campaign, recently launched by the Times newspaper, has helped focus political attention on the need to improve the environment for cycling in the UK.  The campaign lists 8 'manifesto' demands and one of these highlights the need for UK cities to show clear political support and leadership on cycling issues, namely:

"Every city, even those without an elected mayor, should appoint a cycling commissioner to push home reforms." ('Manifesto pt.8).

Since 1st April 2011, the newly established Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has had the strategic responsibility for developing and implementing policies to support, encourage and increase the levels of walking and cycling (active travel) across Greater Manchester.

The policy document that sets out the transport vision for Greater Manchester is known as Local Transport Plan (LTP3), which unsurprisingly follows on from LTP1 and LTP2 and runs from 2011 to 2016. The LTP3 document contains some positive policy statements about the importance of increasing the levels of cycling and walking to help:

Improve access to work:"There are further opportunities for increasing cycling to work, particularly by improving the environment for cyclists along key routes to major employment destinations, such as The Corridor, Manchester City Centre and the other major town centres, by re-routing general traffic, reallocating road space to buses and cyclists and investing in cycle infrastructure and parking." (Page 30).

Improve health:  "For shorter journeys, or for access to the public transport network, we recognise the huge potential of walking and cycling in providing a low cost, healthy travel option." (Page 48).

"Like walking, cycling has great potential to improve public health. The overall aim will be to enable people to cycle safely throughout the on and off-road network. However, we recognise the need to focus our investment where it is likely to achieve the greatest impact, informed by our analysis of local travel markets. Our policies will help to create a pro-cycling culture by providing safer cycle routes; more parking and training; and traffic management that reduces speeds and gives greater priority to cyclists. In particular, we see great value in prioritising cycle access to Manchester City Centre, town centres and public transport interchanges, supported by improved cycle parking at these locations." (Page 52, Priority: A network of safe cycle routes in support of greatly increased levels of cycling across Greater Manchester).


Reduce CO2 emissions: "In promoting “smarter choices”, this Plan recognises the need to encourage a shift from singleoccupancy car use to walking, cycling, public transport and car sharing. Our proposals set out ways to improve the pedestrian environment, remove barriers to cycling, improve cycling infrastructure, enhance the coverage and quality of public transport, and manage the highway network. This will help to encourage more car users to change the way they travel, and also make it easier for people who do not have access to a car to travel to key facilities." (Page 50, Priority: Delivery of lower carbon travel options).


Which all sounds great, but lets get back to that issue of leadership.  Despite having strategic responsibility for active travel (walking and cycling), the Terms of Reference for the TfGM Committee (a committee of 33 councillors from all 10 GM local authorities that is responsible for the oversight and scrutiny of TfGM policy, operations and expenditure) does not include any specific reference to active travel (walking and cycling). 

On 31st March 2011, Manchester Friends of the Earth wrote to the TfGM committee raising concerns about how this could make clear oversight and leadership more difficult. The letter argued that:

"for Greater Manchester to meet the active travel and sustainable transport policy objectives outlined in the Local Transport Plan (LTP3), the TfGMC Terms of Reference should clearly define the leadership, oversight and scrutiny mechanisms in relation to active travel policy development and service delivery of measures aimed at increasing walking and cycling levels in Greater Manchester."

The response stated:

..."the recently GMCA approved Third Local Transport Plan (LTP 3), which sets the overall transport strategy for Greater Manchester, has a whole Chapter outlining the agreed approach to Active Travel.  This is explicit in stating that ‘Active Travel will have a central role in the LTP strategy;’ thus given all TfGMC’s functions need to be exercised in accordance with the agreed policies and budgets of the GMCA and its Local Transport Plan, there will plainly be a role for TfGMC in this regard, alongside that of the highway authorities.  

This role however is one primarily of oversight, co-ordination and monitoring TfGM in its activities in implementing LTP objectives, rather than TfGMC becoming involved in the detail of any particular Active Travel scheme, and TfGMC members have been advised accordingly.  Specifically, it is set out in the Operating Agreement and the Constitution whereby TfGMC is to ensure that TfGM implements those actions delegated to it for promoting the economic, social and environmental well-being of Greater Manchester and its residents pursuant to Section 99 of the Local Transport Act 2008.  This role will extend beyond just the LTP, for example to overseeing TfGM in the LSTF bid and implementation process." 

Which basically means that as Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) officers are responsible for delivery of the Active Travel objectives, as outlined in LTP3, the TfGM Committee will be able to provide sufficient oversight by monitoring the reports from Officers on the progress of LTP3.

Manchester Friends of the Earth disagreed and recommended that:

"the Terms of Reference identify a TfGMC Committee Chair, or other appropriate board member, with specific responsibility for reporting on active travel (cycling and walking) policy development and progress of any subsequent active travel service delivery measures. "

Showing leadership means, amongst other things, taking responsibility and being open & transparent about who has that responsibility and what they have (or haven't) done.  Currently, it is not at all clear that the TfGM Committee is demonstrating clear leadership on Active Travel (cycling and walking) issues.

For example, at the recent TfGM Committee meeting, the £237 million TfGM budget was discussed (*). However, it is not clear how TFGM Committee members can provide effective oversight and scrutiny of Active Travel (cycling and walking) policies and developments when the Budget does not contain a single mention of the terms "cycling", "walking", "Active Travel", "Smarter Choices" or "sustainable".




Action: If you think it might be useful for the TfGM Committee to show a little more leadership on cycling issues across Greater Manchester, why not write a (polite) email to Andrew Fender (email), the Committee Chair and/or the Councillors from your local authority who represent you on the TfGM committee highlighting your concerns.

We look forward to next year's budget with unabated enthusiasm......



(*) The term "discussed" is used in its loosest possible sense as the budget item was concluded within approximately 60 seconds, with not a single question, comment or objection raised by any of the Councillors present.

How many bottoms can TfL fit on a (cycle hire) bicycle ?

The London Assembly Transport Committee has recently released a report " Pedal power: the cycle hire scheme and cycle superhighways" (November 2010)  that casts a beady eye over the operations of the 'Boris Bikes' cycle hire scheme and cycle superhighways in London.

As a cycle hire scheme for Manchester is one of the options being considered for inclusion in the next Greater Manchester Local Transport Plan there are important lessons to be learnt from the operation of cycle hire, or bike share, schemes in London and elsewhere.

The Greater Manchester LTP3 consultation document states that "we also need innovative solutions to help people to cycle as part of their daily lives, so we are looking closely at recent city centre cycle hire schemes to take the best from these and other marketing initiatives." (Page 12). 

Consideration of a cycle hire scheme was also contained in the recent report to the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority (GMITA) Policy & Resources committee which recommended that members consider:  "iv) a major bicycle hire scheme, similar to that in operation in London, should be explored for Manchester City Centre and adjacent areas of Salford."  The somewhat spurious reasoning for this particular committee to support a cycle hire scheme was that it would remove the need for integrating cycle carriage into the GM transport network - particularly Metrolink trams.... but I digress.

The London Assembly report states that they "found great enthusiasm for the cycle hire scheme but there remain questions about how it is being funded. It is not clear exactly how much sponsorship Barclays has provided for a scheme which has now been running for four months" and that "over 20 per cent of respondents to our survey had started cycling as a result of the scheme and over 80 per cent thought it good value for money. One comment received, representative of the views of many, described it as “a very significant enhancement to life in London”.

Overall the report  is positive and supports the continued development of the cycle hire scheme, but the report also highlights that: 

"TfL reports that the annual operating cost of the scheme will be £18 million which it expects to be met from charges and sponsorship. To date in 2010/11, TfL has received only £1.9 million of income from charges largely because the roll out to casual users was delayed by six months and has missed the summer months. TfL now expects the scheme to be self-financing in two to three years and for the income to start contributing to its £79 million set up costs by 2017/18." (Page 7) with regard to the issue of funding, the report concludes that:

"The costs and funding arrangements for the cycle hire scheme remain opaque. TfL has not told the Committee how much Barclays has paid to date for its branding of the scheme. The argument that all details of the relationships between TfL and Serco and Barclays are confidential is not a compelling one. The details of these deals determine how much of the costs of the scheme have to be met from farepayers at a time of huge pressure on TfL’s finances. It is in the public interest for these details to be made available to the Committee. This would be in line with the Mayor’s commitment to transparency about public expenditure."

To date, the London scheme has attracted over 100,000 registered members, who are making 15,000 cycle trips per day (averaged over the whole week), although the average number of weekday trips is higher at 21,000-24,000. But, this is just over half the target of 40,000 daily trips, although it should be noted that the scheme was only opened up to to casual users on 3rd December, albeit with some initial problems. TfL expects to reach an average of 27,000 trips per day by March 2011 and to reach the target of 40,000 trips per day in future (unspecified) years.

Phase 1 of the London Scheme was supposed to have enabled members and casual users to 

use 6,000 bikes at 400 docking stations with over 10,000 docking points. However, the full scheme may not be in place until March 2011 and the London Assembly report indicates that 348 docking stations have been established. (Information from TfL provided on 24 November 2010).

How many docking stations are needed will continue to a subject for discussion, with the London Cycling Campaign arguing that the functionality of the scheme depends on the full complement of 400 docking stations being completed. 

Recently released bike share data highlighted how people in Lyon, France's second-largest Metropolitan area,  make 16,000 trips every day using the Vélo’v scheme. The Velo 'v has 4000 bikes available at nearly 350 stations around the city which has 480,660 inhabitants although the population of its metropolitan area is estimated to be 1,757,180. Despite being many times smaller than London, this scheme has nearly as many docking stations, as are planned for London and two-thirds of the bicycles.

Since it began in 2005, the Velo 'v scheme has tracked the start and destination locations as well as trip time.  Researchers at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon crunched the data from the 11.6 million bike trips and found that:

• Lyon, the third largest city in France, is traversed via a cluster of narrow, one-way streets which adds to the driving distance for just about any destination. Lyon bike share data shows, however, that bike trip distance is often shorter than what an equivalent car trip might be. Reasons for this might be shortcuts and a great number of wrong way cyclists riding on the sidewalks. There are no bike lanes in Lyon.

• Average cycling speed is about 10 km/hr — about 6 MPH. 

• The fastest cycling speeds are during the morning commute, when the average rises to almost 15 km/hr (9 MPH). In Lyon, this sedate speed is faster than the average driving speed in that congested city.

The Lyon data has also been used to create maps showing the most heavily cycled routes.(See above).

The London Assembly report also raised concerns about how effective the cycle hire scheme had been in encouraging people to switch from car travel. The report states that:

"Our survey found less than one per cent of journeys are replacing those previously made by car; TfL’s planning assumptions were for a five per cent shift from car to bike." (Page 8)

In response to complaints about the lack of bicycles, Serco has doubled its total number of redistribution staff and vehicles but as the report highlights, this in turn has:

 "led to questions about the environmental impact of the scheme. It was originally expected that only electric vehicles would be used for redistribution. Serco is now using 14 electrically powered vehicles, 10 Focus/Mondeo vehicles and, on a temporary basis, three 7.5 ton lorries and four Sprinter vans. It also uses 10 Nissan vans for on-street maintenance. It has told the Committee that it is undertaking a fleet review in light of the different redistribution requirements." (Page 18)

Whilst many (most?) cycling campaigns are supportive of cycle hire schemes there are concerns that such schemes will divert limited resources from other, possibly more cost-effective, projects and initiatives that promote and support cycling.  See for example the comments from one cycle organisation with regard to the proposed San Francisco Penisula Bike Share scheme:

"Dedicating $7.9 million to an unproven, risky project like bike sharing seems a poor use of limited funds, when other bicycle projects have proven track records to replace automobile trips with bicycle trips."

Hopefully, Manchester can learn lessons from other cities that have successfully introduced cycle hire schemes but until more details of any proposed scheme are made available there will remain key questions on both operational issues and potential costs.  Not least, the question of where will the funding come from and will it genuinely be "new" funding or more a case of "robbing Peter to pay Paul."  Watch this space.

Trafford finally get on board the bus lane ?

Well here we are in October 2010 and another consultation on a Local Transport Plan (LTP3) is upon us.  A key part of the two previous LTP strategy documents was a focus on work to create a network of quality bus corridors to provide priority routes for public transport bus services across Greater Manchester.

These Quality Bus Corridors (QBCs) are designed to help buses avoid traffic congestion bottlenecks and so help provide a more reliable bus service - they also double up as very wide cycle lanes. 

 

The two photographs are of a bus corridor on Upper Chorlton Road - the north bound carriageway of which falls within Trafford Borough Council's responsibility.  Despite the "bus lane" road markings and the blue sign that makes it very clear that the lane is only meant to be used by buses, cycles and taxis between the hours of 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm (Monday to Friday) - for the best part of the last three years this "bus lane" has functioned as a 24 hour car park facility.

The reasons for this stretch back to 20th September 2007 when Trafford Council sought authorisation for the Upper Chorlton Road, Old Trafford and Edge Lane, Stretford (Reserved Bus Lane) (Peak Hours) Order and announced that:

"NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that Trafford Borough Council proposes to make an Order under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The effect of the Order will be to prohibit all vehicles other than buses, pedal cycles and taxis from entering, proceeding or waiting in the bus lanes during the stated days and hours:-

RESERVED BUS LANE - PEAK HOURS
Monday – Friday 0700 – 1000 and 1600 - 1900
Upper Chorlton Road, Old Trafford - north side.

This "Reserved Bus Lane Order on Upper Chorlton Road" became operative on 7^thApril 2008 but according to Trafford Council there were no enforceable waiting restrictions within the bus lane.

Unfortunately, Trafford Council never got round to applying for the powers to be able to enforce ‘moving traffic offences’ (ie travelling in a bus lane).  In August 2009, Trafford Council stated that the "Council may obtain powers to carry out this type of enforcement in the future, but the cost of doing so would probably not be justified, in view of the relatively short lengths of bus lanes that we currently have within Trafford."

It went on to add that "Enforcement of any parking that takes place within a bus lane, by a Civil Enforcement Officer, has proved difficult using the bus lane traffic regulation Order. The Council is therefore considering a proposal to introduce corresponding waiting restrictions, in addition to the bus lane, that could be enforced by its Civil Enforcement Officers, however, the time span for such a proposal is approximately 6-9 months."

Finally, in September 2010, a report has been sent to the Executive Member for Highways and Transportation which stated that Trafford Council wanted "To seek approval to introduce waiting restrictions along Upper Chorlton Road, Old Trafford."  We are seeking confirmation that this request was approved.

So over 3 years after the original Reserved Bus Lane (Peak Orders) Order was submitted, Trafford Council have finally got round to obtaining the necessary powers to stop this "bus lane" from being used as a car parking facility.  We can only hope that any necessary enforcement actions are implemented a little more speedily.... but then again if the rumours that Trafford Council are planning to reduce its Highways Department from the current workforce complement of 28 down to 12 staff are accurate - then the wait for any future bus corridor enforcement may have to wait for many more buses to come along... 

You have until the 24th December 2010 to submit your suggestions and comments on the Local Transport Plan (LTP3) consultation.  Perhaps you might like to comment on bus lanes and parking enforcement..... just a thought !

2010 : The Year of the Bicycle ?

Well lets hope so.  There is plenty of evidence that increasing the number of people cycling can help reduce air pollution, traffic congestion, obesity levels and C02 emissions.  More positively, increasing cycling levels can help people become fitter, healthier as well as save money. (Re)designing and (re)engineering communities to make it easier, safer and more desirable to walk and cycle can also help to improve social cohesion at the community level. 

Some of this work will require funding and unfortunately Manchester was unsuccessful in its 2008 bid to become the first Cycling Demonstration City and neither did Greater Manchester get shortlisted in 2009 for the Sustainable Travel City funding.




But 2010 will provide many opportunities (and challenges) to increase the resources available to improve the cycling facilities and level of cycling promotion within Greater Manchester.

Here are a couple of things to look out for:


Local Transport Plan (LTP3) for Greater Manchester.  This Plan will decide how much funding will be allocated for promoting "active travel" (cycling & walking) and will be drafted and consulted on during 2010.   Various campaign groups will be lobbying to increase the resources made available for cycling.  Give them a hand if you can.


Local Development Framework (LDF).  During 2010 many of the Greater Manchester councils will be consulting on their draft Core Strategies.  When completed these LDFs will replace the Unitary Development Plans (UDPs) for each Council.  Now this may all sound very, very dull (and it often is) but these documents will set the planning frameworks to 2025 (or beyond).  So what, I hear you ask?  Well here is one example, if you want better cycle parking facilities outside buildings, offices and local shops then lobby your Council to include better cycle parking guidance in their Core Strategy document. This will set the amounts of cycle parking that the Planning Departments will require any new (or redeveloped) buildings to provide.  (See the No Place to Park (My Bike) post)

Manchester's Climate Change Action Plan includes some interesting references to developing cycle facilities and cycling promotion. These include:

• Smarter choices will be easier to make. Cycle and pedestrian routes will cross the city region, making it easy to get around without cars. Our workplaces will encourage cycling and walking to work with storage, changing facilities and bike rental schemes 

• Invest in active transport such as a City Centre network of Cycle Centres; pedestrian and cycleroutes; and interchange and storage facilities at public transport and cycling destinations.
  

• Support businesses and other organisations in developing sustainable and low carbon travel plans, including car sharing, car pools, public transport ticket schemes, workplace cycle facilities and flexible working.

• Develop mechanisms to encourage more people to cycle and walk as part of their own travel plan.

• There will be workplace facilities for cyclists, walkers and runners and advice available for those looking to travel more sustainably as well as adult bicycle training to give people the confidence to travel by bicycle.

• A major programme of development and investment will have extended the reach andintegration of the city’s public transport network and there will be a wider network of cycle paths available, too.

Which all sound nice and lovely, but as with all plans the hard part is to convert the nice words into real actions. So here is one challenge for 2010. Another is to encourage the other 9 Greater Manchester councils to develop Climate Change Action Plans that go beyond what Manchester is promising to do.

Local Elections.  All 10 Greater Manchester councils will be holding elections for local councillors in May.  Even if you don't want to vote for them..... why not ask the candidates if they support increasing the number of people cycling and what they will do to achieve this ?

This stuff works! Supporting increased cycle training and promotion can deliver. Last December, Cycling England reported that the use of bicycles had increased by 27 per cent on average in the six cycle demonstration towns it supported between 2005 and 2008. Cycling England calclated that "each pound spent on cycling in Aylesbury, Brighton and Hove, Darlington, Derby, Exeter and Lancaster delivered benefits worth £2.59 in reduced mortality as people became more physically active"  (Cycle towns show benefit)

So have a Happy New Year and lets hope that "to start cycling again" or "to cycle more" are two New Year Resolutions that many more people get to keep.