How fast can your granny run?

In April, the BBC reported that Manchester had become the UK's first city to be recognised as age-friendly by the World Health Organisation. More accurately, Manchester has become the first UK city to become a member of the WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities (GNAFCC).

As a network member, Manchester has committed to “undertake a process of continually assessing and improving their age-friendliness” and will ensure that “older residents are involved in a meaningful way throughout the process.”

If Manchester is serious about becoming age-friendly as well as improving the walkability of the City then one practical measure that the Council, and the other GM local authorities, could implement is to change the crossing times at pedestrian crossings.

How fast can YOUR granny run?

Research for Living Streets found that most people over the age of 65 walk much slower than the current assumed walking speed of 1.2 metres per second, on which the “green man” time allowed to cross is based, meaning they have insufficient time to safely reach the opposite kerb.

Or, put another way, the “green man” crossing time is not enough for 85% of women and 76% of men aged 65 and over.

The current crossing time guidance dates from the 1950s when levels of car ownership and traffic were much less than today. Living Streets is calling for the assumed walking speed to be changed to 0.8m/s which would add just 3 more seconds onto the green man crossing time on an average width road.

• 3 seconds might not sound like much, but for older people, people with mobility issues and parents with children it can really have a big impact.

• 3 more seconds could help make Manchester a better place to walk. Increasing the number of people walking might encourage more people to leave the car at home for shorter trips to their local shops and neighbourhoods. Making Manchester a nicer place to walk would also be fairer to the 45% of Manchester households who do not own (or have access to) a car. (Census 2011)

Increasing walking levels and reducing car traffic volumes (and speeds) could also encourage more people to cycle – you never know we might catch up with the Dutch where people over 65 make 24% of all their trips by bicycle.(Page 504)

You can find out more information and support the Living Streets “Give me time to cross” campaign on the website.


PS Shortly after this blog article was first drafted, the Manchester Evening News reported that the Government was reviewing road-crossing times. The article quoted Transport for Greater Manchester as saying: 

“At signalised junctions with pedestrian facilities, Greater Manchester follows the standard Department for Transport guidance of 1.2 metres per second walking speed.
“If a longer crossing time is required we do review this on an individual basis along with local authority engineers.

“We’re aware of this ministerial proposal and will follow developments with interest. If the guidance from the Department for Transport changed to assume a lower speed then we would change all our crossing speeds accordingly.”

Stay tuned to see what comes of this review.

No, protected cycling infrastructure is probably not too expensive for your city to build....

Here in Greater Manchester, the successful "Vélocity 2025 : A cycling plan for 2025 and beyond" bid for Cycling City Ambition Grant (CCAG) funding committed the conurbation to providing total funding over a 12 year period that would see "between £150 and £200 million invested on a range of cycling infrastructure, interventions and culture shift of which £20 million will be from the Cycle City Ambition Grant, £20 million from the LSTF and the remainder from a range of local and national, public and private sources through to 2025."


The current CCAG funding runs until March 2015 and as yet, neither the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) or Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) have publicly identified where the next 10 years of funding will come from, or how much funding will be provided.  

The current CCAG funding level is £10 per person but only covers 1 million people - so on a GM wide basis this translates as £3.70 per person.  The All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group report "Get Britain Cycling" recommended that national / local government should support cycling with funding levels of £10 per person - across the whole of Greater Manchester this would work out at £27 million per year.  


One of the many argument(s) that will no doubt be made against providing funding for cycle infrastructure will be "but it will cost too much".  To put these arguments into context it is worth taking a look at a recent report by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition which is a "brief exploration" of what they called the "myth" that "there's no way we can keep spending so much on bike lanes with so many other pressing needs in San Francisco."

To make their point that dramatically improving biking and walking in a city costs almost nothing compared to many other transportation projects — in San Francisco, one of the bike-friendliest cities in the country, bike projects take up less than 1 percent of the municipal transportation budget — they listed some typical cost figures.  The lovely people at the Green Lane Project  created the chart below from those figures.

Future blog posts will return to this theme and explore the arguments and evidence of the economic benefits of increasing cycling levels - as well as the lobbying arguments that will be needed throughout the coming year(s) to secure the funding needed to build a safe, convenient and coherent cycle network across Greater Manchester. (Note: the budget discussions for 2015-16 will start in October this year)

Meanwhile, enjoy the graphic. Click here for the original graphic.

 

Somebody please tell the University to "Wake up and smell the coffee!"

Oh dear.. what is it with Manchester and cycling?  Last December we had Manchester City Council's website listing "cycling safety" information under the heading Crime, Anti-social behaviour and nuisance (thankfully now amended!).

Now we have the mighty University of Manchester and "Corridor Manchester" objecting to an application from the Coffee Cranks Cooperative for a Street Trading licence to sell coffee from their beautifully adapted cargo bike outside the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative shop opposite Withworth Park and on Dover Street (off Oxford Road).


The miserable objection letters from the University of Manchester and Corridor Manchester are available online if you would like read them yourself. They are almost identical and contain such gems as the "presence of a street trader, the congestion it would bring, the visual appearance of the vehicle, and the likelihood of increased litter conflicts with the University’s vision for the area." 

and claims that the University "believes that granting the licence would create real safety concerns, be detrimental to its ambitions and, as the contribution to the City’s economy and vibrancy though the success of the University cannot be overstated, we hope that the City Council would reject the application." (Ed - wonder if these "safety concerns" are the same as led Manchester City Council to file "cycling" under crime, antisocial behaviour and nuisance" !)


Coffee Cranks Coop is a workers' coop selling ethically  sourced coffee, tea and snacks from a cargo bike designed and constructed by members of the initiative in the summer of 2013. Their objectives are to " bring positive change to our communities while selling delicious and ethically sourced coffee, tea and snacks from our purpose built cargo bike."   The core ethos of the coop is based upon a grand vision of helping transform Manchester into a cycling city of the future. This extends beyond cycling; we seek to support other social projects focused on transport, the environment and sustainability.


Sterile laboratories not sterile streets.
The Corridor Manchester Strategic Vision to 2020 document proudly claims that "Corridor Manchester's long-term vision is that, globally and locally, people will recognise the Corridor as a place that is original, creative and smart, where knowledge is put to work." (Page 4, Executive Summary)

Other smart cities have recognised that people like to live in places that have developed good cycling infrastructure as well as "original, creative and smart" social and street culture that is different to the bland "same as everywhere else" multinational chains.

Time to 'wake up and smell the coffee'
Developing a vibrant cycling culture (and street culture) is about much more than just counting the number of people cycling.*    Manchester City Council has recognised the need "undertake major public realm and junction improvements to support street life and commercial activity" in other areas of the City such as the Great Ancoats Street Corridor.


It is time for the University of Manchester and Corridor Manchester to 'wake up and smell the coffee'.

Please sign the Coffee Cranks petition calling on the University of Manchester and Corridor Manchester to withdraw their objections.

And if you would like to - please tweet the following message (or your own variant): University of Manchester (@SocialResponUoM) and Corridor Manchester (@corridormcr): withdraw objections to Coffee Cranks Coop's trading licence application.
 


(*) "The number of cycle trips has more than doubled – continued evidence of a growing cycling culture."

Greater Peak District Cycle Strategy

The Peak District National Park Authority are currently developing a cycle strategy for the Greater Peak District*.  

The consultation will start on the 17th February and last for 5 weeks.  If you would to comment on the cycle strategy please contact Emily Fox, Transport Policy Manager, Peak District National Park Authority.   Emily.Fox@peakdistrict.gov.uk
Peak District National Park Authority, Aldern House, Baslow Road, Bakewell, DE45 1AE 
Tel: 01629 816200

*For clarification, the Greater Peak District is the National Park and surrounding urban areas, for example, Sheffield, Nottingham, Manchester and Derby.

Manchester cycling safety advice - file under Crime, antisocial behaviour and nuisance !

The Cycling Safety advice on the MCC website  contains fairly standard road safety-esque cycling safety advice.

What is a tad disheartening (although arguably also a fairly standard road safety-esque view of cycling) is the category under which the information is held. 

It would appear that Manchester City Council chooses to place "cycling safety" issues under the heading "Crime, antisocial behaviour & nuisance" !  Is this truly how Manchester City Council view cycling?

Could this be the view of the same Manchester City Council which proudly announced in June 2012 that it wanted to become Britain's No1 city for cycling by 2017.

The webpage does have a Was this information helpful? section (see bottom of the page) perhaps people would like to take the opportunity to leave appropriate (polite!) responses.

Happy Solstice !

Update: January 2014. 

Following a little prodding via Twitter and email the Manchester City Council webmeisters have shifted the webpage to the slightly more appropriate heading(s) below.....

• Roads, parking & transport
• Walking & cycling
• Cycling safety

Question time: What would you like to ask Baroness Kramer (the new Transport Minister) ?

Somehow, I find myself invited to the Mainstreaming Smarter Travel event on 3rd / 4th December in Manchester Town Hall. This is described in the publicity as an "annual event where representatives and stakeholders from all Local Sustainable Travel Fund (LSTF) awarded regions come together to share knowledge, good practice and discuss effective implementation of projects."
(Programme details available here)

One of the sessions on Wednesday 4th December, there will be what is describde as "an extended interview and discussion with the new Transport Minister with responsibility for LSTF, Baroness Susan Kramer, Cllr. Andrew Fender, Chair of TfGMC and Mike Blackburn, Chair of Greater Manchester LEP and BT regional director for the North West."

I have received an email asking me what my top questions would be for the three interviewees (see below).  Deadline is 12noon, Friday 22nd November.  So if you have any burning questions you would liked asked - why not send them in to the email address below or leave a comment on this blog.

A message from Lynn Sloman, Director of Transport for Quality of Life, Plenary Chair for Mainstreaming Smarter Travel Day 2

On the second day of the Mainstreaming Smarter Travel conference, there will be an extended interview and discussion with the new Transport Minister with responsibility for LSTF, Baroness Susan Kramer, Cllr. Andrew Fender, Chair of TfGMC and Mike Blackburn, Chair of Greater Manchester LEP and BT regional director for the North West.

I’d like to know your top questions for our three interviewees. We’ll endeavour to cover as many of them as possible – and certainly to address all the most popular topics.

Baroness Kramer was famed for her indefatigable pavement-pounding when she was the Lib Dem candidate for the London mayoral election in 2000, pledging to walk every high street in the capital city. So you might want to ask her what options she sees from her Ministerial hot seat to boost active travel. Or you might want to know what ideas Mike Blackburn and his fellow LEP Chairs have got for capital investment in sustainable travel post-2015.

Please send your questions by 12pm FRIDAY 22^nd NOVEMBER to rory.mcmullan@landor.co.uk.

Mark your email ‘LSTF Question Time’.

Sustainable travel grants for business / organisations in Greater Manchester

Details available on the Transport for Greater Manchester website (links below):



Travel Choices is offering grants to businesses for schemes which encourage employees to make sustainable travel choices.

Whether you want to build bike storage facilities at your premises so staff can cycle to work, put in an electric vehicle charging point or run an event to promote sustainable travel to staff, you can apply for up to £10,000* to make it happen.

The application process is simple, and our team of expert travel advisors are here to help you through each step. To get the ball rolling this is what you need to do:

• Join our Business Travel Network
• Tick the option for information on grants
• One of the Travel Choices team will come back to you to begin your application

Here’s what a Sustainable Travel Grant could fund for your business:

Capital schemes

• Cycling/walking facilities e.g. showers, changing facilities, drying room
• Pool bikes
• CCTV/improved security for cycle storage
• Electric car charging points
• Car park alterations for designated car sharing spaces
• On site modifications to improve access to walking and cycling routes

Revenue schemes

• Internal communications promoting sustainable travel
• A reward or incentive scheme for sustainable travellers
• Events to raise awareness of sustainable travel choices amongst employees
• Public transport taster tickets
• Seed funding for a shuttle bus service/ contribution towards subsidised bus route
• Corporate car club membership
• Specialist sustainable transport advice

* Eligibility conditions apply

For more information, visit: www.tfgm.com/travelchoices/Pages/business-grants.html