CAMBRIDGE CYCLING CAMPAIGN OCTOBER – NOVEMBER 2018 • CAMCYCLE.ORG.UK

Also in this issue● New consultation on Milton Road● How Paris cycle lanes cut traffic● Spotlight on Camcycle volunteers● PCT tool helps planners prioritise

cycling investment

Cargo bikes leadthe way on WorldCar Free Day

2 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Contents

JH

Newsletter No.140If you like what you see in this newsletter, add yourvoice to those of our 1,250 members by joining theCambridge Cycling Campaign.

Membership costs are:£3.50 Budget (no paper newsletter will normallybe provided)£17.50 Individual£22.50 Household£100 Donor

For this, you get four newsletters a year, discountsat a large number of bike shops, and you will besupporting our work.Join now on-line at:www.camcycle.org.uk/membershipCambridge Cycling Campaign was set up in 1995 tovoice the concerns of cyclists. We are not a cyclingclub, but a voluntary organisation promoting cyclingfor public benefit and representing the concerns ofcyclists in and around Cambridge.

Registered charity number 1138098Our meetings, open to all, are on the first Tuesday ofeach month, 7.30pm for 8pm until 10pm at theFriends’ Meeting House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge.

Elected Committee Members and Trustees2017-2018Chair (and Charity Chair) – Robin HeydonActing Vice-Chair (and Charity Secretary) – WillaMcDonaldTreasurer (and Charity Treasurer) – Chris HowellMembership Secretary – Sue EdwardsLiaison Officer – Martin Lucas-SmithPlanning Officer – Al StorerCampaigners – Richard Burgess, Jim Chisholm,Matthew Danish, Tom McKeown , Hester Wells

Campaign staffExecutive Director - Roxanne De BeauxCommunications andCommunity Officer - Anna WilliamsCamcycle Intern - Emma Pritchard

Contacting the CampaignCamcycle, The Bike Depot, 140 Cowley Road,Cambridge CB4 0DL(01223) 690718www.camcycle.org.ukcontact@camcycle.org.ukTwitter: @camcycleFacebook: CambridgeCyclingCampaign

This newsletter is printed on FSC approved paper byCambridge Print & Copy

Cover image: Cyclists parade along Coe Fen in thefirst Cargo Carnival, part of the 2018 CambridgeFestival of Cycling.

NEWS IN BRIEFCycling in the headlines 4

CAMCYCLE NEWSAGM announcement 6Christmas news 7Cambridge cycling survey 7

CAMPAIGNINGCurrent campaigns 8Street cycle parking: pilot survey review 10Mill Road update 10Operation Close Pass 11Map of campaigning successes 12Highworth Avenue 12Rules matter 13Cycling offences consultation 14

EVENTSCambridge Festival of Cycling celebrated across city 16Social ride to Eddington 16World Bicycle Relief 17Camcycle Family Cycling Event 18‘Why We Cycle’ film screening 18Cargo Carnival 20Bikes and Bloomers 20

FEATURESOur newsletter – how things have changed 22What’s next for our award-winning magazine? 24A great big thank you! 25Post-it note 25Volunteer spotlight 26Volunteer opportunities 27Dockless bike sharing 28Is hi‐viz clothing harmful? 30Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT) 32

REGULARSCampaign Diary 35

Photo

Dockless bikes in Cambridge (see page 28).

3 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

From the Chair

How Paris cycle lanes cut traffic

September was a fantastic monthfor cycling in Cambridge as weheld our first Cambridge Festival

of Cycling. The events were excellent,and everybody I've spoken to about ithas praised the organisation.

We have the AGM coming up soon- the formal announcement is inside.Please reserve the day, plan to comealong, and consider standing as atrustee of the charity.

I'd like to give a huge shout-out totwo people who did so much over thesummer. Firstly, we have to thankEmma Pritchard, our first ever intern,who helped with the cycling festival andalso did so much work on theCambridge cycling survey (see page 7)and street cycle parking project (seepage 10). We also have to thank EllieGooch who spend the summer volun-teering at Camcycle. You can read herarticle on bike-sharing on page 28. Iwish them both luck for the future.

Inside, we shine a spotlight on someof the other enthusiastic volunteerswho have been involved with theCambridge Festival of Cycling and otheraspects of Camcycle's work. Werecently celebrated winning BestCharity Magazine at the CambridgeCommunity Magazine Awards with aget-together for our newsletter volun-teers and a planning meeting for ourfuture plans for the publication, whichis one of our key campaigning tools.With several long-standing volunteersstanding down, now is a great time toget involved and share your skills – readmore about how you can volunteer onpage 27.Robin Heydon

I find it interesting that the number ofcities that are going car-free appearsto grow every week. Madrid. Paris.

Oslo. Even that little town at the end of therailway line has been making great stridesin reducing the numbers of people driving.

For example, London’s travel plan saysthat today about 36% of people drive towork in the capital, but in a few years theyhope to reduce that to less than 20%. Yes.A city of 10 million people is trying toreduce the number of cars driven on theroad by a million vehicles.

The Mayor of Paris has said that bikelanes have helped reduce the volume of cartraffic in her city. In just the first fivemonths of 2018 the number of peopledriving in the city has fallen by 6.5%. Thenumber in the morning peak dropped by8.7%. They haven’t added any new buslanes, or built a new underground railwaysystem. But they did build more bike lanes.

Of course, we should compare this withevidence I’ve talked about before, where anew public transport service didn’t makeany noticeable difference to the number ofpeople driving. All it did was increase thenumber of people moving along a route.

The problem we have is that the onlyway to reduce congestion in Cambridge isto reduce the number of vehicles using theroads at peak times. There appear to be twomain ways that are being proposed toachieve this. (There is another alternativeof knocking down half the buildings alongevery main road in order to widen them,but I'll ignore that.)

The first is to build some cycle lanes. Aproven method that has worked in Paris,and Copenhagen, and Amsterdam, and

pretty much every Dutch and Danish city.Car traffic, and therefore pollution,decreases. Because there are fewer cars onthe road the buses can use the normaltraffic lanes and need special lanes onlywhere they can make turns not permittedfor private cars.

The second is to build lots of new publictransport infrastructure, possibly at theexpense of space for people walking orcycling, and expect the traffic levels toreduce and congestion to disappear. Thisdoesn’t work. I could go into lots of detailof why the Downs-Thomson paradox couldmean that traffic would speed up or slowdown depending on how fast that publictransport is.

There is a third way. Congestioncharging. If you don’t like cycle lanes, andyou don’t think that buses will work, thenthere is really only one proven solution.And no, that is not an underground metro,because that is just a very expensive holein the ground to put a fancy bus-shapedobject into (a vehicle with a bunch of seatslined up and wheels underneath).

If you want my personal opinion, weshould have a smart congestion charge andlots of cycleways. Use the money raisedfrom the congestion charge to subsidise afantastic bus network and to build andmaintain a network of cycleways in the cityand between the villages. This is not anengineering problem, this is purely a polit-ical one. So next time you are travelling inEurope, I encourage you to visit some ofthose cities that have congestion charges,or have built cycleways, and see if they looknicer than East Road in Cambridge.Robin Heydon

Image to be selected

The former riverside expressway in Paris.

4 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

News in brief

Cycling in the headlinesCivil Liability BillOn Tuesday 4 September, the Civil Liability Bill had its second readingin the House of Commons. The Bill included revisions which wouldlimit small claims and have a negative impact on cyclists.

The government had proposed changing the lower limit for smallclaims for road traffic accidents from £1,000 to £5,000. The issuehere, however, is that vulnerable road users such as cyclists wouldthen be unable to receive compensation for injuries caused by roadtraffic accidents below the value of £5,000, which is higher thantypical cyclist compensation claims.

These changes have been dropped thanks to a huge campaigningeffort from Cycling UK, British Cycling, other organisations, and MPs.

Gilligan report - Running out of Road debateThe Gilligan report, ‘Running out of Road’, was also debated inParliament on Tuesday 4 September. Daniel Zeichner (MP forCambridge) argued that the ‘mixed-bag report’ missed out some keyissues for Cambridge, highlighting the limited bike parking in the cityand the untapped potential of electric bikes.

He also called on Mayor James Palmer to fund cycling infrastruc-ture, criticising the combined authority mayor for including cycling inhis transport strategy statement but not including cycling and pedes-trian schemes in his proposals.

The debate was fairly short but there was some discussion on howto get cycling into smaller towns, not just the larger cities ofCambridge, Oxford and Milton Keynes.

Camcycle mentioned in ParliamentDuring the Gilligan report debate, Daniel Zeichner ended his briefspeech by complimenting Camcycle as an ‘excellent local cyclingcampaign’ and mentioned our Cambridge Festival of Cycling.

Local PlansThe Local Plans of both South Cambridgeshire District Council andCambridge City Council have been found ‘sound’ by inspectors. Theplans will be debated at full council meetings before they are adopted.Decisions will be made on adopting the plans on Thursday 27September for the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan and on Thursday18 October for the Cambridge City Local Plan.

Cycling for transport is a key solution togrowing inactivityResearchers from the World Health Organisation have published theresults of their study into global levels of insufficient physical activity.The study reveals that 1.4 billion adults risk conditions such ascardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes owing to their inactivity.

The report highlights the large number of adults in the UK who areinsufficiently active. The study concludes that cycling is a key solutionto this problem, and argues for a national policy to encouragenon-motorised modes of transport. It also puts pressure on nationalgovernments to provide infrastructure to increase walking and cyclingto combat this problem.

Pavement parking campaignThe goal of the pavement parking campaign is to increase publicpressure on the government to take action to end pavement parking.The campaign is supported by 20 charities and organisations includingGuide Dogs, Living Streets, British Parking Assoc-iation and the LocalGovernment Association.

In June, the Scottish Government changed the law to ban parkingon pavements in Scotland. This has spurred on the campaign inEngland and Wales; an open letter, signed by almost 17,000 membersof the public, was delivered to the Prime Minister at the end of August.

5 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

News in brief

Active travel inquiryThe House of Commons Transport Committee has launched anenquiry into active travel and is calling for written evidence onrecent trends in walking and cycling, and what is contributing tothese trends. The scope of the inquiry will also cover progress onthe Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, including the CyclingAmbition Cities funding, for which Cambridge’s bid was successful.The Committee is calling for written evidence on these mattersbefore Thursday 11 October.

E-cargo bikes funding boostDuring the Zero Emission Vehicle Summit Jesse Norman, Ministerfor Low Emission Vehicles, announced that the government willprovide £2 million to support the use of e-cargo bikes. The fundingis part of the government’s Road to Zero strategy, which aims tomake the UK a world leader in zero emission vehicles.

Trouble on the Busway near TrumpingtonThere has been a series of robberies on the Busway and the streetsclose to it in Trumpington. The robberies have taken place between4pm and 8pm. The police want to hear from anyone who has seenanything suspicious on or around the Busway.

If you have information, you should get in touch withDS Graham Newton on 101 or visit www.cambs.police.uk/report.You can also contact the independent charity Crimestoppersanonymously on 0800 555 111 or visit https://crimestoppers-uk.org/.Emma Pritchard

6 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Camcycle news

AGM announcement

This year, we’re trying something new for our AGM. We’removing it to a Saturday morning in January. The AGM isto be held from 10.30am to 2pm on Saturday,

19 January, 2019 in Clay Farm Community Centre, HobsonSquare, Trumpington, Cambridge CB2 9FN.

We’re hoping this makes our AGM easier for more peopleto attend as it will no longer get lost in the many other eventsthat take place in December. It gives us the opportunity tomake it a bigger and better event where members can learnmore about cycle campaigning and our work over the pasttwelve months. We'd like to be more family-friendly and havea little more time for members to share their ideas forCamcycle’s work in the coming years. We're also trying a bright,new venue, the Clay Farm Centre, which is just off the Buswaycycleway in Trumpington.

We will be announcing our trustee nomination proceduresin the next edition of the successor to this newsletter, but ifyou have been thinking about taking on a leadership role, thennow is the timeto get in touchfor a chat. Youcan meet withme or one of ourtrustees to findout whatresponsibilitiescome with trus-teeship and thework that weexpect will berequired nextyear. Our current trustees have worked hard over the last yearto complete key strategic projects and to improve our govern-ance and this work will continue in 2019 as we introduce somebig changes to support the growth of Camcycle. It’s an excitingtime to be involved! Email us at contact@camcycle.org.uk formore information on trusteeship or if you'd like to propose amotion to be put to the AGM. See also www.camcycle.org.uk/AGM2019

A confirmed agenda will be posted in the next edition andshould include morning tea, a Camcycle update, the officialAGM, panel discussion with inspirational campaigners as guestsand an interactive campaigning session over lunch. Undoubt-edly there will be an unofficial pub stop in the afternoon aswell.

We’re looking for volunteers to help on the day. Please getin touch if you can help with:● refreshment set up and pack down● set up and pack down of the space (chairs, tables etc.)● ‘checking in’ attendees and issuing relevant papers.

We would also welcome any contributions of cakes, biscuitsetc to help with the morning tea. Perhaps we could even makeit a bake sale?Roxanne De Beaux

7 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Camcycle news

Over the summer Camcycle has been working on theCambridge cycling survey, which was launched on1 September as part of the Cambridge Festival

of Cycling.The goal of the survey is to find out about cycling habits and

attitudes in Cambridge. It is particularly timely as it was justannounced that Cambridge has, unsurprisingly, kept its title asthe UK’s cycling capital.

The survey is for both cyclists and non-cyclists, so it couldprovide some useful insight into why some people do not cycleand how they can be encouraged.

By the last week of September, the survey had received over500 responses, and it is hoped that this will continue to risebefore it closes on 31 October.

Interestingly, thus far the majority of responses have notbeen from Camcycle members. The intention is that moremembers will be encouraged to complete the survey, as wellas the rest of the community.

The results from the survey will help to generate data toinform our campaigning activities, and will be made freelyavailable later in the year. The survey is also an opportunity forCamcycle to get out into the city and raise awareness of whatit campaigns for.

The survey covers many different aspects of cycling, fromcommuting to cycling with children, and even about cyclecolour! Camcycle is keen to hear all about cycling in Cambridge,the best bits and the areas that need improvement.

The feedback so far has been positive, with respondentscomplimenting Camcycle on its campaigning efforts and askingfor more information.

It is hoped that this survey will be repeated each year andthat it will help Camcycle to identify trends in cycling habitsand attitudes, to inform our strategic planning.

We need members to make sure their voices are heard andcomplete the Cambridge cycling survey, so that we cancontinue to campaign for more, better and safer cycling in andaround Cambridge.

You can access the survey at www.camcycle.org.uk/surveyor by scanning the QR code above.Emma Pritchard

Cambridge cycling surveyChristmas newsDouble your gift to cycling with the 2018Christmas Challenge!

After two successful years, we are again participating inthe UK’s biggest online match-funding campaign. Forseven days, supporters of Camcycle will have the

opportunity to have their donation doubled by giving viatheBigGive.org.uk during their Christmas Challenge. We’reaiming to raise more than £5,000 to support our campaigningwork in 2019 and, thanks to our generous donors and cham-pion givers who have pledged to our ‘matching pot’, your giftcan have twice the impact!

The Christmas Challenge 2018 will run from midday onTuesday 27 November until midday on Tuesday 4 December.Donations must be made online via theBigGive.org.uk - searchfor 'Camcycle'.

Support Camcycle with office suppliesIf you would like to support Camcycle in a more tangible way,you might be interested in our ‘wish list’ of office items anduseful resources. The list is currently posted on Amazon, butpurchases do not need to be made through this platform. Youcan see the list at tinyurl.com/camcyclegiftlist or search for‘Camcycle’ in ‘Find a list’ on amazon.co.uk.

Give the cyclists in your life the gift of aCamcycle membership

Looking for the perfect gift for your cycling friends andfamily this year? Why not try a Camcycle gift membership?These memberships come with all of our usual benefits andwe’ll include a pack of our greeting cards as well. All deliveredin time for you to put under the tree. Purchase now atwww.camcycle.org.uk/shop/

Save the date for our Winter SocialTuesday, 11 December, 6.30pm: Thirsty, 46 Chesterton Road,Cambridge CB4 1EN

It's time to celebrate! We invite all of our members, volun-teers and supporters to join us in celebrating a huge and verysuccessful year of campaigning at our 2018 Winter Social.

This year, we’re returning to Thirsty and we will be in theback room, 'The Bunker', which has been renovated since ourlast event. Beer and wine can be purchased from the bar andfood from the food truck which will be parked outside. (Vege-tarian options will be available.) We will provide some mincepies for dessert.

You can join us at any time from 6.30pm, but please ensureyou register in advance at tinyurl.com/camcyclewintersocial sothat we can let the venue and food truck know what numbersto expect.

We remind attendees to drink responsibly and to plan theirtravel home from this event appropriately.Roxanne De Beaux

8 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

tion proposes that only one of these twowould get a crossing. Milton Road iscurrently too much of a barrier and webelieve that each of these locationsshould have a crossing.

Ever since we helpedpublish the ‘Do-Optimum’proposal we haveadvocated for context-sensitive design

It is disappointing that the cycleway isdowngraded to an unprotected cycle lanebetween Westbrook Drive and GilbertRoad, outbound, but we are glad that theofficers have put a crossing of MiltonRoad at Westbrook Drive back on thetable.

In general, we believe that segregationof walking and the main cycling routeshould be maintained throughout thescheme. At every point where a pedes-trian crossing of a cycleway is needed, asimple Zebra crossing should be paintedon the cycleway.

We also strongly support the safe busstop design proposed that has theprotected cycleway segregated fromboth the footway and the passengerwaiting area. This ensures that everyonehas a comfortable and safe space, andthat there is a defined crossing of thecycleway (a Zebra, as specified above) for

people wishing to use the bus. Thediagram above shows what a safe busstop design would look like with a Zebracrossing of the cycleway.Cyclescape 3994Matthew Danish

Current campaignsMilton Road consultationThe new Milton Road consultation is nowopen and the Greater Cambridge Part-nership has published the latestproposals for the road. There aresubstantial improvements from theversion originally published over twoyears ago. The design team has largelyput into place an avenue of treesprotecting cycleways that are segregatedfrom footways. We thank them forengaging and listening on that point.However, there are still significant prob-lems with the current proposal and weintend to respond to these in the currentconsultation.

The proposed Elizabeth Way junctionhas extremely narrow sections forwalking and cycling, including pointswhere people walking and cycling aresqueezed into a path only 2.9m across,marked with arrows on the diagrambelow. To make matters worse, thatsection is likely to have a pole in themiddle of it for a signalised crossing, andthe section wraps around a sharp cornerthat blocks lines of sight. We stronglyobject to such miserly provision forwalking and cycling, and we call forproperly segregated and ample provisionfor walking and cycling at all points.

The proposed design between GilbertRoad and Elizabeth Way has a bus lanethat we believe is simply unnecessary andseriously compromises the remainder ofthe plan on this rather narrow section of

Milton Road. We know that the currentbus lane is rarely used by buses, and thedata provided by GCP from the beginningof the scheme show a long-term trend offalling car traffic counts on this sectionof road, because most car traffic headstowards Elizabeth Way. This section ofroad is quieter than the rest of MiltonRoad and it should become even more soafter GCP implements their City Accessstudy recommendations. Therefore, thebus lanes here will be wasted tarmac,while the space for trees, cycleways andfootways are all badly squeezed. Eversince we helped publish the ‘Do-Op-timum’ proposal we have advocated forcontext-sensitive design and the contexthere calls for traffic reduction measures,not brute force bus lanes.

We have always maintained theimportance of supporting the numerousfamilies who walk and cycle to theschools near Ascham Road, and enablingmore families to join them. The councilofficers have proposed making theoutbound-side footway into a shared-usepavement for this purpose. We hadinstead called for a bi-directionalcycleway segregated from the dedicatedfootway, but that idea was ultimatelyshot down because there wasn’t enoughspace at side-road junctions to make itwork. However, the reason there isn’tenough space at side-road junctions isprimarily because of the bus lane in thenarrow section of Milton Road,mentioned above. This is yet anotherreason why the bus lane is inappropriatebetween Gilbert Road and Elizabeth Way.

From past discussions, we had beenunder the impression that there wouldbe crossings installed at Downham’s Laneand Fraser Road. However, the consulta-

Campaigning

9 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

18/1116/FUL Children’sDay Nursery, HomertonCollegePlans for a new nursery building on theexisting Faculty of Education car park,with associated play space, car, cycle andbuggy parking. We have objected as theapplicant has poorly understood the useof cycles by Cambridge families. Veryfew larger hoops for cargo cycles areprovided despite their popularity fortravelling with children. The largest areaof sheltered cycle parking is the wrongside of the car park for the nursery, sounlikely to be used by parents droppingoff children. The proposed two-tier cycleshelters are difficult to use for cycles withchild seats fitted. We also have safetyconcerns. There is no separationbetween areas where toddlers will bewalking around as they arrive and areaswhere cars will be turning. Additionally,the access statement inappropriatelysuggests cyclists share a narrow pave-ment rather than proposing steps toreduce risk from motor-vehicles.Cyclescape 4195

S/2315/18/RM FenDrayton Road, SwaveseyConstruction of 99 homes on land southof Fen Drayton Road, Swavesey. Wehave been pleased to see that newlyrevised plans have removed exclusionarychicane barriers from the paths. We arestill objecting to substandard cycleparking sheds which are smaller than astandard pair of cycle spaces as outlinedin Cambridge City Council’s CycleParking Guide for New Residential Devel-opments, additionally objecting becausetheir location is not shown on the plan-ning documents so we cannot evaluatetheir accessibility.Cyclescape 4072

S/2281/18/RM OakingtonRoad, CottenhamThough plans for this 126 dwelling devel-opment in Cottenham have been revised,our concerns have not been addressed.A proposed walking and cycling link toRampton Road retains a barrier formotor-vehicles that is too narrow to bepassed by anyone using a mobility

Campaigning

scooter, wide cargo cycle, tricycle orpulling a trailer. We have againresponded with recommendations for animproved layout for access by these users.Cyclescape 4073

17/1484/OUT ChisholmTrail CaféWe have written in support of a café andcycle repair shop located alongside theChisholm Trail, as it would create anamenity for people living in the neigh-bourhood as well as those using the Trail.Though construction on green belt is ofconcern to our members, we felt that thecafé usage would be consistent withsimilar cafés found within country parks,or at rest stops along trunk roads. Thecafé would provide improved landscapingand keep the site free of the fly-tippingissues that have plagued it in the past. Itwould also provide toilets and a cyclerepair station to assist people travellingalong the Trail or visiting the nearbyLeper Chapel. We have noted that anydamage to the Chisholm Trail must berepaired and restored to its originalcondition, should major constructionworks for the café come after completionof the Chisholm Trail in this location.Cyclescape 3544

18/0506/FUL 18Chesterton RoadA number of our earlier objections to thismixed-use scheme of 12 flats and tworetail units have been addressed. Cycleaccess will be improved by modificationsto the bin store and doorways. However,the central issue remains of a cycle storedown a flight of steps with a wheelingchannel. From our latest response: ‘Ourgenuine question for the applicant is:what are the options for a future residentor employee of the proposed buildingwho is unable to use the bike-wheelingramp with their cycle?’.Cyclescape 3932

18/1195/REM EddingtonLot S3We have filed an objection to this appli-cation for 186 residential units in a ‘cyclefriendly building’ in the Eddington district.The building itself is intriguing, withsecure covered cycle parking at ground

level, a dedicated cycle lane to basement-level cycle parking facilities (both ofwhich include off-gauge spaces for cargobikes and trailers) and the apartments,corridors and lifts designed to accommo-date cycles stored within the building.However, there were a number of tech-nical flaws that were the basis for ourobjection. These include clashes betweenswept paths for car-parking spaces andcycle racks, overly steep access ramps,and unclear management of carsaccessing the basement via a single-car-width ramp. We hope the applicant willtake up our recommendations in order toreturn with an improved application.Cyclescape 4199

S/1004/18/RM WingDevelopment Phase 1As we write, this plan has been recom-mended for approval by the Joint Devel-opment and Control Committee.Substantial changes were obtained overthe past five months of campaigning.Unlike in the original plan, the JubileeCycleway will now largely remain intact,with a 3m-wide cycleway segregatedfrom a 2m-wide footway where it passesthrough the development. At road cross-ings the applicants have proposednarrowing the roadway to calm trafficand leave only a single lane for walkersand cyclists to cross. There will also benew, direct and dedicated links on allsides of the site: to Ditton Lane, HighDitch Road and Newmarket Road.Furthermore, the applicants will create ahigh-quality diversion route for theJubilee Cycleway during construction ofthe site. However, we are sad to reportthat the Morley Street Cycleway haslargely been demoted to being a semi-shared use path. This was a proposednew cycleway alongside one of the newprimary streets. Owing to urban designofficer concerns, in subsequent revisionsthe cycleway has lost priority at sideroads. These are now going to be a formof ‘shared-space’ junction where everyroad user is supposedly equal, but withsmall kerbs to outline the carriageway.We are not convinced that this junctiondesign will work. It is likely to degenerateinto motorist-priority, as such shared-space schemes generally do in the UK.Cyclescape 3915Tom McKeown

10 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

The street cycle parking project is akey campaign for Camcycle, andhas been for some time. This year

it was also the key strategic project forthe paid internship programme.

When I started in July, I was told thatduring my internship I would be respon-sible for this important Campaignproject. As you can imagine, I was verynervous to be given such responsibilitybut excited and ready for the challenge.

Luckily, I had the pleasure of meetingSimon Nuttall, the project’s lead volun-teer, during my very first week. Simonpatiently explained the whole projectand kindly took me on a ride aroundRomsey and Petersfield so I could startto understand the problem. He also tookme to the street cycle parking bay inThoday Street, and I was thrilled to seewhat the Campaign had alreadyachieved.

After this, Simon and I met onWednesday afternoons at the Camcycleoffice and worked together to producea draft survey for the street cycle parkingproject. We were very grateful formember feedback and, after severaldrafts, we produced our pilot survey.

The pilot street cycle parking surveywent out at the end of July and was openfor a few weeks before closing on 20August. It went out to a sample area ofresidents in Catharine Street, Romsey,with Simon delivering the leaflets. Ouraim was to understand how the ques-

Campaigning

Street cycle parking: pilot survey reviewtions were interpreted, and whether theresults would provide data that we coulduse.

The pilot was fairly successful: we hada 10% response rate showing that resi-dents are engaged with this issue, and wereceived some interesting answers. Thepilot suggested that most respondentsfeel positive about increasing street cycleparking. However, it also showed that weneed to continue to make the case forstreet cycle parking.

We made some minor changes to thesurvey after the pilot, including changingthe image of cycle parking in the street.This is because we decided that astronger example was needed of whathappens when there is not appropriateinfrastructure in place, such as a streetcycle parking bay.

The updated survey went live at theend of August, using invitation leafletsdesigned by Roxanne. The leaflets weredelivered on Thursday 30 August. Simonhad already calculated the number ofterraced houses on each street inRomsey and we grouped leaflets intobundles to match his calculations. Simon,along with our very helpful volunteers,delivered the survey leaflets to thehouseholds in Romsey.

Just over a week after the survey waslaunched, we already had more than 80responses. Seeing the responses come inhas been a real highlight of my internship,and I look forward to reviewing them

with Simon after the closing date at theend of September.

We will be keen to share the resultswith everyone and continue thecampaign for better on-street cycleparking.Emma Pritchard

Mill Road update

In Newsletter 139, we presented avision for Mill Road with reducedthrough traffic, allowing more room

for cycling, pedestrians, buses and

'people parking'. Now that this vision hasbeen presented, we would like toorganise two public consultation sessionsto gather the views of people who live,work and travel in the area. The plan isto hold one session on each side of thebridge so that we cover Petersfield andRomsey. We're planning to print off bigmaps of Mill Road and have them spreadout for people to draw and write on. Wewill also have stickers for people to addto points they agree with.

The Petersfield event will be held atSt Barnabas church on Monday 26 Nov-

ember from 4 to 7pm (to capture theafter-school, after-work crowd). TheRomsey event will be held at St Philip'schurch but I am yet to confirm a date.

Volunteers to help with organisingthese events would be much appreciated.It would also be good to consider buildingan interactive map that people could addcomment to as well. Please get in touchif you have ideas on how to achieve thisor are keen to get involved in any otherway with our Mill Road vision.Liz Irvin

11 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Campaigning

Operation Close Pass

We’ve recently had a few meet-ings with our local police todiscuss the Cambridge imple-

mentation of ‘Operation Close Pass’, aninitiative launched by West MidlandsPolice and proven to reduce the inci-dence of close passes and collisionscausing injuries to cyclists. We’vereported on this before in Newsletter 135.

The Cambridge version is ‘OperationVelo’, but so far it’s failed to win theapproval of local cyclists. This is mostlybecause the locations chosen by thepolice to conduct their initiative have notbeen in any of the close-pass areas wherewe’d most like to see improvements.However, there have also been issueswith their approach to communicationsaround their operations and the infre-quency with which the operations havebeen carried out.

To help with our discussions, we did aquick poll on Twitter to find out theplaces that most concern our followers(see adjacent table).Also mentioned: Victoria Road, GrangeRoad, Clarendon Street, Milton Village,Lensfield Road, Gazelle Way, MountPleasant, Fen Causeway, NewnhamRoad, Davy Road, Campkin Road,Mowbray Road, and Trumpington HighStreet.

You can share your views on Cycles-cape 3602 and we will continue to workwith the police to get better action onclose passes.

We’ve also provided the police with alarge box of our ‘Welcome to Cycling’leaflets to hand out to any cyclists whoare spotted cycling in an unsafe mannerand we will work with them to supportOperation LIT (Lights Instead of Tickets)later in the year.Roxanne De Beaux

Close-pass locations Particular areas of concern No. of mentions

Mill Road - On the bridge 8Histon Road - North of Gilbert Road 8

Milton Road

- Between Highworth Avenue round about and Arbury Road junction

5- Golden Hind junction- North of Gilbert Road

Arbury Road - Bottom end towards Milton Road 5

Cherry Hinton Road

- Robin Hood to Mowbray Road

4- Coming up to Queen Edith’s Way junction- One person said ‘all’

Brooklands Avenue 4

East Road- Between Broad Street and Norfolk Street 3- Right by the KFC

Coldham’s Lane

- By the airport

3- Towards the Beehive Centre- Between Cherry Hinton and Sainsbury’s

Newmarket Road - Between Elizabeth Way and Tesco 3Victoria Avenue - Pinch points, double yellow lines 3Queen’s Road 3Emmanuel Road - Drummer Street end 2Devonshire Road 2

Green End Road - By cars parked in painted cycle lanes 1

Huntingdon Road - Eddington junction 1

Fen Road, Chesterton - Close passing in opposite direction as drivers avoid road humps 1

Union Lane - Close passing in opposite direction 1Madingley Road - Between P&R and Madingley Rise 1

Mill Road and Histon Road came top of the list of close-pass areas.

12 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Map of campaigningsuccesses

We've added a new feature to our website - a map ofcampaigning successes.www.camcycle.org.uk/campaigning/successes/

This is an interactive map that shows some of the schemesaround the city where our campaigning work has been instru-mental to getting improvements.

You can click on each line or point and see the change wehelped bring about.

Let us know if you were involved in a campaign the resultsof which are not shown on the map!Martin Lucas-Smith

On Tuesday 11 September, a small group of Camcyclevolunteers met with West Chesterton Councillor MikeSargeant and local residents to discuss possible solu-

tions to issues with the current cut-through onto Leys Road.There have been many months of anti-social behaviour frommotorbike users using the cut-through to avoid the junction atMilton Road and Arbury Road, and some residents would likebarriers erected here to address this. It is unclear whether themotorcyclists using this route are the same persistent offendersor a broader mixture of people, including regular commuters,but several incidents have involved speeding and/or intimi-dating behaviour towards pedestrians and cyclists, so we canunderstand the community’s concerns.

As an inclusive campaign working for more, better andsafer cycling for all ages and abilities, we would like to ensurethat this route remains a quiet, pleasant street for cyclistswith plenty of space for different types of cycle, includingcargo bikes, trailers, tricycles and recumbents. Installingbarriers such as ‘pram bars’ to dissuade motorcyclists createsproblems for many cyclists in a space which is already narrowwith some sharp corners on the edges of the adjacentplanters. In addition, the Highworth Avenue cut-through isalso used by those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters asthe pavements on each side have been blocked with metalbarriers. We strongly believe that paths and cyclewaysshould be easily accessible for all types of users and that thisrule should apply right across Cambridge and beyond.

Our recommendation for dealing with illegal motorcycleaccess is for enforcement, preferably using ANPR cameratechnology which is a widely-deployable, cheap solution thattargets only the perpetrators. We also discussed some alter-native design options – perhaps moving the planters so thatthe ‘gap’ was actually part of a new surfaced cycleway

between the pavement and the road, or creating more of apark in the middle of the roundabout so it feels more like anarea of public space for pedestrians instead of a normal roadwith a barrier. Residents like the park at the end of Ches-terton Hall Crescent, which has a cut-through that is notabused by motorcyclists. Other options would be to installsinusoidal humps in the gap to slow down motorbikes or atemporary camera to gain more information about the anti-social problem.

We’ve been told there is about £4,000 of EnvironmentalImprovement funding available from the city council toaddress the area, but this would be only about a tenth ofwhat is needed to create a park, for example. Cllr Sargeantwill meet with city officers at the end of the month anddiscuss what can be achieved. He will also look into theoptions for camera enforcement and report back to us.Anna Williams

Highworth AvenuePrioritising cyclists and vulnerable road users

Campaigning

13 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

The received wisdom in road design now is that ambiguityis good, even life-saving. ‘Shared space’, ‘courtesy cross-ings’, and removal of lane markings and traffic signals are

standard components in the kitbag.A courtesy crossing may be a ‘raised table’ (an extended road

hump), studs, painted lines or a different colour or textureacross the road, or just a pair of dropped kerbs. In reality, mostcar drivers ignore these cues that they should give way topedestrians.

Shared space takes this to the next level, by creating evengreater ambiguity about who has priority. In reality, a hierarchyquickly emerges, typically with motor vehicles at the top, anddisabled pedestrians at the bottom.

Pavements shared with cyclists are constant sources offriction. Although collisions are rare and most people arecourteous and thoughtful, it creates a stressful environment,especially for people who are frail, visually-impaired, hard ofhearing, accompanying a toddler or walking a dog.

The pedestrian area outside Cambridge station is in factshared space, subtly indicated by some dropped kerbs. Thisambiguity often leads pedestrians to berate people cycling,even when the cyclists are behaving responsibly.

Campaigning

Rules matterWho has priority at junctions is ambiguous and poorly

understood, leading to needless deaths and injuries. BritishCycling’s ‘Turning the Corner’ campaign aims to address thisby simplifying the rules.

In Paris, it is now legal for cyclists to turn right (equivalentof turning left in the UK) at a red light. Adopting this in the UKwould enable cyclists to avoid the danger of being trapped,sometimes fatally, by a left-turning motor vehicle.

Contraflow cycling on one-way residential streets is typicallysafer than alternative routes via busy main roads. Where thisis not legal, some drivers will take it upon themselves to scoldor punish cyclists by driving intimidatingly. In a Cambridgestreet where it has recently been made legal, a resident reportsthat drivers are now noticeably more courteous and accommo-dating.

Rules matter: ambiguity may be less dangerous than peopleimagine, but it’s stressful and discriminatory. We need clear,sensible and consistent rules to manage use of our public spaces.Edward Leigh, Smarter Cambridge Transport[This article was first published in the Cambridge Independenton 27 June 2018.]

14 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Campaigning

A consultation is currently underway inviting views ongovernment proposals to introduce new offencesconcerning dangerous and careless cycling. In a move

to more closely align motoring and cycling offences, theaddition of causing death or serious injury while cyclingdangerously and causing death or serious injury while cyclingcarelessly are being considered. The consultation asks whetherthere is support for these new offences, for views on theirminimum terms and fines, and whether the proposed cyclingoffences should result in a driving ban in cases where thedefendant is licenced to drive. The consultation runs until 11.45pm on 5 November. Responses can be made in writing or onlineat https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/new-cycling-offences-causing-death-or-serious-injury-when-cycling

This consultation has been prompted by the case of cyclecourier Charlie Alliston, who was jailed for 18 months inSeptember 2017 for knocking over and killing Kim Briggs ineast London. His fixed-gear bike was without front brakes.Although cleared of manslaughter Alliston was found guilty ofcausing bodily harm by ‘wanton and furious driving’, a Victorianlaw intended to deal with reckless handling of horses, usedbecause there is no cycling equivalent to the offence of causingdeath by dangerous driving.

On the face of it the need for an equivalent is clear, to avoidresorting to an antiquated statute, but is it proportionate? Therisks presented by dangerous cycling and dangerous drivingare not equivalent. Without in the least belittling Kim Briggs’tragic death, this case was such big news because it was a rareincident. 2016, the year of Kim Briggs’ death, saw three deathscaused by cyclists, slightly above the UK’s 2.5 average. Incontrast, around 2,000 people, of them 100 cyclists, are killedeach year by drivers. A knee-jerk reaction to tighten lawsaround cycling will do little to improve overall safety forpedestrians and cyclists.

Indeed, it may do more harm than good. Juries are oftenunhappy to convict for dangerous driving because they feel the

Cycling offences consultation

driving has not ‘fallen far below that expected of a normaldriver’. They expect speeding, mobile phone use, pavement-driving and other dangerous behaviour from normal drivers.Take the recent case of Hayley Sterna who crashed into andkilled her wheelchair-bound cousin, Chris Clements. Thoughadmitting to driving with a dirty windscreen, she was clearedof dangerous driving by the jury, her defence stating ‘Whohasn't driven with a windscreen that hasn't been defrosted?Who hasn't not slowed down when the sun is in our eyes?’ Inother words, who hasn’t driven dangerously?

A jury of driving peers is trivial to come by: there is a largeoverlap between drivers and eligible jurors. The same is nottrue for cycling peers. With only around 15% of UK adultscycling monthly, even finding two out of twelve randomlyselected jurors who regularly cycle would slightly beat the odds(on average 1.8 of twelve jurors). So a typical juror might thinkany deviation from perfection by a cyclist should be considereddangerous, yet accept regular poor driving as merely careless.Such a jury cannot ‘apply the standard of an ordinary prudentcyclist as represented by themselves'. The addition of anequivalent offence could be welcome; however, it must bedone in the context of an overall review and clarification ofdangerous and careless offences for both drivers and cyclists.

Cycling UK’s ‘Make it Simple’ campaign at www.cyclinguk.org/cyclesafety calls for this review, along with revisions to theHighway Code, highway design guidance and other measuresto improve cyclist and pedestrian safety. The Ministry of Justicepromised such a review four years ago, but has not yetdelivered, with the cycling offences consultation a furtherdistraction from real action.

An excellent commentary on this issue can be found atwww.beyondthekerb.org.uk/the-law-must-be-fixed-mustnt-it/and you can join the discussion on Cyclescape thread 3877 tohelp inform the Camcycle response to this consultation.Tom McKeown

15 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Campaigning

16 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Cambridge Festival of Cycling celebrated across city

The month-long Cambridge Festival of Cycling kicked off onSaturday 1 September with a social ride to Eddington. A groupof around 50 friends, families, marshals and volunteers bravedthe sunshine and idyllic conditions to join in with the fun.

The ride wound through the city centre, along the delightfulsegregated Coton Path and via West Cambridge. With such alarge group, our pace was naturally quite leisurely; we may havebeen overtaken by an enthusiastic jogger at one point!

We ended up at the Brook Leys nature area for a picnic,where Caf-fiend of Cambridge and Verrecchia Ice Cream cargobike traders were there to make sure all adults were caffeinatedand the kids were loaded up with sugar.

ITV News Anglia came along to cover the ride so membersof the Camcycle team and ride participants appeared on thenews that night.

As a newcomer to Cambridge, it was a great opportunity forme to get to know some of the lovely nearby trails and meetthe people involved with the Campaign. I’m looking forward tothe many other events lined up for the festival!Liz Irvin

Events

Social ride to EddingtonSaturday 1 September 2018

The Cambridge Festival of Cycling was launched to celebrate the city’s cycling culture and raise awareness of Camcycle and ourmission for more, better and safer cycling. A month-long series of events took place across the city in September. It attractedboth new and familiar faces to everything from social rides and cycling exhibitions to a Family Cycling Event, Bikes and Bloomerstalk and the first ever Cargo Carnival! Here we report back on some of the key Camcycle events.

17 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Events

Africa by the container-load for just £95 a bike. When the costof delivering the bicycles from the port to the rural villages isincluded, a bicycle delivered to a school-age child costs £135.However, the bicycles don’t arrive fully assembled. They arrivein boxes, and the mechanics build them up in Africa.

The charity also supplies bicycles for other NGOs, especiallythose providing local health services. Such services enablehealth workers to visit more families in remote villages per daythan they previously could, expanding the reach and quality ofthe healthcare. They also sell the bicycles directly to end-consumers in these countries and provide micro-financing toenable entrepreneurs and farmers to expand their availablemarkets. Most people in these counties can move around onlyon foot. Walking miles to school, or the local market, with onlywhat you can carry, is neither productive nor a good use oftime. A bicycle increases the speed of travel four times and alsoallows people to carry more at the same time.

World Bicycle Relief has delivered 400,000 Buffalo bicyclesand trained over 2,000 mechanics to build and maintain thesebicycles. The charity has already noticed that bicycles are beinghanded down within families and, together with other NGOs,has noticed that the prosperity of the areas they have beenable to touch has been improving. Small enterprises have alsostarted making accessories for the bicycles, including trailersfor moving immobile people to local health care facilities.

If you would like to donate to them, please go to theirwebsite at worldbicyclerelief.org/en/Robin Heydon

At our September monthly meeting, Alec Seaman from WorldBicycle Relief gave a fascinating overview of the work that theyhave been doing giving bicycles away to those who need themthe most.

This started after the 2004 Sri Lankan tsunami created ahuge need to enable people to move around Sri Lanka. Theoriginal plan was to raise money from donors to purchaselocally sourced bicycles. These bikes didn’t last very long asthey were being used to carry large loads that they weren'tbuilt to cope with. Soon, Sri Lanka recovered enough not toneed World Bicycle Relief's help and the charity was encour-aged to move into Africa.

The move to Africa, and the disappointing experience ofcommercially available bicycles, led the charity to design itsown. World Bicycle Relief also decided to be a mobility charityand not just a bicycle distributor. This meant that they not onlydesigned the bicycle, but also created a whole supply chain forspare parts and trained mechanics to fix them if they did break.

World Bicycle Relief worked with local governments andvillage leaders to determine which villages would benefit mostfrom their services and who from those villages would be givenbicycles. However, the bicycles are not free. Each person,typically a child in the last two years of their schooling, wouldbe provided with a bicycle for those two years and if theyattended school it would become theirs at the end of thosetwo years. This increased attendance in schools by 28% andboosted academic performance by 59%. Most impressively, itwas the young girls who benefited most, continuing theireducation, marrying later, and thus being able to control whenthey started a family of their own.

The design is key to how this whole operation works. Calledthe Buffalo Bicycle, it has a single speed with a backpedal brakefor the rear wheel. This means that the handlebar is just a bar,with no additional cables for hand brakes or gearing. There areno lights, because in most of the countries where they aredistributed people don’t travel after dark. The bicycle is a plaingauge frame rather than a more modern butted frame becausethis is much easier to repair. It has a standard one-inch threadedheadset, a square tapered bottom bracket, and a standard seatpost. The idea is that parts should be easily sourced not justfrom World Bicycle Relief or one of their trained mechanics,but from any other supplier of parts.

There are two key components of the bicycle that make itstand out. The first is that the frame has a small downward kinkjust in front of the seat post. This allows people in moreconservative countries to ride a bicycle in skirts without riskingloss of dignity. This small design choice makes a huge differencefor the girls and women who ride these bikes. The second isthe remarkably strong rack over the rear wheel and rear centrestand, which is designed to carry a load of 100kg. This couldbe the charcoal that you’ve just produced, the agriculturalproduce you need to take to market, or a couple of your friendswho need a lift.

The bicycles use strong wide wheels and have mudguards.They are manufactured in Taiwan by Giant and shipped to

World Bicycle ReliefTuesday 4 September 2018

18 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Events

Bike seats, trailers, children’s bikes, a cargo trike that could fitsix children, a triple tandem made just outside Cambridge andeven a comfortable rickshaw (dubbed the ‘sofa bike’ by one ofthe kids): these were just some of the options on offer to tryat the Camcycle Family Cycling Event, held at The Grove Schoolon the afternoon of Saturday 15 September. Cycle specialistsOutspoken Cycles, Power to the Pedal, The School Run Centreand Circe Cycles had brought so many exciting types of cyclethat it was hard to persuade families to go inside for the panelevent, but there was a lot to look forward to when they did.

We were delighted to welcome family cycling championsRuth-Anna Macqueen from Hackney and FamilyByCycle fromWellingborough to join our panel of Cambridge experts. Thepanel answered questions on everything from how to stay safewhen cycling with your child on the road to the best kit forchildren when cycle touring. Other topics covered includedcycling with newborns, the best bikes to get children cyclingindependently and how to consider the cycling requirementsof children with special needs. It was also inspiring to hearabout the Hackney Family Library set up by Macqueen, apopular monthly initiative offering free hire of cycle equipmentto local families. The event finished with a presentation by KatieJones of FamilyByCycle, a family passionate about cycle touringwho recently cycled with their two young daughters on trailerbikes from Land’s End to John o’Groats. Many families at theevent had followed their progress on social media and weredelighted to meet the family in person and later watch themtearing round the playground in a selection of cargo bikes!

Feedback from the event, which also included a quiz andcolouring sheets for the children, has been really positive, withattendees also suggesting new ideas for a follow-up day nextyear. This was the first time such an event had been held inCambridge and we were pleased to welcome families new tocycling and several familiar faces. Thank you to all those whosupported the event, the volunteers who made it happen andOutspoken Cycles and Power to the Pedal for their sponsorship.Anna Williams

Camcycle Family Cycling EventSaturday 15 September 2018

'Priorities for children and for bikes are good priorities forhappy politics,' said one of the interviewees in the film ‘WhyWe Cycle’, which explored the hidden benefits of the cyclingculture in the Netherlands, a place where cycling is as normalas breathing. Psychologists, economists, architects and otherspecialists gave evidence that cycling delivered much morethan just health, environmental and financial gains. Creativity.Improved mental health. A more open public culture. A moreegalitarian society.

To an upbeat soundtrack, the audience in the Storey’s FieldCentre in Eddington watched teenagers chat and giggle on theirway to school, older cyclists smiling in the countryside as theycruised past fields of bright tulips, a pre-schooler learning toride his first bike and a marketing manager who cycled to clientmeetings in Amsterdam. Cycling was normal, unremarked-uponand even, in some cases, a form of ‘conspicuous non-consump-tion’. In a country where people were less concerned aboutdisplaying their status through their possessions, it was normalto ride a beat-up old bike in everyday clothes. For the Dutchprime minister and royal family, this meant that to be seencycling made them seem real and down-to-earth. Not sodown-to-earth that it wasn’t important to be captured oncamera doing so though!

For me as a Cambridge cyclist, the film reflected some ofthe good bits about our city's cycling culture and gave inspira-tion for the areas we need to work on. In the Netherlands,dedicated cycle roundabouts soared above the roads andschoolchildren swooped into a huge on-site cycle park built fortheir needs. The filmmakers discovered that cyclists oftenignored designated routes. They moved like murmurations ofstarlings, seeking variety and social interaction. Cycling gavechildren early independence and teenagers safe space to growup. It exposed people to diversity and turned streets intoquality spaces to spend time in. The benefits to a city reachedfar beyond transport.

As the movie drew to a close, discussion began amongst theaudience on how we could improve infrastructure with inspi-ration from the Netherlands, and convey Cambridge’s owncycling culture on film. We already have several videos frompast years and launched a new one, ‘Welcome to Cycling’, atthe beginning of the evening. This video is an animated versionof our popular leaflet. Both video and leaflet were developedwith support from the Co-op Community Fund. Thanks go toillustrator Alison Norden and volunteer voiceover artist HelenEast for their help with this project. As students return toCambridge, we’ll be rolling it out across social media to givenew cyclists top tips on safe and considerate cycling in the city.

Thanks also to all who supported the film screening; toMacDaddy and Tribecca for delicious pre-movie food and drink,to the volunteers who helped on the night and with promotion,and to Storey’s Field and Eddington for having us. We’ve hadseveral requests for another screening and hope to be able toshow the film again soon. Watch this space!Anna Williams

‘Why We Cycle’ film screeningFriday 14 September 2018

19 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Events

A few highlights from the 2018 Cambridge Festival of Cycling.

20 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Events

We were delighted to welcome over 70 cycles on our parade aspart of the Camcycle Cargo Carnival, the flagship event of theCambridge Festival of Cycling. Held on World Car Free Day, it wasa great way to showcase sustainable transport within cities andcelebrate all the things that can be transported by pedal power.

The majority of the riders travelled on cargo bikes, demon-strating the many different options available from three-wheelersladen with children in fancy dress to two-wheelers carrying a dog,a garden shed and even a beehive. Our favourite was Caroline andCosmo’s Bakfiets bubble bath (left) with balloon and cotton woolbubbles, plus dressing gown and loofah accessories!

The cycle procession travelled from Lammas Land to the citycentre and back, where several cycle specialists and cargo biketraders set up ready to talk to visitors. Event sponsors OutspokenCycles, Power to the Pedal and the Greater Cambridge Partnershipwere joined by local businesses Stir Bakery, Beanissimo, Verrechiaice cream, Bespoke Carpentry, Overstream Clean, The School RunCentre and Circe Cycles. St John Ambulance also came along withtwo of their specially-designed bicycles loaded up with life-savingequipment. You can find out more at our next monthly meetingwhen Tom Daly, their Regional Operational Cycling Lead, will beour guest speaker.

Cambridge MP, Daniel Zeichner, who attended the event, said,‘On World Car Free Day, it’s great that the city’s cycling communityare showcasing what can be done on a bike. If we want to tackleclimate change and dangerous levels of air pollution then we willneed to seriously think about how all parts of our economy canoperate in a greener and more sustainable way’. One of the parentson parade, Andrea Constable, said, ‘The kids really love ourKangaroo bike and thought today’s Cargo Carnival was great fun!We can’t wait for next year’s parade’.Anna Williams

Cargo CarnivalSaturday 22 September 2018

Bikes and BloomersSaturday 29 September 2018It’s not often that you sit in a historic church watching a lady standon a chair to reveal her undergarments, but then Bikes andBloomers was no ordinary event. The audience sat rapt as Dr KatJungnickel explained how a handful of innovative Victorian women‘made their bodies fit cycling’. They worked around the social andsartorial constraints of the times to create practical and yetrespectable items of cycle wear.

At the end of the talk, re-creations of some of the items ofclothing were tried on, with one pair of bloomers being fitted toCatherine Thompson, head mechanic at Outspoken Cycles. Shehad previously given us a highly entertaining and informative guideto puncture repair (she has a great tip for getting tyres back onwithout using tyre levers). The talk was accompanied by plentifultea and cake supplied by members of the Cambridge LadybirdsWI. There was an opportunity to burn off the flapjacks, chocolateand pecan brownies and lemon cake later, as Camcycle led a shortride around town ending outside the Senate House. This wasexactly where protestors had burnt an effigy of a woman on a

bicycle in 1897. Over 100 years later the mood had changed – thistime it was just pure celebration!Anna Williams

21 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

22 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

Our newsletter – how things have changed

When I first joined theCambridge Cycling Campaignthe newsletter was, apart

from the cover, black and white. It was,as now, A4 size and contained photos onmost pages, and looked quite profes-sional. I got involved, helping with proof-reading and going along to the newsletterreview meetings. The editor was thenMark Irving supported by a very capableteam, some of whom are still contrib-uting, though new people have joined usand others have moved on.

A few years later I was persuaded totake over as Newsletter Editor, beingelected at the AGM on 7 November2007, and the first issue I did wasNewsletter   75 (December   2007 toJanuary 2008). In design it changed littlefor the next 24 issues. Usually we aimedat 16 pages, some were more substantialif there was a lot to cover, occasionally itwas only 12 pages. But I believe thequality of the content and productionwere consistently good – due to the highstandards of those involved.

What did change was the method ofputting together the newsletter. Awebsite called Ensembling was not intro-duced until January 2009 when it trans-formed things, thanks to David Earl whocreated the software. Until then news-

letter editing entailed between 200 and300 emails, many with draft articlesattached or saying things like

‘All in the first paragraph:’‘much different’ --> “very different”‘or that I do’ --> ‘nor that I do’‘sharp body’ --> ‘sharp object’

With Ensembling, commentscould be made online which wasmuch easier, and the volume ofemails decreased. But somecontinued, chasing authors for arti-cles, asking them to respond tocomments, and constantlyreminding people of copy dead-lines! Some things don’t change...

The big change under my editor-ship came in February-March2012. To mark the 100th issue, itwas completely redesigned and infull-colour throughout. The coverphoto went right to the edge ofthe paper, maps were muchclearer and adverts more eye-catching with colour. It cost moreto produce but we sought moreadvertisers and felt it was worththe investment. We were alsoawarded a small grant thanks to one ofour members.

Now, another 40 issues further on,there have been more changes. I stepped

The trophy presented to us for BestCharity Magazine at the CambridgeCommunity Magazine Awards.

down at the end of 2014, to bereplaced by Sarah Rodger. During herstint the newsletter was redesignedwhen Camcycle introduced its newbrand with Newsletter 126 featuringthe new orange logo. What has notchanged is the amount of hard workthat the editor, designer, authors,photographers, copy-editors andproofreaders all put in and the resultinghigh quality of Camcycle’s newsletter.

Winning the Cambridge BuildingSociety’s Best Charity Magazine awardwas richly deserved and the judgeswere rightly ‘amazed at the variety ofcontent’.

Congratulations to those involvedand I am sure the Camcycle newsletterwill go on being an award-winningnewsletter produced to professionalstandards by a hard-working team ofvolunteers supported by our charity’semployees.Monica FrischNewsletter Editor, November 2007to November 2014

Our 100th issue (above) which was the firstfull-colour publication. On the next page isa selection of 23 years of covers.

23 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

24 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

What’s next for our award-winning magazine?

From its humble beginnings as a four-page black and whitenewsletter to the current full-colour magazine full of photos,the bi-monthly publication from Camcycle has always been

our key campaigning tool. It’s the way we update members aboutour work, convey our vision to stakeholders and decision-makersand share the benefits of cycling with wider audiences in andaround Cambridge. Whether you leaf through a copy in the libraryor doctor’s surgery, read from cover to cover in an office in ShireHall or browse through articles online, we are extremely proud ofthe 140 issues we have published since July 1995 and evenprouder of the many volunteers who have brought each to life.

The move to a quarterly formatIn June, having just won Best Charity Magazine at the CambridgeCommunity Magazine Awards, you might have thought we’d takea moment to relax and enjoy the rewards of our hard work. Butthe appearance of the bi-monthly print deadline soon put paid tothat idea! The need to juggle schedules and content as wesqueezed in the important position piece about our vision for MillRoad (which has gained lots of media coverage since its release)has made us think again about what this publication is for and howwe produce it. ‘News’ comes out much more frequently than everytwo months via our email newsletters and social media channels,as well as our members’ forum, Cyclescape. Key volunteers havebeen hard to recruit recently and, when we approached a potentialnew editor and were asked if we’d ever considered moving to aquarterly format, we thought again about changes that mightimprove the magazine. As a result, from the next issue (outDecember 2018), we have decided to move to a series of fourseasonal issues per year. We have two new editors on board, RosieHumphrey and Adam Jenkins, who will direct the transition to alarger, higher-quality magazine which sets the standard for a newera of award-winning content. We’ll continue to update you onthe latest Cambridge cycling news and our campaigning work whilefeaturing articles on personal experiences of cycling, cycle touringand holidays and specific focuses such as inclusive cycling or cargocycles. But we’ll also be making improvements, adding new regularfeatures and making it clearer how you can get involved with eachcampaign and support our work.

We’re already busy behind the scenes planning the new formatand content, but we’d also love to hear your ideas! Tell us whatwe do well, what you’d like to see more of, or something you’veseen in another charity or membership magazine that you thinkwe should do too. Even better, get involved! Join our newmagazine team and help shape this essential campaigning tool.We’re currently in need of layout designers and web editors tohelp us translate the words we receive into vibrant pages ofcontent in print and online. We’d also welcome new writers,photographers or illustrators: show us what matters to you bybringing your cycling issues and experiences to a wider audience.Camcycle is one voice for nearly 1,300 members and many tensof thousands of others who cycle in the Cambridge area. Help usensure we are doing the best job we can for them all.Anna Williams

Get involved!If you have ideas for our new magazine or would like to getinvolved, write to us at contact@camcycle.org.uk or● share content ideas on Cyclescape 4264● volunteer on Cyclescape 4266● track magazine progress on Cyclescape 4265● suggest an advertiser on Cyclescape 4268.

We are delighted to welcome new members Adam Jenkins andRosie Humphrey to the team as co-editors of the new magazine.

Monica Frisch, John Hartland and Ann Newton: three of ourcurrent newsletter volunteers who have contributed a hugeamount to this key campaigning tool.

In early September, the team of magazine volunteers met tocelebrate past success and share ideas for future publications.

25 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

A great big thank you!

We are extremely grateful to the teams of volunteerswho have written, produced and delivered thenewsletter over the last 23 years and converted it

to HTML for the website. Many volunteers have been involvedfor years and years (see the Post-it note alongside), tirelesslycontributing their time and energy in support of the goal ofmore, better and safer cycling for all. Founder member ofCambridge Cycling Campaign, Clare Macrae, gave a goodround-up of early contributors in the 50th celebration issue,including David Earl, Mike Smith, Jonathan Whiteland, PhilipMorley and Mark Irving. Recent magazine heroes includeMonica Frisch, Sarah Rodger, Matthew Danish, Bev Nicolson,John Hartland, Tim Burford, Ann Newton, Ken Warner and SulaArmstrong, as well as the many prolific article-writers over theyears among whom Jim Chisholm certainly deserves a notablemention. To everyone who has contributed and continues tocontribute to this work, thank you! It has helped made a hugedifference to the city we live in.Anna Williams

Post-it noteIf you're reading this newsletter in its printed format, then itwill have been delivered to you in a less than colourful brownenvelope either by mail (with a stamp) or by hand (withouta stamp) in which case courtesy of a group of loyal part-timeposties.

Back-track a bit, and the magazines have arrived from theprinters. Address labels get stuck onto envelopes, envelopesget stuffed with magazines, magazines are stacked andsorted, ready to go. And it all works.

The person who for the previous 18 years has heroicallytaken responsibility for this part of the paper trail that is theCampaign newsletter team effort is Lisa Woodburn. Fanfare!Every couple of months the call goes out to us posties tocome and help, stuff and collect. Sure of a friendly welcomeand lively chat, even the occasional chocolate biscuit, every-thing somehow gets done and put in good order.

Now after 18 years and over 100 editions of the maga-zine, Lisa has decided to pass this task on. An enormousthank you, Lisa, and many more miles of happy cycling.Evan Turner

26 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

Ellie Gooch‘I live in Cambridge and I am a studentat the University of Oxford, so Ispend my life immersed in the cultureof cycling, and have developed quitea passion for it. I started volunteeringat Camcycle at the start of thesummer, and it has been a fun, flex-ible way of filling my summer withinteresting work.

‘The Camcycle team has been soinviting and has consistently tried tohelp me get the most out of myvolunteer work, which has involveddeveloping our city-wide cyclingsurvey and promoting it around thecity, writing an article for the maga-zine and helping to organise eventsfor the Festival of Cycling.

‘I have been living in Cambridge forless than a year, so volunteering atCamcycle was a great way to getinvolved in the issues affecting thecity and to gain an insight into thetireless work of a charity trying tomake Cambridge an even nicer placeto live.’

This summer, Ellie has been aregular in the Camcycle office. Shehas been working on the CambridgeCycling Survey by researching similarprojects, producing survey questionsand distributing survey leaflets. Elliehas also been supporting the organi-sation and planning for theCambridge Festival of Cycling, as wellas creating content for the magazine.

With her help we have launchedthe Cambridge Cycling Survey,covered bike sharing, leafletted bikeshops and even organised the Whywe Cycle film event.

Simon Nuttall‘I got involved with the Campaign atthe time when cycling was banned inthe centre of Cambridge during themiddle of the day. I thought that waswrong and I wanted to add my voiceto a group that wanted to right that.I stayed working with the Campaignbecause I found it was made up ofpeople determined to use the demo-cratic process to bring about change.’

Volunteer spotlightAs most people know, Simon has

been involved in the Campaign forsome years now. But this summerSimon has worked tirelessly toproduce the pilot street cycle parkingsurvey and the subsequent fullsurvey for the Romsey area. He hashad several meetings with the countycouncil, and as a result of this hardwork the new resident parkingschemes will include cycle parking atthe informal consultation stage.

In addition to this, Simon single-handedly delivered the pilot surveyto residents on Catharine Street. Healso led a team of volunteers todistribute the full survey to residentsin Romsey. With Simon’s persever-ance we have pushed the street cycleparking project onwards and hope wecan make even more of an impact.

Liz Irvin‘I have been an enthusiastic cyclecommuter since 2012, when somecycling colleagues of mine suggestedI ride the 8 miles to work instead oftaking the bus. After a few months Iwas hooked: not only was I fit, strongand saving money, I could eat all thecake I wanted! I started volunteeringfor Bicycle Network in Australia, thenwhen I moved to Canada I worked fora trails organisation on their cyclingprogrammes. I have just moved toCambridge and I'm extremely excitedto live in the cycling capital of the UKand be involved in the communityhere.’

Liz recently joined Camcycle andbegan volunteering as soon as shesigned up: she has been researchingvenues for our upcoming AGM, andworking on the Mill Road visionproject. She has also been supportingthe street cycle parking project bydistributing leaflets in Romsey. Onthe social ride to Eddington, Liz wasthe first  aider, without whom the ridemight not have gone ahead.

Kiu Li‘I enjoy cycling very much andadmired the great work by Camcycleto improve cycling for everybody, forall ages and all abilities.

Ellie delivering the Cambridge CyclingSurvey leaflets to bike shops.

Simon delivering leaflets for the streetcycle parking project.

27 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

‘Volunteering for Camcycle to helppromote and publicise Cambridge’scampaigning on everyday and leisurecycling culture to more people is funand rewarding.

‘Cycling has so many benefits onmany levels such as physical andmental health, lower air and noisepollution, I want to help spreadmessage of the positives for thebenefit of everyone.’

Kiu worked hard to help plan theroute for the social ride that kickedoff the Cambridge Festival of Cycling.She secured the alternative meetingspot for the start of the ride, openingthe event up to even more attendees.Kiu has also been a huge help for theFestival, giving her time and energyas a volunteer to support our events.Emma Pritchard

Kiu at the Eddington Festival sharingwhy she loves cycling.

Liz turning her old workplace into anofficial Ontario By Bike venue.

Volunteer opportunities

Now it is your turn to getinvolved and supportCamcycle as one of our fabu-

lous volunteers, without whom wecould not continue our importantwork for more, better and safercycling in and around Cambridge.

Being a volunteer can be arewarding experience, whether youare supporting our events as amarshal, working on the stall bike oreven contributing to our award-win-ning magazine. There are lots ofopportunities to volunteer for theCampaign in a number of differentroles, all of which are hugely impor-tant.

Magazine volunteersWe are looking for a whole host ofnew writers to contribute to therefreshed magazine. This is a majorcampaigning tool, largely producedby volunteers, and its high-qualitycontent is read by our members,influencers, councillors and the

general public. We also need a volun-teer to take responsibility for themagazine layout as it transforms to aquarterly format. There are opportu-nities in the development of thewebsite and we will need some keyvolunteers to turn the content of theprint magazine into HTML and blogposts so that word can get out acrossdifferent platforms and reach newaudiences.

Flexible rolesThere are plenty of other opportuni-ties to get involved, including distrib-uting our Cambridge Cycling surveyby handing out leaflets until 31October. This role is very flexible: youcan give as much or as little time asfits your needs, but it is still an impor-tant role, with the survey resultsinforming our future strategy.Another important role is helpingwith refreshments at our monthlymeeting, a great opportunity to getto know fellow members.

Mill Road opportunitiesWe are looking for some volunteersto come along and help out at ourMill Road workshop on Monday 26November so that we can try tomake our Mill Road vision a reality.We also need some volunteers torepresent Camcycle with the newly-branded stall bike at the Mill Roadwinter fair on 1 December. It is vitalfor Camcycle to be present atcommunity events like this, so thatwe can show a friendly face and raiseawareness of the Campaign andwork towards our goal of more,better and safer cycling in andaround Cambridge. Without volun-teers we cannot take part in theseevents. Can you help?

Get in touch on contact@camcycle.org.uk and tell us what youcan do.Emma Pritchard

28 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Dockless bike sharing seems perfect for bike-centricCambridge: affordable, green, convenient travel forshort distances. A great solution for the last mile

problem, one-way trips, tourist visits, and people without a bikeof their own. With apps like Ofo and Mobike, you should beable to find a bike, scan its QR code and be on your way in notime.

Ofo, which launched in Beijing in 2015, chose Cambridgefor its first expansion beyond Asia. I spoke with James Timmins,Logistics and Operations Manager at Ofo, who explained thatOfo recognised Cambridge’s rich cycling history and culture,and wanted to bring something new to the mix. He describedhow Ofo’s introduction gave everyone in the city access to abicycle, and could encourage the take up of cycling by peoplewho, before bike sharing, hadn’t had an affordable way to tryit. We discussed Ofo’s evolution in the city since its launch inApril 2017, and the lessons they have learnt. Even though appslike Ofo and Mobike (which launched in Cambridge thissummer) are taking a step beyond the inconveniences ofdocking stations and hire shops, the actual implementation ofdockless bike sharing seems to be a challenge at times.

Unsurprisingly, dockless bike sharing first appeared inAmsterdam, in the 1960s. A protest group called Provospainted fifty bikes white and introduced them to the city, freefor anyone to use, as part of their ‘White Bicycle Plan’ forimproved transport. In 1993 Cambridge also attempted asimilar scheme. The 300 green bikes released by the city councilwere also free to use, but soon most had been stolen, hidden,dumped, or vandalised. Within months the council had nochoice but to abandon the scheme.

Vandalism and misuse of shared bikes is still a significantissue today. In France, the bike sharing company ‘Gobee’ hadto shut down after 3,400 bikes were damaged and 1,000 werestolen. In the UK, Mobike recently pulled out of Manchesterowing to high levels of misuse.

Ofo’s 700 yellow bikes in Cambridge are not always well-loved either. It is not unusual when walking through Cambridgeto spot discarded locks or a shared bike locked up like apersonal bicycle. Searching for Ofo bikes often involves thefrustration of broken, trapped or hidden bikes. Recently, Icycled home from town on an Ofo bike with one pedal. Myvigilante brother once retrieved from someone’s front gardenan Ofo bike with cardboard jammed in its lock to extend its useindefinitely, and my sister bagged a free ride after finding anOfo bike with no lock at all. Many Ofo bikes have ended up inthe river, and I have even seen one broken completely in half.

Essentially, this is a ‘tragedy of the commons’ problem. Welive in a society in which our respect for something dependson our interest in it. People take care using and parking theirpersonal bicycle, because they have a stake in whether itfunctions and whether it gets stolen. On the other hand if theydamaged an Ofo or Mobike, they could just find another one,and if they parked one in the middle of the pavement, theycould carry on with their day as if nothing had happened.

These shared-use products, scattered throughout the streetsas if they are publicly owned, are also unlike anything people

Dockless bike sharing

Features

have seen before. We are used to products being on a shelf,behind counters, or, in the case of bike sharing, in a hire shopor docking station. Freely available products can prove tootempting for vandals. Timmins maintains that a lot of theproblem relates to this relative newness of the shared-use bikesin Cambridge. ‘People don’t vandalise cars’, he pointed out,because people are used to their presence and respect their

right to be parked on the road, undisturbed. Perhaps with time,the fascination with destroying Ofo bikes will decline.

Pony, a bike sharing app operating in Oxford, uses a better-quality model of bicycle than Ofo and Mobike, that costs awhopping £200 to manufacture. This compares with Ofo bikes,which the Oxford Mail reported to be worth £80 (July 2018). Ispoke with Isabela Nomura, a member of the Pony team, whoclaimed that Pony has very few cases of bike misuse, and a highstandard of maintenance, which involves checking every singlebike at least once a week. It is difficult to gauge the actual levelof vandalism experienced by these companies without seeingoperations behind the scenes, but I spent months living inOxford, and I never once saw a vandalised Pony bike. The onlybad press I can find is a Pony parked on top of a bus shelter(which is quite funny really).

Meanwhile, Ofos and Mobikes can be found abandoned andrusting by the Oxford canals. This suggests to me that eitherPony’s better-quality bikes encourage respectful use, or thehigher cost of the bikes creates more of an incentive for Pony’steam to look after them. I suspect the latter - and their new‘Adopt a Pony’ investment scheme puts even more pressureon them to ensure each of the 650 bikes is in good shape. On

Ofo bikes and Mobikes.

29 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

the whole, however, there is much less vandalism of sharedbikes in Oxford than in Cambridge, which suggests that theculture of the city has a big impact on their fate. Pony is wellaware of this; when I asked Isabela about expanding to othercities, she explained Pony’s wish to ‘grow slowly’ to ensure that‘the Ponies are well accepted by the community’.

If Ofo cannot manage to stay on top of the vandalism andmisuse in Cambridge, either they will spend so much money onfixing bikes that it is not economically viable, or the yellowbicycles will become so unreliable as a means of transport thatpeople will stop using them. Ofo has a team of ‘marshals’ inCambridge for this purpose; they work at night to assess faulty

bikes reported to them, and either fix them or take them to adepot for repair. Ofo and Mobike have points schemes topunish misuse and reward helpful contributions, and Mobikealso requires a £15 deposit upon joining. Unfortunately, pointsschemes and deposits affect only legitimate users, and a lot ofthe damage caused to dockless bikes is by vandals who are notusing the app.

Docked bike sharing is an alternative which avoids a lot ofthe issues Ofo has experienced. Since its launch in 2010,Transport for London’s bike sharing scheme has been verysuccessful, with security measures which ensure that bikes arenot mistreated. The bicycles are connected to payment cards,so if they go missing or are damaged, users are charged up to£300. Most importantly, the docking stations ensure that bikescannot be stolen or damaged by those who have not unlockedthem.

Timmins thinks that part of the success of the London bikessponsored by Santander (formerly by Barclays and also onceknown as Boris Bikes) is its years of operating experience, andthe refinements it was able to make. He pointed out that Ofois still learning about the patterns of ‘wear and tear’, having notbeen around for as long. The UK operating teams learn fromthe way bikes break and send feedback to their Chinesemanufacturers for quality improvements. The location tech-nology in the bikes has been improved in the past year too.Over time, the Cambridge Ofo team has come to know the

areas of the city where problems arise most often (which canthen be checked more frequently) and they have learnt moreabout user habits and popular areas, enabling improvement ofthe distribution of bikes. So, give it a few years and thesedockless bike sharing apps could be just as successful as thedocked London bikes.

Or perhaps more successful? The removal of the dockingstation has huge benefits. A scheme which is reliant on dockingstations can easily run into capacity problems. Users cannotpark their bikes in convenient locations if docking stations arefull. Having to travel further than necessary is annoying forusers of London’s bikes, which charge per 30 minutes. Usersof dockless bikes can park wherever is convenient. Timminsalso cited the benefit of Ofo being able to adapt more easily tochanges in demand than a system reliant on infrastructure. Thecompanies are also able to save on the costs of this infrastruc-ture, and so offer lower prices.

Given that people in Cambridge initially feared they‘wouldn’t be able to walk down the pavement’ (Timmins), Ofosand Mobikes seem for the most part to have blended well intothe city and into the city’s culture. As long as there is consistentand committed marshalling to look after the bikes and maintaintheir reliability as a mode of transport, a degree of vandalismis a price worth paying for both bike-share companies and forresidents, owing to the flexibility it allows and the potential itoffers the city.

Nomura notes that ‘incentivising people to cycle, in partic-ular for short journeys, and as part of a longer journey, is a wayof tackling [air pollution and traffic congestion] problems’.Everyday cycling encourages a healthier lifestyle, shared itemshelp to develop a community spirit, and it is positive to seepeople cycling who otherwise might not. Timmins proudlydiscussed the ability of Ofo to enable poorer communities toaccess Cambridge’s cycling culture.

Time will tell whether the benefits to dockless bike sharingfirms in Cambridge outweigh the costs, and if so, whetherregular use of dockless bike sharing becomes a popular alter-native to owning a bicycle.Ellie Gooch

Ponies.

Captured Ofo bike.

30 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Is hi‐viz clothing harmful?

A sizeable number of people don ‘hi-viz’ or some form of‘conspicuity-garb’ when cycling. Such garb is evenrecommended by the Highway Code, though not legally

mandated. But is there a scientific basis for recommendingconspicuous clothing, or is it simply a matter of wishfulthinking? I looked at several recent scientific papers to findout more.

The seven outfits tested by Walker et al. (2014); the casualoutfit used either a woolly hat or a sports cap depending on theweather.

Tin et al. (2015). The role of conspicuity in preventing bicyclecrashes involving a motor vehicle.

The authors surveyed 2,438 people who took part in the2006 Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge in New Zealand andcombined that with follow-up surveys over the following sixyears, connecting their data to police records of highwaycrashes. They divided the respondents up into four catego-ries of conspicuity-garb usage based on the answers to thesurveys:● Class 1: ‘usually conspicuous, by day and night’.● Class 2: ‘often conspicuous by day, does not cycle at

night’.● Class 3: ‘occasionally conspicuous, by day and night’.● Class 4: ‘rarely conspicuous during the day, but

conspicuous at night’.Among other results, they found that the ‘usually conspic-

uous’ Class 1 riders were most likely to be involved in a crashwith a motor vehicle, at an average rate of one crash every73 person-years. The people least likely to be involved insuch a crash were the ‘occasionally conspicuous’ Class 3riders, at an average rate of one crash every 146 person-years. The most dangerous part of New Zealand was foundto be Auckland, where Class 1 riders experienced a neardoubling of risk, tempered by a slight reduction in risk forClass 3 riders, but in general there were many fewer cyclistsin Auckland than other parts of NZ.

Verdict: wearing hi-viz was correlated with higher risk ofcrashes, especially in Auckland.

Rogé et al. (2018). Does a yellow jacket enhance cyclists'sensory conspicuity for car drivers during daylight hours?

The authors conducted experiments using a fully immer-sive urban driving simulator built within the cabin of aPeugeot 208. LCD screens were mounted over everywindow. Participants were asked to drive through a diverseset of road situations, in daylight conditions, with a widevariety of scenery and other road users introduced in arandomised but controlled order.

Each driver was tested by many different encounters withcyclists, who were displayed in the simulation wearing eithergrey street clothing or a conspicuous yellow jacket. Thescenarios were broadly categorised as ‘high cyclist visibilityscenario’ in which the cyclist was positioned almost directlyin front of the driver, and ‘low cyclist visibility scenario' inwhich the cyclist might be off to the side or out of the directline-of-sight of the driver.

Drivers were asked to record the moment that theynoticed the cyclist in a given scenario and then rate howeasy or hard they thought it was to see the cyclist. Thesimulation recorded two objective measures: the distanceof the cyclist when first noticed and if the driver thencrashed into that cyclist.

The results found that drivers hit yellow-jacketed cyclistsat a slightly higher rate, regardless of scenario, although thedifference was not statistically significant. Similarly, whenparticipants rated their ease of detecting the cyclist, therewas no significant difference based on the colour of theirclothing. Clothing was only a significant factor in one set ofsituations: for the ‘high cyclist visibility scenarios’ the driverswere able to perceive the yellow-jacketed cyclist at a longerdistance (while still hitting them at the same rate). However,the yellow jacket was not helpful in the ‘low cyclist visibilityscenarios’, which are considered to be the scenarios wherehelp was needed most.

The authors surmise that one reason the yellow jacket ispointless has to do with the fact that the human eye haspoor colour perception in peripheral vision.

Verdict: hi-viz made no difference in avoiding crashes.

Features

31 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Prati (2018). The effect of an Italian nationwide mandatoryvisibility aids law for cyclists.

In October 2010, Italy passed a law requiring that cyclistswear ‘high visibility’ clothing when riding after dusk andbefore dawn, in addition to cycle lights. The law specificallysays, in rough English translation: ‘cyclists riding outside ofcentres of population between half an hour after sunset andhalf an hour before dawn, or riding in tunnels, must wear aretro-reflective high-visibility gilet or bretelle’.

The author studied road crash statistics from before andafter the law was passed. She found that the law had noeffect on the number nor on the proportion of bicyclesinvolved in road crashes. She offers three possible explana-tions:● in fact, ‘high visibility’ clothing is pointless and useless;● Italian cyclists may have resisted the requirement en

masse;● or, any gains were lost when motorists drove more

dangerously around cyclists whom they assumedwould be ‘more visible’ (a.k.a. the ‘risk compensation’effect).

Verdict: the mandatory hi-viz law in Italy is pointless.

Miller et al. (2017). Use of conspicuity aids by cyclists and riskof crashes involving other road users.

The authors looked at cycling-crash cases fromNottingham University Hospitals and for each one contactedthe patient for an interview to understand more about theperson's riding style and personal choices about conspicuousclothing at the time of the crash. After successful interviewsthey then went out to the site of each of those crashes andsurveyed random people who were found to be cycling therein a similar manner to the patient, in order to gather 'controlcases' for comparison purposes. Surveys included questionsabout colour of clothing, helmet usage, type of riding, cyclingexperience, and various demographic and personal profilecharacteristics. Some interesting results were discovered:● ‘Riding a racing or mountain bike rather than a

commuter or folding bike was associated with a signif-icantly increased crash risk.’

● ‘Cycling during overcast conditions or at dawn or duskwas associated with a significantly lower crash riskcompared with daylight.’

● ‘[Persons injured] were more likely to live in adeprived area.’

● People with rule-breaking personality types wereassociated with having slightly fewer crashes.

● After filtering out other factors it was found that‘there was an increased odds of a collision crashassociated with use of conspicuity aids.

The authors suggest that these results may be due to a‘risk overcompensation’ effect at work. In short, eitherpeople who wear conspicuity-garb may take more risks onthe road or drivers may make unsafe assumptions and takemore risks around people wearing conspicuity-garb.

Verdict: hi-viz may be harmful owing to the ‘risk compen-sation’ effect and the use of hi-viz is significantly associatedwith higher risk of crashes in Nottingham.

Walker et al. (2014). The influence of a bicycle commuter'sappearance on drivers' overtaking proximities: An on-road testof cyclist stereotypes and high-visibility clothing in the UK.

This is a famous study in which the authors gathered dataon a bicycle fitted with a sensor that recorded motoristpassing proximities. Over the course of six months the riderrepeatedly followed a 26 km route in the southeast ofEngland while wearing one of seven specifically designedoutfits, chosen randomly each day. These outfits (shownabove) were identified as follows:● COMMUTE: a plain light blue cycling jersey● CASUAL: regular clothing and a hat● HI-VIZ: bright yellow cycling jacket● RACER: racing-style red cycling jersey and lycra tights● NOVICE: yellow reflective vest with words 'Novice

Cyclist Pass Slowly' on back● POLICE: yellow reflective vest with words 'POLICE-

witness.com - Move Over - Camera Cyclist' on back.● POLITE: yellow reflective vest with words 'POLITE

Notice Please Slow Down' on back.A total of 5,690 overtaking events were recorded, fairly

evenly spread across the outfits. The average passingdistance was 117.5cm. All the outfits were treated aboutthe same by drivers, except the one labelled POLICE, whichenjoyed a 4.5cm increase in average passing distance.Furthermore, no matter what the rider was wearing on anygiven day, approximately 1-2% of drivers came within 50cmof him.

Verdict: hi-viz was found to be useless against close passes.

Additional thoughts: arguably all of the outfits except theCASUAL one could be considered conspicuity-garb. Yet, theonly significant change in behaviour observed was corre-lated with the one-letter difference between the words‘polite‘ and ‘police’. This suggests that conspicuity-garbserved no role; drivers even had sufficient time to contem-plate a word they read on the back of a vest, and changecourse accordingly.

SummaryIn summary, recent scientific research casts severe doubt onhi-viz clothing and other forms of conspicuity-garb. Someresults indicate that hi-viz may even be harmful and associatedwith increased risk of collision. This is especially alarming giventhe unquestioned yet unearned status that hi-viz currentlyenjoys in British and American culture. A local school head-master has recently even penalised children for not wearinghi-viz, an action that in hindsight may have been harmful to thechildren.

The Camcycle position is simply that clothing choice is upto the individual. What really matters is safe infrastructure:improving driver behaviour by slowing motor vehicle speedswhere mixed with people cycling, and otherwise separating andprotecting people from higher-speed traffic. This is also theDutch and Danish approach, nations where hi-viz penetrationis near-zero, and cycling safety is far superior to the UK. Hi-vizis doing a lot of harm whenever it distracts politicians fromsupporting safer infrastructure.Matthew Danish

Features

32 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Over the last few years, a new online tool for LocalAuthorities and campaigners has been developed,called the Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT).

The PCT is designed to help transport planners and policy-makers to prioritise investments and interventions to promotecycling. It answers the question: ‘where is cycling currentlycommon and where does cycling have the greatest potentialto grow?’.

It has been developed by an academic-led team involvingthe universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Westminster.

The PCT lives at www.pct.bike - check it out!

Overview - where should we prioritiseinvestment?The PCT is a strategic planning tool. Different visions of thefuture are represented through various scenarios of change,including the Department for Transport (DfT) draft CyclingDelivery Plan target to double cycling in a decade and the moreambitious ‘Go Dutch’ scenario, wherein Dutch cycling levelsare reached in England (allowing for English hilliness and tripdistances).

By showing what the rate of cycling could feasibly look likein different parts of cities and regions, and illustrating theassociated increase in cycle use on the road network, the PCTshould inform policies that seek a wider shift towards sustain-able transport.

The PCT can also be used at a smaller scale. The chosenscenario’s level of commuter cycling along a particular road canbe used to estimate the future modal share for cycling on thatcorridor. This can be compared with the current road layout,and used to consider re-allocation from less sustainable modesto cater for cycling growth. In other cases, low current orpotential flows may indicate a barrier, such as a major road orrailway, lengthening trips. This could be addressed through newinfrastructure such as a pedestrian and cycle bridge.

Central to both strategic and smaller-scale use is the ques-tion of where to prioritise high-quality cycling infrastructure ofsufficient capacity for a planned growth in cycling.

In summary, the PCT is a planning support system to improvecycling provision at many levels from regions to specific pointson the road network.

Using the Propensity to Cycle ToolThe PCT is best understood by using it to explore currentcycling levels, at regional, area, desire line, route and routenetwork levels. We will take a look at how the PCT works ateach of these levels, after a brief look at the scenario results at

Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT)the regional level (the scenarios are described in more detail inan academic paper – see references at the end).

Under the 2011 Census scenario, the PCT represents levelsof cycling to work based on the Census. This is a reasonableproxy for levels of utility cycling overall. The team usedorigin-destination (OD) data from the Census as the basis ofthe PCT, as this is the best publicly available dataset on Englishtravel patterns. The input data are described in the paper andcan be freely downloaded from the official UK Data Servicewebsite.

The regional picture and scenariosThe first thing the user sees on the front page is a map ofEngland, broken into 44 regions. We deliberately used fairlylarge regions because successful cycling plans should be

strategic and joined up, covering both large areas and largespans of time. This discourages the stop-start investment plansthat have typified funding for active travel.

By hovering over different regions, the user can see whatthe current level of cycling to work is. We can discover forinstance that Cambridgeshire has a relatively high (but low byDutch standards) level of cycling of 9.7%, but that WestYorkshire has a low current level of cycling to work, 1.3% inthe 2011 Census.

A key feature of the PCT is its ability to allow the user toimagine ‘cycling futures’. This can be seen on the front pagemap by clicking on the different scenarios (set to Census 2011by default). We can see, for example, that under the govern-ment target to double cycling levels by 2025, West Yorkshire’slevel would rise to 3.3% (more than a doubling) whereasCambridgeshire would see cycling levels grow to 13.7% (alarger rise in absolute terms):

Under the Go Dutch scenarios, these regions would see23.1% (for Cambridgeshire) and 13.5% (West Yorkshire) ofpeople cycling to work. This represents a huge levelling-out ofcycling levels across the country, but still highlights the factthat some regions have higher cycling potential than others,owing to average trip distances and levels of hilliness.

Features

33 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Cycling levels by regionClick on a region such as Cambridgeshire. This shows the levelsof cycling to work from the 2011 Census for each area of thecounty.

It shows that Cambridgeshire as a whole has fairly moderatelevels of cycling to work, hovering around 5% in most places,well below Cambridge and the surrounding area. As we getnearer to Cambridge, there is a cluster of zones with higherlevels of cycling, but the percentage of people cycling as theirmain mode of travel to work reaches about 15%.

Cycling potential at the desire-line levelThis is all useful information, especially when we look at howthe cycling potential could shift in the future. However, itprovides little information about where current and futurecyclists actually go.

This is where the desire-line level can be useful. This can beselected by clicking on the Straight Lines option from theCycling Flows dropdown menu. The results (zoomed in fornorth Cambridge) are shown on the map below.

What the above figures show is that as the level of cyclingincreases in a city, the spatial distribution of cycling can beexpected to change. Under current conditions (whether relatedto socio-demographics, culture, infrastructure or other factors),cycling in Cambridgeshire is dominated by the Cambridge area.Yet there are clearly many short trips taking place into the city,as illustrated by the high cycling potential around the city underthe Go Dutch scenario (here shown without the desire linesswitched on):

Features

34 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Features

ScenariosThere are in fact four scenarios presented, each of whichenables us to predict the effect of cycling levels based ondifferent levels of potential investment:● government target: models a doubling of cycling nation-

ally, corresponding to the proposed target in the EnglishDepartment for Transport’s draft Cycling Delivery Planto double cycling in England between 2013 to 2025;

● gender equality: seeks to capture a situation in whichgender disparities are eliminated;

● Go Dutch: what would happen if areas had investmentbringing the same infrastructure and cycling culture asthe Netherlands;

● e-bikes: models the additional increase in cycling thatwould be achieved through the widespread uptake ofelectric cycles, built as an extension of the Go Dutchscenario.

Allocating cycling potential to the routenetworkWe know from Census data how many people cycle from A toB, but we have very little idea of how they are likely to travel.This is where the routing algorithm of www.CycleStreets.netcomes in handy. The PCT uses the CycleStreets cycle routingdata interface (API) to estimate the ‘fastest’ route for all short(well, up to 20 km) desire lines in England.

Not only does www.CycleStreets.net allow us to find all thefastest routes, It also represents a good indication of wherenew infrastructure should be built, as people (especially womenand the elderly) have a strong preference for cycling along themost direct routes.

The result of all this routing work is illustrated in the futurescenario above, which shows the fastest and quietest routesassociated with the most-cycled routes in Cambridge.

Closer detailPerhaps the most important layer of the PCT is the LSOA RouteNetwork layer (LSOA stands for ‘Lower Layer Super OutputArea’, covering roughly 3,000 people), which provides a nation-wide map of cycling potential at the route network level.

This is illustrated under 2011 and e-bike scenarios in centralCambridge in the figure below. Note the high levels of cyclingcorrectly identified in the potential bottleneck at the railwaycrossing, highlighting the importance of Mill Road bridge:

Only the passage of time, and people's commitment (hope-fully informed by models such as the PCT) to sustainable travel,

will help turn the estimates of cycling levels under variouscycling futures (including Go Dutch) into reality.

Future plansFuture DfT-funded plans for the PCT include a ‘Schools layer’that will estimate cycling potential to school. This will help flagresidential routes and ‘orbital’ routes in need of infrastructureto complement the networks highlighted by commuter cycling,which tends to emphasise arterial routes into major employ-ment centres.

A related new project, the Cycling Infrastructure Prioritisa-tion Tool (CyIPT), has been developed to prototype level. Thisaims to suggest specific infrastructure that could be achieved,rather than the broader areas that the PCT provides. See:www.cyipt.bike.

More informationYou can get updates about the tool at www.blog.pct.bike. Toview the underlying source code, please visit www.github.com/npct – the codebase and models are all open source.

ReferenceLovelace, R., Goodman, A., Aldred, R., Berkoff, N., Abbas, A.,Woodcock, J., 2017. The Propensity to Cycle Tool: An opensource online system for sustainable transport planning. Journalof Transport and Land Use. 10:1, 505–528, DOI:10.5198/jtlu.2016.862.Martin Lucas-Smith

35 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018

Campaign Diary

City and county council committees

Campaign members may be interested in attending councilmeetings. Planning Committee and Area Committee meet-ings often include cycling and walking issues. DevelopmentControl Forum and Joint Development Control Committeemeetings determine planning applications relating to majorhousing development proposals.

Agendas are usually online about a week in advance atwww.cambridge.gov.uk/democracy. Please check thewebsite in case meetings have been cancelled, or times orvenues changed.

Development Control Forum 10 October, 14 and 28November at 10am in Committee Room 1 & 2 - TheGuildhall, Market Square, Cambridge CB2 3QJ.

East Area Committee No meetings are planned for thisperiod.

Greater Cambridge Partnership Executive Board 6December at 4pm in the Council Chamber, The Guildhall,Market Square, Cambridge CB2 3QJ.

Greater Cambridge Partnership Joint Assembly 15November at 2pm in the Council Chamber, SouthCambridgeshire Hall, Cambourne CB23 6AE.

Joint Development Control Committee - CambridgeFringes 24 October and 21 November at 10.30am inCommittee Room 1 & 2, The Guildhall, Market Square,Cambridge CB2 3QJ.

North Area Committee No meetings are planned for thisperiod.

Planning Committee 3 October and 7 November at 10amin Committee Room 1 & 2, The Guildhall, Market Square,Cambridge CB2 3QJ.

South Area Committee No meetings are planned for thisperiod.

West Central Area Committee 29 November at 7pm inCanterbury Hall, St Augustine’s Church/Community Centre,99 Richmond Road, Cambridge, CB4 3PS.

Camcycle monthly meetings and events

The Campaign's monthly general meeting is held in theFriends Meeting House, Jesus Lane, on the first Tuesday ofeach month. Business starts at 8pm, with tea and coffeefrom 7.30pm. The agenda includes opportunities to discusscurrent issues and planning matters. All are welcome.Camcycle may take photographs and videos at these meet-ings. These may be used in our publications, advertisements,media releases, website and social media. The video footagemay be livestreamed on Facebook.

2 October: General meeting with guest speaker Tom Daly,Regional Operational Cycling Lead, from St John Ambu-lance. The meeting will also include a screening of our newWelcome to Cycling video.

6 November: General meeting with guest speaker JamesPalmer, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

11 December: Camcycle Winter Social. 6.30 pm at Thirsty,Chesterton Road

19 January: Camcycle AGM. 10.30 am at Clay Farm Centre,Trumpington.

Camcycle magazine dates

We welcome members’ help with our magazine, includingwriting articles, taking photos, providing reviews and layingout content. If you’d like to get involved, please followCyclescape 4264 and 4266 or contact us at contact@camcycle.org.uk

Copy deadline for the first issue of our quarterly format isSunday 28 October.

Magazine distribution will be the week of 26  November.Members organise the newsletter distribution, putting intoenvelopes and then getting them delivered. More volunteerswould be a great help. Please email contact@camcycle.org.ukif you can support this work.

Cambridge cycle rides

CTC Cambridge holds up to six rides a week in the country-side around Cambridge. These range from short, leisurely-paced rides which last 2-3 hours on a Saturday morning,medium-length rides on a Sunday afternoon, to long rideson a Thursday or Sunday that last all day. All welcome.ctccambridge.org.uk

#CamRideHome rides start at 6pm on the last Friday of themonth from outside The Mill pub on Mill Lane, Cambridge.No one takes responsibility for organising it so it justdepends on who turns up. Usually a few do and they enjoya one-hour leisurely tour of the city finishing up at a pub.Follow the hashtag and enjoy.

Please noteCamcycle reserves the right to decline to promoteevents or activities where helmets or high-visibilityclothing are required or implied.

36 CAMCYCLE October – November 2018