Build it and they shall come

Build a shop and people will buy things from it.
Build a train network and people will ride it.
Build a house and people will live in it.
Build a playground and kids will play in it.
Build a fast car and people will drive it fast.

I’m going to presume you get what I mean by that. To increase cycling in the UK and to decrease our dependency on motorised transport, which is bad for the environment, we need to build good quality cycling facilities.

If we build these facilities then people will start to cycle. Just look at the stats for the Barclays Superhighway. My opinion of the superhighways is not high, I would want a much better standard of cycling infrastructure, one that would be safer and more enjoyable to use.

What ever type of facility is built, it needs to at least cater for the ‘slower’ cyclist. The cyclist that is a utilitarian, for people who don’t wish to change clothes between bicycle ride and getting on with the rest of the day. Those are the people we need to attract into cycling. I feel that is where the greatest amount of potential is.

Build usable and safe cycling facilities and people will ditch the motor vehicle and cycle where practicable.


3 thoughts on “Build it and they shall come

  1. Also look at the barclays bike hire scheme! Hugely successful and thats without proper infrastructure and has relatively new riders taking on Londons “dangerous” streets!

  2. Sorry to keep clogging your comments with links from Canada, but some evidence relevant to your post, just a couple of days ago an article appeared in our national news about bike congestion in Montreal after ridership grew since they put in high quality segregated infrastructure starting just a couple of years ago. The example given says 5 times more traffic in 2 years.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/06/10/montreal-bike-congestion-problems.html

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