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"Cycling Cultures: summary of key findings and recommendations"

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "
    SCPHRP @SCPHRP

    MT @harryrutter Fascinating Cycling Cultures report http://bit.ly/LFn13y [pdf] @CyclingScotland @CyclingEdin

    "

    Cycling Cultures: summary of key findings and recommendations

    Policy Recommendations

    Our project supports other research demonstrating benefits of cycling. Its qualitative approach generated descriptions of multiple sensory, emotional and social benefits, complementing already recognised physical health and environmental benefits. We found many examples of informal cycling advocacy and support networks at a micro and local level, alongside examples showing the importance of more organised support (and of the two complementing each other). Many people in local areas are doing a lot for cycling, from running projects, to lobbying their employers, to lending friends a bicycle and showing them a good route to work. Yet government spending on cycling in the UK remains a long way behind high-cycling countries: if cycling was better resourced, we might be able to leverage and grow local support networks more effectively to reach a ‘tipping point’ where cycling cultures can be generalised beyond specific localities.

    We would stress that our focus on culture is not at the expense of improving cycling environments; both should complement each other. Copenhagen can for example be seen to have a cultural programme supporting cycling alongside its infrastructural programme; with cultural support for cycling a fundamental part of marketing the city to residents and non-residents.

    Below we make fifteen specific policy recommendations relating to the key findings discussed above:

    1. ‘Good places to cycle’ are needed; direct, pleasant routes that feel welcoming and safe throughout.

    http://cyclingcultures.org.uk/Final-report-cycling-cultures.pdf (p33)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Based on findings about cycling, policy and promotion...

    1. Informal peer networks of support are important and policy should seek to maintain or spread these.

    "

    That's us!!!

    http://cyclingcultures.org.uk/Final-report-cycling-cultures.pdf (p33)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. crowriver
    Member

    Very interesting report. Perhaps nothing that would surprise commenters on this forum, we've discussed many of the topics and issues the report unearths. However it is intriguing to see the cultural issues laid out in this form, and to note the regional variations.

    One could make a stab at mapping the various cycling cultures of Cambridge, Hull, Bristol and Hackney onto the Scottish context. Which one most closely resembles Edinburgh I wonder? My guess is Edinburgh occupies a cycling culture zone of its own but probably somehere between the Cambridge and Bristol cultures. Glasgow definitely has some of the Hackney sub-cultures and maybe a bit of Hull too. Dundee? Aberdeen?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. crowriver
    Member

    Some valuable insights, such as this from p.30 on the post-war 'consensus': "Cycling in the UK never became ‘strategic’, in the sense of being part of national state planning."

    Also:

    "When cycling did become part of mainstream public policy, in the 1990s, the perceived role of the state had changed, from providing to commissioning, or from ‘rowing’ to ‘steering’ in the influential words of Davis Osborne and Tom Gaebler. Policy orthodoxy now stated that government should outsource provision and increasingly even planning of services (for example, via the Private Finance initiative). Although the ‘strategic road network’ remained largely controlled by the state, the new policy area of cycling was constructed in accordance with new ideas about policy governance. It was variously outsourced to charities (the National Cycle Network), Non- Departmental Public Bodies (Cycling England), and/or a patchwork of public, private, and voluntary sector bodies (Bikeability). Cycle planning remained localised with cycle networks negotiated locally rather than being seen as having broader national importance (for example, like the proposed high speed rail link from London to Birmingham)."

    This really sums up very well what the real problem is for cycling at a policy level. Things seem little different in Scotland, it has to be said.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Cycling and Society Symposium 2012

    Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th September 2012, UEL

    We are very pleased to have been asked to host the eighth Cycling and Society Symposium. The Symposiums attract academics, policy makers and advocates and encourage critical and creative thinking about practices of cycling. We look forward to welcoming academics and practitioners from a wide range of disciplinary and policy backgrounds.

    "
    http://www.uel-smg.org.uk/Events.html

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Submitted by sallyhinch on 27 August, 2012 - 12:07

    Due to last minute cancellations there are a few places left for the Cycling and Society Symposium which will be held on the 3rd and 4th of September at the University of East London.  If anyone is interested in attending please email Rachel Aldred (r.e.aldred AT uel.ac.uk) letting her know which days you'd like to attend. As well as the symposium proper, there will be a bike ride on the 2nd September in the afternoon.

    "

    http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/news/2012/08/27/cycling-and-society-symposium-3rd-4th-september

    Posted 12 years ago #

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