At a time when it looks like our love of cycling is being reborn in the UK, we have looked back on cycling our history and where we perhaps went wrong.
From the late Victorian period onwards the bicycle represented freedom. But what changed this? And why did our love of cycling fade for such a long time?
It is suggested that it was (and still is) our car culture that saw to the demise of bikes across Britain. Civil engineer and planner Professor Colin Buchanan wrote a highly influential transport report for the government in 1963, when cycling in Britain was virtually non-existent. The report recommended that nothing should be done to encourage urban cycling. Instead Buchanan’s report led to the rise in motor infrastructure, building towns for motorists. It was thought that providing an infrastructure which included cycle lanes and parking would pose safety hazards and disrupt the free flow of traffic. All this was in addition to the point that it would be too expensive to do so.
Since the 1950s sales of bikes in the UK had been decreasing reaching an all-time low of less than 200,000 by the end of the 1960s, so the suggestions in Buchanan’s report were no surprise. But cycling in the UK has really made process since then. To put this into context, today around 2.5 million bikes are sold every year.
How did cycling make it’s come back?
Cycling found a new stage in the 1970s and sales quickly began to increase. This was fuelled by the cultural icon the Raleigh Chopper – the one must have item for children in the 70s. Since then there has been no looking back for cycling. The popularity of the sport / hobby / method of transport has continued to rise since the 1970s.
However, we have been left we a gap in our cycling infrastructure. Britain still lags behind cycling fanatic countries such as the Netherlands who, whilst we turned towards the car, kept pedalling on their bikes.
The Netherlands designed their towns and cities for bicycles first, cars after. And other cities have gone Dutch. With the help of bike share schemes such as the ever popular Boris Bikes and Santander Cycles in London, cities across the world have embraced the Netherland’s cycling spirit. As of May 2011 the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle bike share schemes in China were the largest in the world, and the Vélib in Paris the next largest outside of China.
So, how do we continue the cycling success?
The introduction of the popular bike share scheme has been a good start. It has enabled people to take a bike from point ‘A’ and then return it to point ‘B’ for a small charge, not surprisingly increasing the popularity of cycling. The new addition to our public transport system has proved itself to be a worthy investment.
As we mentioned in our last blog we now have our own campaign pushing for the British Government to #ChooseCycling when it comes to deciding the Transport budgets. The campaign is asking the government to put 5% of the transport budget aside to invest in cycling infrastructure. The Cycling to Work scheme has also encouraged more of us to start cycling to work. What we need next is investment from public authorities and businesses to provide secure cycle parking.
Let us know what you’re thoughts are on cycling in Britain and how you think we can improve our cycling infrastructure.