"The train now approaching platform one, runs on elctrickery"

Andrew Jones MP sent me a letter. I get a few from him, they are usually him telling me that mine and his parties views don't really align on a particular issue. Often after I have filled in some online protest or other. In fairness he always replies. I'm glad I'm not an MP, people like me must be a right royal pain in the backside.

Anyway this one was different, he was letting me know he has just made the case in Parliament to get the Leeds to York rail line electrified. Why should this humble, ranting, often unwashed cycle campaigner care? Well if it goes all electrical and whizzy you can run more trains. If you can run more trains you might take some cars off the roads. If you took some cars off the road it might make them easier to cycle on, so thats why I'm in favour. Oh and you have the potential to generate your electricity from renewables which means less pollution than diesel, so its better from a quality of life point of view too. Good on our Mp for making the case. He can count on Cycle Harrogate's support for the initiative but I have one request to improve the bid.

Commuting or holidaying by train and then finishing off your journey on a bike has the potential to take the car out of the equation all together. Thing is getting them on a train in this country is often harder than getting a bottle of water on an aircraft in your hand baggage. That is unless you are lover of really shiny things and can afford a funky, folding Brompton.

What would be nice, no what would be great is if we could build in some bike friendly rolling stock into the proposal. We have spent some money making Harrogate station an easy place to cycle from and its due to get easier when the next chunk of LSTF funding money is spent. If we joined up that with a rail network that embraces bikes rather than treats them like lepers. Then we really would be making our sustainable transport offer a little better than it is at the moment.

Traffic Free Cycling to Hampsthwaite is coming REJOICE

There have been plans afoot to extend the Nidderdale Greeenway to Hampsthwaite for a while now. I blogged about it in August and asked people to email North Yorkshire County Council to show there was demand. About 5 hours later they asked me to tell you to stop emailing as so many people had emailed their inbox was melting.

Anyway I just got this email via the supportive Rebbecca Burnett.

I am currently working on a scheme to improve the surface of Hollybank Lane Ripley to facilitate cyclists which I believe is the scheme referred to by the constituents. If that is the case I can confirm that we have secured funding for the scheme and following local consultation we are working to implement the scheme during the remainder of the current financial year.

So bit of a result that then? Looks like you can do the Harrogate commute from Hampsthwaite after Christmas without seeing a car, yes indeed. Onwards to Pateley Bridge.

The lie of the land - How is making Harrogate a bike town going?

My youngest  son is a cyclist now, he is still a bit wobbly but he is sorted. The odd unsteady start where a pedals flips round and slams his shin. My hand in the small of his back easing him up the steeper hills, whilst I struggle to keep my bike under control. These techniques got him along the Nidderdale Greenway "All by myself." He has a ball when you let him ride round a campsite or somewhere else where there is traffic free provision, Centre Parcs was ace. I wonder if I will let him ride into town up Knaresborough Rd before he can drive up it on his own? I hope so, but not yet, currently its a few billion light years away from  the mayor of Bogota's test. "A cycleway that cannot be ridden by an 8 year old is not a cycleway." Maybe he will just ignore me and get on with it when he is a a little older, you know what kids are like?

There were some wins for bike riders in Harrogate recently. The Beryl Burton is getting resurfaced. Even as I write the smell of fresh tarmacadam mixes with the the musty smell of autumn leaves and blows down from Forest Lane Head. It increasingly looks like Sustrans will be getting the Way of the Roses through Harrogate in a year or two. More news on this soon I hope. That would be fantastic for the cycle tourism economy in town. It would link us to Pateley in the north and Wetherby in the south. That's the traffic free to Spofforth route I was going on about a while ago and even more. People of Harrogate you should hold your arms aloft and let out a heartfelt collective "YES", rejoice we are all winning. These were Cycle Harrogate's original legacy aims and they look likely to be met.

Thanks to everyone involved in making these things happen or at least seem way more likely to happen than six months ago, when they were little more than dreams.
The list of the worthy includes a peleton of stars.

• Harrogate Cycle Action, Lobbying in quiet but from a position of knowledge and experience. A whole team of people here doing loads, local heroes all.
• Sustrans, The UK's preeminent sustainable transport policy working round here and keen to do more.
• Our local media, both the Advertiser and Stray fm Gavin Rutter at Stray Fm doing more than he needed to.  
• Councillor Richard Cooper and Andrew Jones MP both doing their bit to help Beryl get her new overcoat and refusing to take no for an answer.
• North Yorkshire County Council Highways For working with Harrogate Borough Council to find a solution to the problems over the Beryl Burton and for starting to talk to activists upfront something they have not always done.

You all made a difference, but do we stop now or roll with the momentum? No chance on we go, there is much to be done. These original aims were picked because they seemed achievable. One was a relatively simple repair job, the other had already had some work done by Harrogate Cycle Action, I was concerned even these wishes may be beyond us as a town, I am delighted I was wrong. Mark Kibblewhite NYCC's sustainable transport officer wants us to be a bike town, so do I. You know we might just be getting the hang of this lark.

What about Harrogate really catering for local bikey types? Both these two legacy routes get you out of town but the actual day to day making it easy to get about town by bike stuff. To be honest its still done fairly badly. The cycle network that does exist is patchy and often poorly connected to itself. The routes are fairly randomly signed and currently not really promoted at all. Hopefully this will be changing soon.

There is money in the Local Sustainable Transport Fund pot at North Yorkshire County Council  to address signing and mapping issues but we have been waiting an awfully long time for things to improve. I was hoping the tour would fix that. Mark Kibblewhite  of NYCC who is dead keen but who's programme has yet to deliver, tells me signing can't all be done for July as the tour is coming and they are busy. I bet he is right, but that is a tragedy. I hope the remainder of his LSTF programme lives up to its promise too, I wish him well, he doesn't set the rules or the budgets. He just tries to make it happen. Whilst the LSTF programme will deliver some much needed "joining of the dots" for the network. It won't really deliver that much in the way of new cycle routes through or around town. For that to happen we need a change of culture from our Councils. They are now talking a good deal for cyclists but they need to put some meaty policy on the fragile bones of their words.

Where are now? Lets have a look at  Harrogate's main transport policy currently and historically which is the use of the car. It relies on a road network that at rush hour can't cope with the car volumes it experiences and which leads to partial gridlock and high levels of pollution. This is because it was designed and built when cars were rare.  No one not even the Department of Transport are arguing about this. Much of this traffic is local and at the moment there seems to be little strategic planning to effectively reduce this. This costs the town money, if your queuing you aren't spending or making money and indirectly it kills people. No one who puts data before faith is really arguing about these points either. Although they may argue about the levels of effect. Some people say it just the way it has to be.

Walking and cycling with their proven health benefits could reduce these car traffic volumes or maybe in the first instance just stabilise them, but currently there are no council policies that effectively promote these activities amongst commuters, children or the elderly. This despite NICE guidelines calling on local authorities to do just that. This strikes me as wrong and quite a few councillors agree, at least that's what they tell me. They do though tend to suggest that bikes and cars are two sides of an argument and that we can't please both parties. I disagree with that profoundly. I do both, I will always do both, so do most people who ever get on or near bikes. I'm no more anti-car than I am against freedom and the rule of law. I just think we favour cars habitually in urban areas without thinking creatively about how we can make our towns work better. At the moment out of habit I think we are failing cyclists and pedestrians. Oh and some of you people in cars are killing yourselves though ease and the luxury of afluenza.

If you want people other than experienced and skilled cyclists to get on their bikes you need to build a network where this can happen. Safety is the number one reason people give for not cycling, but when more people cycle, less people are hurt as a proportion, there is safety in numbers.

What could be done? Well for a start our councils needs to start debating these issues more often and taking them more seriously. In the past you just got puffing and blowing when you asked for cycling to be encouraged. You were other, you could be ignored, so you were. Recently the mood music is better but there seems to be no cultural shift, yet. A cycling champion on the council would be a start, there are rumours adrift of just such a hero in that sea of noise that is public discourse, watch this space.

Many people scream like Janet Leigh when there is a suggestion we build more houses near Skipton Road "It will make a busy road worse." What if as part of the development we built houses that were connected to town by cycleways?  Does all development have to lead to more car traffic? If that's the problem design it out, build no garages, limit car parking spaces, connect it easily for walking and cycling to shops schools and rail links. Hell if you do a good job I will buy one and run my business thats needs a car out of a lockup somewhere else. Some other soul can then have my beautiful but road-locked, 3 bed semi if they would rather. Kevin McCloud has a business (HAB) that does cool, eco, in-keeping housing that people want to live in. Not the lowest common denominator tat we let mass market developers throw up at the moment. We are an affluent town we built world class buildings for our residents once, why no more?

Why not incentivise people to leave their cars at home through the council tax?  You could track whether they are, or are not commuting as they claim through a phone app, simples, I have a mate who could code it in a week with one eye closed.

What if we looked at the New York Model of a bit of paint and some data modelling to reduce congestion and increase footfall in towns? They have energised their city and more bikes and walking haven't signalled a biblical apocalypse far from it. If you haven't seem the video invest a few minutes its time well spent.

All of this could be done for starters at little cost and you could impact on our congestion problem, improve public health and make this an even nicer place to live. Thing is, If you don't even debate the issues nothing really changes, other than more people making more car journey's because they see it as the easiest and safest option. I'm not blaming drivers for the choices they make. I would just like you to have some other choices. I want my kids and your kids to cycle round this town before they start driving round it. I want normal non-lycra clad slightly overweight people. People with ordinary non-vegetarian, xbox playing, Strictly watching, red wine drinking lives. To get on a bike because its easier than the other options and not because its part of a t-shirt wearing movement.

Harrogate's issue seems to be a desire to maintain a status quo in a world that has changed. Car Journey's have increased dramatically petrol won't be getting cheaper and the solutions currently proposed are about making better roads for cars, rather than giving people alternative choices. The word's big cities have already realised that you don't fix congestion by building roads. You sort it out by prioritising other types of travel. You make it easy and cheap and attractive and people use it. What works for New York and Berlin and Copenhagen, will work for Harrogate but you have to change the way you think about transport and stop solely modelling for car use in town centres.

We could do better. We should do better. We already are doing better, but not better enough, yet. We have a moment in the searing, monochrome light of the world's flashbulbs next summer to start the race. A many stage race I'm sure like Le tour, but then when the moment has passed we have a lifetime to try and make this town truly a bike town. That would be a legacy we could all be proud of. So I will rejoice with you now, for what we have done, but not too much, not  just yet.

The great and the good - towards a cycling strategy for Harrogate

I got invited along to a meeting that Harrogate Cycle Action organised on Monday night at the cricket club. It was about them launching a manifesto to get some things done for bike riders over the next two years.

Whats not to like? These people have longstanding relationships with local government but the relationship has been rather reactive and somewhat dysfunctional recently. The manifesto is an attempt to get a little more strategic for everyone's benefit.

Ten Councillors accepted an invitation and the evening was about trying to get them up to speed on what has been done for all things bikey and what needs to be done yet.  More importantly how they could help. Also how the volunteer and charity sector are currently being under-utilised.

So we got a talk form Hugh Larkin a consultant cardiologist at the hospital about the benefits of exercise and bike riding in particular on health. Hugh did a good job explaining it and it needs saying this video does it even better. Then Mike Babbit  the Sustrans project manager for round here did a bit. Mike did a good spiel on how Sustrans work to get cycle routes built. The idea is that they do feasibility studies so that when cash becomes available local authorities have schemes that they can fund and get stuff built quickly.

Sustrans  really want to get the link to Spofforth sorted and the Nidderdale Greenway extended to Pateley Bridge as the Sustrans coast to coast route the Way of the Roses would then go through Harrogate in one of its variations. It goes through Ripon currently. That would really put Harrogate onto the cycle tourism map. Each person riding these routes spends £30 a day on average. Hey they could spend it here?

Martin Weeks talked through the manifesto and then we had some questions from the great and the good. Some where on the case with cycling some, well weren't, but that was the purpose of the evening so good on them for showing up. I think what came out of the meeting was we need a council led forum to talk about cycling with bike riders. I hope that happens. I am lobbying Don Mackenzie to try and set this up as he is both a county and borough councillor. If you wanted to email him and ask for a cycling/sustainable transport forum/committee as part of local government you can get him here don.mackenzie@harrogate.gov.uk. If more of you email he will either set it up or tell me to get people to stop spamming him. I figure its worth a go.

The other thing I am going to be whinging on about before the tour, is the fact that despite the Council having the money in the piggy bank for a large cycle signing program its not due to happen until 2015. Am I the only person in Harrogate that thinks it might be really helpful if we had good cycleway signage before the tour de france and thousands of the world's cyclists descend on Harrogate next July?

Anyway good on HCA for setting up the meeting and allowing me to suspend my innate cynicism for an hour or two,now back into the fray.

Just some paint and a bit of political will - New york builds a better urban environment for little money

Check out this Ted Talk video its by Janette Sadik-Khan. She and her team in New York City have made a huge difference to the Big Apple's transport network with not much more than some paint, some outdoor chairs and a few bollards. They have made some areas of downtown traffic free and added miles of cycle lane. The clever bit is as their changes were all easily reversible, if they didn't work they could paint over the cycle lanes or pedestrianised areas and try something else or somewhere else. A dynamic solution to congestion and traffic management rather than a slow, highly designed solution with the attendant financial risks.

The argument I hear in Harrogate from NYCC Highways is we have no cash. With this way of working you don't need very much you just need the willingness to try. New York has ended up with greater footfall in times square and loads more people riding bikes, that's a genius solution. All in 8 years. Don't take my word for it watch the video.

Surely this is a way to make our towns and cities more bike and pedestrian friendly without scary levels of investment?

In news Just in- BORIS IS COMING

I wrote a piece recently about how we should have "boris bikes" in Harrogate. I sent my blog to Mark Kibblewhite at NYCC he is their sustainable transport guy and seems on the case. He got back with the good news that just such a scheme will be happening in Harrogate and soon. It will run from the station and its a slightly different scheme called bike and go but all good, I look forward to it.

I also sent my Article to Visit Harrogate and they are on the case to. Angela and John (who is a keen cyclist) are looking at ways of better promoting the whole Harrogate area as a package to tourists. Even better they are keen to work with Cycle Harrogate too especially as the tour is only nine months away now. I'm hoping we can help them with some info about the local cycling scene and what facilities we have for bike riders in our town.

Win, Win