Recently and curiously in Harrogate, a local shop puts out a sign saying you can park in the cycle lane. Twitter and Facebook go ballistic with righteous fury, the press get involved as does the national cycle media. The shop issues an apology.
Except there were a few more things going on here if you looked. Snooty Frox the shop in question put the sign up and got quite a few bike rider's backs up last weekend. It was picked up on a Saturday morning by Dales Girl on Twitter and by the Monday lunchtime the apology had been issued. So why did the shop think this was ok? Here are my thoughts.
I suspect the shop's customers mainly use cars to get there and the new bit of advisory cycle lane was making parking more difficult. Although there is some adjacent off street parking and a plenty of side street options nearby. It probably never crossed their mind that some of their customers ride bikes too. I heard from a few incensed bike riding customers of theirs who were really annoyed by the decision to put the sign out.
The shop had apparently sought advice over the sign from North Yorkshire Police and Harrogate Borough Council and been told it wasn't illegal. They were right it isn't, but the highway code on advisory cycle lanes says you shouldn't park in them unless it's "unavoidable", whatever that means.
Whatever the story behind the sign, good on Snooty Frox for seeing sense and doing the right thing, they look bigger as a business as a result of their decision, I wish them well.
So Snooty Frox if they were guilty of anything are guilty of seeing cyclists as OTHER (not customers definately) and so making their lives difficult was worth doing if it kept business nice and healthy. From their press release it seems they were miffed at not being consulted over the cycle lane in the first place.
Twitter was fairly quick to condemn the shop over the decision and I was guilty of that too. I suspect they didn't realise how much more dangerous roads become when you have to pull out of the cycle lane, round parked cars and into often quicker moving car traffic. Some of the comments on Twitter though seem just as likely to paint cyclist as separate and other as the actions of the shop. There were people offering the home address of the owner and suggesting graffiti on the sign. I even heard rumour of people suggesting mobbing the shop. I mean they only put a sign out, it's not like they built an elephant trap to catch bikes in the carriageway is it?
The police and the council appear not to have covered themselves in glory either or at least to have changed their minds when confronted with a small media firestorm. Their advice may have been correct to the letter of the law, but it was hard advice to defend morally when vulnerable road users were on the wrong end of their advice. They didn't defend it for long in fairness. I wonder how the original conversations went?
I was surprised and delighted by how many people in Harrogate cared about this and how much social media and the interweb can help speed up the arc of these stories. A few years ago I doubt this one would have got much attention or been resolved in 48hrs. Perhaps I would have got somewhere with a polite behind the scenes softly softly approach rather than the name and shame in public approach? You know what that's not been my experience at all. If you want biking infrastructure in this town it helps if you shout and get the media involved or nothing happens. That has definately been my experience, that's a pity but it's how things seem to be.
This is after all only a fairly small piece of cycleway, that was argued for locally by activists. The kind of fairly low quality provision you get when there is no strategic plan in place for sustainable transport due to poor local government traffic planning. Planning based on prioritising traffic flow and car use in an increasingly congested urban environment. Local government still seem unable to consider the needs of bike riders at the design stage and god knows we are asking them to often enough. It's just not in their DNA yet.
So here we are again playing transport ping pong over these issues. People falling into the familiar old roles of driver, businessperson, bike rider and Offended of Harrogate. What we need to do if we are to move on, is to see everyone as people who do all of these things, some of the time. If we give them, us, you an urban environment that makes taking sustainable transport choices easier they will do it more often. Congestion will ease, people will be healthier and if Portland's experience is anything to go by spend at the shops will increase too.
So after this little diversion in the media spotlight. It shines to other parts of the nation's stage again. We as a town will be back in it's relentless glare in July. Expect one or two more of these type of stories before the circus leaves town. For a little while longer, people care about bike riding in Harrogate
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