The Times Cycling Campaign

Here is an update on the Times Cycling Campaign progress from Rhoda Buchanan, a collegue of Mary's at The Times

"The Times newspaper has been campaigning hard for a change in urban cycling provision since Mary’s accident last year. We’ve got a few victories in the bag, but there is a really long way to go if we want to shake up the shoddy road infrastructure that led to Mary’s small and fragile bike sharing road space with a cement truck.

Nearly 40,000 people have signed up to our campaign and nearly 3,500 have written to their MP to demand better cycling provision.
£30 million in extra funding has been released by the Department for Transport to improve dangerous junctions. Norman Baker, the Transport Minister, has slashed bureaucracy to help councils fix life-saving mirrors at junctions and Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has floated the idea of creating cycle lanes in the sky.
But it is still not enough. We want to see two per cent of the transport budget dedicated to providing world class cycling provision. Mary should have been able to cycle to work safely - and so should the thousands of others who cycle to work or to school every day, taking their chances amongst the lorries, cars and buses.

In a busy city, we would never expect pedestrians to share space with cars and very rarely with bikes. So why do we think that it is safe or appropriate for bikes to share space with HGVs and cars? In my view, the simple answer is that it is not. Some countries, such as Denmark and Holland, are ahead of us in working this out and have city-wide dedicated cycle lanes.

So what is The Times doing next? As party conference season approaches, we has teamed up with Sustrans, the cycling charity, and the Freight Transport Association (FTA) to address the future of cycling. “Sharing the road safely” (with The Times and the FTA) is a discussion that will take place in the Transport Hub at each party conference:
Liberal Democrats (Brighton), September 25 at 1pm.
Labour (Manchester), October 1 at 1pm.
Conservative (Birmingham), October 8 at 7.30pm.
“2030: a vision for cycling” (with The Times and Sustrans) will take place at the Conservative Party conference on October 7 at 2.30pm and the Labour Party conference on October 2 at 2.30pm."