42 Bikes

Consider this:

My bike parked in the new bike stand at St Peter and St Paul School Syston, Leicester when I was there to take an assembly this morning (so at 10am everyone was in school, no more bikes to arrive).

Notice how popular cycling to school is (not!. 3 bikes and a scooter plus mine. That is less than 1 cyclist for every 2 classes). The reason is obvious in my video of the so called “Safe Route to School”.

So the route is terrible. Bad infrastructure such as Leicestershire County Council have installed here in Syston is a waste of money because:

• it fails to encourage people to take up cycling because it still does not look or feel safe or convenient (see the picture at the top for proof)
• it is not used by existing cyclists because
  • it is not safe,
  • it puts them in conflict with pedestrians
  • it makes their journeys much slower

In addition bad infrastructure like this creates conflict:

• between drivers who think cyclists should be on the cycle infrastructure (or even on the pavement) even though it is dangerous (or illegal)
• between pedestrians who feel less safe on the pavement because cyclists are allowed to ride on shared paths
• between pedestrians and cyclists who do not feel safe on the road and so always ride on the pavement even when illegal (using the excuse that the places where it is legal are actually no different from the other pavements)
• between children who want to cycle and their parents who do not feel it is safe
• between drivers and parents wanting to get their children to/from school safely but who are frighted by the large number of cars around the school entrance