APPENDIX 41
Memorandum submitted by the Cycle Touring
Club
The CTC has since 1878 provided a voice for
cyclists in shaping transport policy and provision, and today
represents some 70,000 members and affiliates mostly based in
the UK. The use of the bicycle as transport, and its value as
a complementary mode to rail travel are key areas in which CTC
and its members press for recognition and implementation of policy
and projects.
The bicycle delivers a number of key benefits
in moving people in large numbers and to diverse destinations.
It delivers at the level of individual trips, which is close to
that of walking, with minimal demand on resources and infrastructure,
and with immediate use of almost all available roads, tracks and
paths. It is perhaps a testament to this flexibility that a site
survey visit to the Olympic sites along the Lea Valley was made
using a small fleet of bicycles. The bicycle is also immensely
inclusive as transport over 80% of the population can ride a bike,
and bicycles or adapted machines can provide independent mobility
to those who have disabilities, which preclude their holding of
a driving licence.
It is notable that in the evacuation of the
US Gulf Coast, that those on bicycles were able to pass by the
congestion created by the volume of private car traffic, and move
individuals and essential supplies around effectively in conditions
where all other modes had serious operating problems. We are also
aware that in the aftermath of the 7 July bomb attacks London
Underground staff who could get hold of bicycles were able to
get quickly to where they were needed, and there is a suggestion
that a contingency plan including provision for cycling as a means
of rapid deployment when there is a major infrastructure melt-down.
The logical way to ensure this contingency measure is secured,
is to have a functioning cycle network in place as part of the
planned transport infrastructure, which can then provide the resources
for the contingency action of moving large numbers with minimal
infrastructure in an emergency.
The picture of insufficient provision is highlighted
UK-wide by the National Audit Office report Maintaining and Improving
Britain's Railway Stations, which highlighted the lack of parking
for both cars and cycles as a major inhibiting factor for rail
use. This highlights a detail increasingly recognised by those
planning and specifying rail and to a lesser extent bus, services,
where an elementary part of the package has to be consideration
of the whole journey, inclusive of the shoulder journeys between
origin and destination.
Inclusion of all is a high scoring point for
cycling, the ability to cycle is one which has wide application
with approximately 90% of the population able to "ride a
bike" (with a variance by gender). There are also those,
registered as disabled who can use pedal powered personal transport,
in the process they gain greatly improved independent personal
mobility through the use of adapted and specialist machines.
What level of funding will need to be directed
at transport improvements? Will the Government's Spending Agreement
with the Mayor provide adequate funding? What role will the private
sector play in delivering this infrastructure? Will funding be
diverted from other transport projects?
As noted cycling can play a key role in delivering
individual journeys to points of consolidation (to stations and
venues within the Lea Valley, and also at points of origin. In
planning increased commuter cycle parking on London's suburban
rail network, and the prospect of having an established cycle
hire system, also linked to stations, will permit a strategy of
bringing people in to satellite nodes to be moved efficiently
to the main site by rail. This should be viewed both for individual
projects (eg DLR and Crossrail) and the National Rail Strategy
as identified in the NAO report Maintaining & Improving Britain's
Railway Stations.
The provision of cycle parking and bikes for
hire are at last beginning to be presented as viable ventures.
Secured cycle parking can have integral advertising panels, which
in effect can make this facility self-funding, and there are two
useful models of cycle hire which are now functioning in the UK—the
Budgie Transport system, with a manual management system, offering
local enhancement to income and potential for local employment,
and a business plan set out to deliver a not for profit operation
which renews the fleet on a regular basis, offering the old bikes
for appropriate good use. Then there is the OYBike system which
uses a remote operations centre to run a fine network of hire
points—all accessible to any person with a mobile phone.
Further electronic hire systems are offered by media companies—Clear
Channel (Adshel) and JC Decaux have been trying for some time
to set up a scheme in the UK, but the Local Authorities approached
are well aware of the quid pro quo implications in signing up
exclusive rights to advertising on substantial flag and panel,
this being the focus as a known revenue source, rather than the
bikes themselves. Figures vary, but the Paris bid was understood
to have included the provision of between 50,000 and 100,000 pool
bikes to be available for travelling between venues.
The Legacy measure of delivering personal transport—distributing
the fleet of bikes to initiatives which enable people to access
employment or young people to extend their spare time horizons
beyond hanging around on a housing scheme for want of transport,
and access to many facilities, and the further plus point of having
parking and hire bike facilities at rail interchanges. We hope
to demonstrate the effectiveness of bike and rail in the context
of the Stratford and Lea Valley area by encouraging those coming
to the Cycle 2005 and subsequent shows at ExCel to travel to a
convenient station on a direct service and then cycle the distance
to the venue rather than increase the loadings for DLR over relatively
short distances with all that this implies for the operation.
We can also see the value of distant links filling
in gaps which may exist cycling to the NLR and Barking to Gospel
Oak lines from points of arrival in North London, and travelling
across avoiding the Central Zone. One constraint at present is
the platform length limitation to just three coaches on North
London Line trains, when there is a clear need for longer trains
on this line for existing services. These orbital links are undervalued
and saw an increase in patronage following the bombings of 7 July
2005.
To avoid overload of nearby rail and bus services
with short connecting journey use (eg West Ham and then change
to NLR/DLR for Stratford and then any new Olympic station). The
bicycle can deliver a significant enhancement to public transport
systems, especially rail, where the viability of service is detrimentally
affected by a high density of stopping points and a network which
has high volumes of short trip traffic, coming over from a connecting
routes. The potential for this feature is amply demonstrated by
the regular overloading of Victoria Station and the Victoria line
by passengers who could make their onward journey on foot, bus
or bicycle. On foot their range is limited, perhaps with some
irony the DfT in Horseferry Road is possibly the furthest most
people will consider as walkable however with a bicycle and bus
services, commuters going as far North as Euston Road enjoy faster
journeys with greater flexibility and better general journey experience—the
bicycle scoring especially by the fact of its immediate availability
and variable route options. For return to catch a train this no-wait
detail means that a cyclist can leave their activity knowing that
they will be at their train within a consistent and repeatable
time.
Dispersal of cyclists, we again stress is also
almost as flexible and effective as pedestrians so that a large
crowd can be rapidly moved to train or coach transfer.
How will the transport projects needed for the
Games fit into an integrated and long term transport plan for
London? Will the transport legacy be appropriate to the needs
of east London in the next two to three decades?
The ability to provide for individual journey
requirements is a vital way to reduce the demand for resources
to cover every contingency. Comments on the preceding question
cover much of this, and as noted the provision of a large pool
bike fleet will deliver a population of cycles for local use plus
the parking facilities and routes on which to use them, linking
to the venues which remain and the rail stations in the area.
One project from which we can draw experience
on legacy for walking and cycling is the 2002 Commonwealth Games,
which effectively banned all private car travel to venues, and
delivered the crowds with fleets of new buses and completion of
a key off-road cycle path conversion of the Fallowfield Loop Line,
which remains to this day as a popular vein of linear parkland
bringing green space close to many more homes than a simple block
of parkland—the Lea Valley performs much the same function
for the flanks of Hackney Walthamstow, Newham and Tower Hamlets
From further afield the provision for cycling
to collector stations will deliver improved or increased capacity
for their commuter traffic to move to cycling.
What effect will the Games have on security, congestion,
overcrowding, air quality and emissions in London? What impact
will there be on transport in the interim?
The bicycle can provide both a glue and overload
contingency option, the ability to move crowds to a distributed
set of stations on different routes can disperse people to the
train services, but in the event that a service fails and has
to be shut down for a period , the pool bike fleet can be used
to allow passengers to cycle that bit further—as many cycle
using commuters did on the day of the great power failure—using
bikes normally kept at Waterloo to get home considerably faster
than they would if stuck with only a train option. The plan must
consider this as a strategic issue—and from the experience
of 7/7 the operational teams should have the bicycle available
and planned for as the ultimate reserve option for getting to
an incident site, especially where there may be large crowds milling
around.
What lessons for transport can be learned from
the experiences of other Olympic cities?
There are also lessons to be drawn from the
2002 Commonwealth Games and other major events in the UK, especially
where an event has re-oriented itself with regard to private car
access.
What might be in the Olympic Transport Plan?
There needs to be a recognition from the outset
that every journey made is essentially a door-to-door one for
the individual concerned, but the delivery of a high volume of
these individual elements especially where this involves longer
distances and at higher speeds cannot be delivered solely by public
transport system, and the use of private motor cars demands a
huge commitment of resources for parking and dispersal.
We are most concerned at the proposals for 240Km
of exclusive Olympic Limousine lanes on London Streets and the
wasteful 2,500 vehicle internal vehicle fleet for the loop road
and all that this entails we can foresee high levels of risk to
pedestrians and cyclists on the city streets from convoys of fast
moving vehicles being swept along at speeds considerably higher
than the prevailing traffic. An efficient rail connection with
real time information at the points of origin (to ensure the passengers
leave in time to catch a train) and direct walking and cycling
connections which have low impact and reliable journey times.
The venues should also be fully equipped with train and bus departure
information to direct departing crowds efficiently to the stations
where there is capacity or for the next train of a choice from
2 or more.
There has to be a realistic recognition of the
inefficiency of using the private car to move large crowds. The
example of one EC building in Brussels which the city refused
planning approval for with a 2,500 space car park as the effect
of a mass exodus of this many individual vehicles would have seized
up the exit route for several hours. The earlier note on dispersal
for individual routes and re-gathering at transport nodes.
As noted previously the Commonwealth Games held
in Manchester in 2002 provide a useful range of modelling examples.
A further option may be to consider the possibility
of a number of those who are cycling finding no problem with the
ride from Central London and their point of arrival on a long
distance train service. Numbers will be relatively small but given
the expected attraction of the Games these could still put significant
groups of riders onto radial routes from Central London to the
Games venues—all quite likely to be accommodated within
the existing minor roads and paths through North London with no
noticeable impact.
Many goods deliveries around the site will be
of relatively small packages and the committee should examine
measures such as single point delivery for incoming couriers,
as successfully delivered by the BBC at Wood Lane TV Centre. There
are obvious benefits in maintaining site security with this regime.
This in turn can work to run a scheduled service for consolidated
deliveries to each internal location, along with use of appropriately
specified vehicles—if the load is no greater than 50Kg then
a delivery bike with a single rider is a far less costly means
of delivering the same service than a 1,500kg payload van with
a driver. The internal transport, and resource costs for a full
range of options should be reviewed—including the used of
cargo cycles—capable of carrying payloads of up to 250Kg—we
would be happy to introduce the committee to users and suppliers
of the appropriate vehicles.
Will the Olympic Delivery Authority have the necessary
powers, funding and expertise to plan and deliver the transport
infrastructure and services required?
The provision of cycling integration at rail
stations has been fraught with the problem of getting a disparate
group of rail interests to agree—even when they have no
financial commitment to the project. Cycle parking in Kent was
held up for 18 months, an innovative parking & hire centre
at Waterloo was similarly delayed by the failure in getting the
operators and Railtrack (as then was) areas to all agree to the
one agreement. A demonstration of cycle hire in Manchester for
European Mobility Week would have had a perfect location but for
the inability of the parties to approve the siteing of equipment,
a paid for project to provide pool bikes at Park Royal was delayed
by one year because the rail operator refused to negotiate. The
ODA needs to have a means of bringing parties together with a
firmly applied timetable to get agreement and a "majority
vote" option in resolving the typical stalemates which have
dogged many projects.
Provision of access serving human-scale transport
may well include some challenges which will be met in innovative
ways, and a clear procedure and possibly a vetting group for safety
& engineering issues may be needed to process the cases as
they arise without the typical delays we expect in these circumstances—eg
in building a pedestrian route alongside a rail corridor it should
be a simple matter to set down the parameters and do it rather
than seek interminably fro approvals from this or that agency.
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