Same problems, different place

US blogger Cycledog writes about his experience of setting up bike lanes in Tulsa.

If you're beginning to get the idea that planning and building a trail network involves a multitude of questions, compromises, competing interests, and protracted bureaucratic infighting, you begin to understand why they're difficult to bring into existence. A trail idea will not meet with universal acclaim. Quite the contrary, in fact. The NIMBYs, naysayers, and simple obstructionists show up at every public meeting. They can be quite vocal, and more importantly from the political classes point of view, they vote.But that's just the political and planning end. Even if you have a trail system, parents have to permit their children to use it. Given the "stranger danger" paranoia that infects so many parents, can we really expect them to let their kids ride a bicycle to school?

There's a couple of interesting points here- the practical problems of dealing with lobby groups representing opposing interests and the battle against the propaganda of danger.

Highway code- in Parliament

Cycle lane, originally uploaded by rich-pix.

News from Parliament, via Theyworkforyou.com

Read what your elected (and unelected) representatives have to say.

Then sign the petition and write to your MP!

Yesterday (17 May) there were questions in the Lords on the highway code changes. Answers were varied, if somewhat predictable. Pro-cycling peers opposed the changes and put up with the inevitable 'cyclists jump red lights, ride on pavements and don't use lights at nights' comments with great patience. The government maintained that "the department is extremely conscious of the need to get this right. I have gone through the wording very carefully with your Lordships; if your Lordships have a better form of wording, we will listen to it. We have been consulting for a very long time on this and are determined to get it right." The debate is well (and amusingly) summed up by this thread on the usenet forum uk.rec.cycling.

10 May Stephen Ladyman repeats the government position in a written answer, asserting that that other rules were amended to afford more protection to cyclists and other venerable road users, but not saying why cyclists' responses to the consultation were ignored.

8 May In response to another question Stephen Ladyman fails to detail how much account was taken of cyclists' responses to the consulation.

9 May 2006 House of Commons cycling debate, containing some indication of the volume of letters to MPs on the Highway Code revision

2 May 2006 'The simple answer is that it will not' says Derek Twigg, when asked if the new Highway Code may force cyclists off the road for fear of legal consequences.

It's high time television started to take cycling seriously

A good cycling piece in the Independent, reporting on some research from Cycling England examining cycling's portrayal on UK television. The comments are just as valid for print media and radio.

It's high time television started to take cycling seriously... - Independent Online Edition > Features: "The more cycling is portrayed as an everyday activity for normal people - on television and throughout the media - the more likely it is that the rest of us will feel more comfortable riding. If driving is always shown to be the default mode of transport for Britons, it will continue to be so."