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Children, Cities, Cycling, Environment, Europe, Life and style, Mayoral elections, Netherlands, Politics, Society, World news - February 12, 2019

'We need more people to go by bike': meet Amsterdam's nine-year-old junior cycle mayor

As the world’s first junior cycle mayor, Lotta Crok wants to draw attention to the obstacles kids on bikes face – and inspire other children to cycle

During Amsterdam’s chaotic rush hour, nine-year-old Lotta Crok cycles to a very busy junction. “Look,” she says. “There’s traffic coming from everywhere. Four trams from four different directions. For a child on a bike that’s really confusing!”

Lotta is the first junior cycle mayor in the world and her working area is the Dutch capital. It is her mission to inspire children to cycle every day and draw attention to the obstacles that kids on bikes are facing.

A city that’s good for an eight-year-old is also good for an 88-year-old

Scrapped HS2 bike path 'five times better value than HS2 itself'

Campaigners argue that the business case for the project was a ‘no-brainer’

A scrapped “emerald necklace” cycleway up the spine of the country alongside HS2 would have delivered a return on investment of up to five times greater than the rail project itself, an FoI request has revealed – but neither the government nor HS2 Ltd will fund it.

A 50-page report outlining the business case for the national cycleway, obtained by the Guardian, reveals health, congestion and economic benefits of between £3 and £8 per £1 spent. The return on investment of HS2 itself, meanwhile, is just £1.5-£1.7 per £1, according to the National Audit Office. Campaigners say completing the cycleway should have been a “no-brainer”.

The right bike for the right person: a lesson from Isla Rowntree

The Islabikes founder’s new range of bikes for those aged 65-plus shows how different people can often have very different cycling needs

On the Bike Blog we do wang on quite a lot about the vital importance of safe infrastructure to get more people cycling, and with very good reason. But there’s another aspect also worth considering: having people on a suitable bike.

Why did this occur to me? Because of a chat with Isla Rowntree, the eponymous founder, head and design supremo for Islabikes, who has spent 13 years thinking about how bikes can be made easier and more fun for children to ride, and is now branching into intended bikes for older people.

At that point in time, I think children’s bikes had reached an all-time low in terms of their functionality and the riding experience. They were really heavy, because they had great big fat tubes to make them look like adult mountain bikes, but made of steel, and very often some kind of faux-suspension that added another couple of kilos, huge numbers of gears that young children couldn’t understand.

They seemed to have gone away from the shapes that fit an actual child – huge, long cranks, brakes that they couldn’t reach and with springs so heavy they couldn’t pull on them.

I thought: again, there’s a group of people here to whom cycling is a really important thing, but are struggling because they can’t get the most appropriate bikes for their currents needs. It was really as simple as that.

That’s the beauty of living next door to my parents. They won’t go out too far any more on their own because they can’t get the tyres off if they have a puncture to change of inner tube. I say to them, ‘Call me if it happens, I’ll come and fetch you,’ but they’re too proud.

It’s that practical detail that you only get to think about if you’re around people who are actually at that stage and struggling with it. And that’s the kind of thing I get really excited about. It might seem a bit obscure, a bit techy, but I know it’ll make a real difference to those enthusiast cyclists who are still going off on rides.”

Government will miss its cycling target by a mile. It's time to invest

Activists want 5% of transport spending to go on active travel, as happens in Scotland

It is possible a million or more people have cycled past the Houses of Parliament in the past 12 months, but you could be forgiven for thinking this has gone unnoticed by those on the other side of the black railings.

On Wednesday, as the cycle superhighway through Parliament Square whisked commuters to work, inside, the transport select committee heard the government would miss its cycling target. It is predicted to achieve just a third of the 800m hoped-for extra cycling trips by 2025, with much of that predicted growth restricted to London.

How London is aiming to become the world best big city for cycling | Will Norman

I reject the suggestion that the capital’s action plan contains nothing new

Two weeks ago, the mayor of London and I spent a morning cycling with the leader of Enfield council looking at their excellent new protected cycleways and secure bike parking hub at Edmonton Green station. Together we unveiled Transport for London’s new cycling action plan, which aims to make London the world’s best big city for cycling and to double the number of cycle journeys in five years.

The launch follows the publication of this year’s TfL business plan, in which Sadiq Khan demonstrated his continuing commitment to cycling by not only protecting the record level of funding for cycling, but increasing it from an average of £169m to £214m a year. This commitment is despite central government’s complete withdrawal of the £700m annual operating grant, which has left TfL in a tough financial position, compounded by the delay and increased cost of Crossrail.

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'We need more people to go by bike': meet Amsterdam's nine-year-old junior cycle mayor

Scrapped HS2 bike path 'five times better value than HS2 itself'

The right bike for the right person: a lesson from Isla Rowntree

Government will miss its cycling target by a mile. It's time to invest

How London is aiming to become the world best big city for cycling | Will Norman

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