Bike blog | The Guardian – Tagged "Road transport"

Children, Cycling, Environment, Life and style, London, Road transport, Schools, UK news - June 19, 2023

‘In at the deep end’: ditching the car for a cargo bike on the school run

The price tags can be eye-watering for the electric model I need around my hilly London neighbourhood

It’s been 20 years since I last used a bike every day. But I’m returning to cycling because I want to take my children to school and nursery without the horrible sense of guilt from dropping them off in the car, complaints about walking or the juggle of pushchair and public transport at rush-hour.

To replace my car on the daily school run, I need an electrically powered workhorse that will carry two smallish children and the bags of stuff that we lug around wherever we go.

The options, I’m told, are an elongated cargo bike that fits two children on the back, a detachable trailer, or a trike/bike with a giant child bucket on the front.

In an ideal world, it will be powerful enough that I don’t feel dragged down by 30kg of offspring while chugging the household around my hilly London neighbourhood. The longtail electric cargo seems like the best fit for this brief.

There are various “car replacement” bikes on the market with eye-watering price tags. The Tern GSD retails at £5k-plus at the top end. The model I choose to try out is a RadWagon, at the cheapest end of the market, though not actually cheap at more like £2,000 with all the necessary attachments.

My main concern is whether I can keep my wriggling cargo safe. I spend a long time poring over Google maps to figure out a route that avoids buses and sticks to cycle paths and parks as much as possible.

Common myths about what UK Highway Code changes will mean

Cyclists won’t be ‘in the middle of the road’ and there is no new rule on riding two abreast

There is, we are told in the Daily Mail, “fury” over changes to the Highway Code. There is “confusion” among road users. Cyclists and pedestrians will, the more breathless news coverage intimates, have carte blanche to weave across the highways, with drivers held culpable for every mishap.

This is, of course, nonsense. After a weekend of yet more misleading coverage, and with the new rules due to come into effect later this week, here’s a brief, potted guide to what will change – and what will not.

How a myth about London bike lanes and congestion took off

Analysis: delving into news stories linking congestion with cycle lanes shows how troubling myths can escape into the wild

Fairly early on Monday morning last week I got a call from a radio station: could I come on to discuss a study showing London is the world’s most congested city, and this is because of cycle lanes. Hang on, I replied – say all that again?

As it turned out, I never appeared (someone else got the part). But, intrigued, I looked into the research which supposedly showed all this. And that was when things started to get strange.

Opponents of LTNs claim they delay emergency services – but look at the facts

One thing is clear: there is virtually no evidence that low-traffic neighbourhood schemes hold up emergency vehicles

If you were to read certain newspapers for long enough, the message would seem clear: the main cause of traffic congestion is measures to boost walking and cycling – that is, separated cycle lanes, and so-called low-traffic neighbourhoods, or LTNs.

LTNs, schemes to dissuade through traffic on smaller residential streets by filters permeable to people travelling by foot or cycle, but not by private motor vehicle – whether camera-enforced or in the physical form of planters or bollards – are at the centre of a particularly fierce transport-based culture war.

Opponents of LTNs claim they delay emergency services – but look at the facts

One thing is clear: there is virtually no evidence that low-traffic neighbourhood schemes hold up emergency vehicles

If you were to read certain newspapers for long enough, the message would seem clear: the main cause of traffic congestion is measures to boost walking and cycling – that is, separated cycle lanes, and so-called low-traffic neighbourhoods, or LTNs.

LTNs, schemes to dissuade through traffic on smaller residential streets by filters permeable to people travelling by foot or cycle, but not by private motor vehicle – whether camera-enforced or in the physical form of planters or bollards – are at the centre of a particularly fierce transport-based culture war.

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Road transport RSS

‘In at the deep end’: ditching the car for a cargo bike on the school run

Common myths about what UK Highway Code changes will mean

How a myth about London bike lanes and congestion took off

Opponents of LTNs claim they delay emergency services – but look at the facts

Opponents of LTNs claim they delay emergency services – but look at the facts

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