Intricate Minglings

Last September my family vowed to abandon its car for the rest of 2018. We kept to that promise and genuinely changed habits as a result.

We’d no longer dream of driving somewhere like Westfield shopping centre, despite the appeal of its massive car park. I jump on my bike to get to places I can’t walk. My children now walk surprisingly long distances and plead to take the train on longer journeys. Indeed, planning complicated public transport journeys has become a popular and contentious family pursuit.

But as 2018 creeps along, the car persists. This is partly because we haven’t had time to sell it. Though I am sure we’d make the jump sooner if there were incentives to scrap it or relinquish our parking space.

Continue reading “Are community cargo bikes the missing link for a car-free lifestyle?”

I’ve deliberated over getting a bike for a while now, but haven’t because I couldn’t work out where to put it. Our hallway is already crammed with children’s bikes and scooters and I know I’d rarely cycle if my bike was kept in my garden, past an awkward gate and a collection of rubbish bins.

But the news that I’ve been allocated a space in a new cycle hangar, recently installed on my street in Hackney, has been the prompt I needed to finally get one. This is one of 211 hangars on Hackney’s streets, each providing space for six bikes protected by key and from the elements. It’s a relatively simple piece of infrastructure, well at least if you compare it to a cycle superhighway or junction improvements, but it is arguably just as important for getting new and existing riders on their bikes.

Continue reading “Bike hangar storage: simple idea, big impression”

It’s great to hear that Sadiq Khan plans to almost double the investment in cycling initiatives compared to the previous mayor of London. It’s also encouraging that he is promoting a commissioner for walking as well as cycling. This surely is signal of an ambition to consider the needs of all road users.

But is ambition (and cash) enough? Boris Johnson’s vision only went so far. He faced massive political and public opposition to his plans for segregated cycle superhighways, leaving many still incomplete. London’s former cycling commissioner, Andrew Gilligan, has also spoken of defeat, labelling TfL’s ‘quietway’ initiative a failure, with just one of the seven planned now open.

Continue reading “Sticking to the facts on cycling improvements”

I’ve been training for the Hackney Half Marathon and have been enjoying the chance to be alone, to explore the canals, rivers, back streets and parks of the city, and to think. The more I run, the more I’ve been thinking about the limits of my freedom as a runner, or indeed walker of the city. I’ve been thinking about the subtle, yet still powerful, ways our movements and interactions are being managed and planned.
These frustrations first surfaced in the countryside, during a run in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire where I grew up and my parents still live. I was looking forward to escaping the confines of the towpaths and to being immersed, perhaps even a little lost, in woodland. So I dug out my Dad’s Ordnance Survey map and traced a route I cycled as a teenager along the old Severn and Wye railway line.

Continue reading “You are here: trying (and failing) to lose myself in the city”