1 bn for cycling - but just for London

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M

Miquel In De Rain

No Longer Posting
Nah,just put bollards up and stop those rotters driving their cars.
 
Boris Bajic

Boris Bajic

Guest
This seems sensible and helpful, despite being born of a vote-seeking, lowest-common-denominator, cynical political mindset.

Of course it is for London - it is a TfL intitiative. As an ex-Londoner now living in the sticks, I have no issue with the London-only element of it.

Something is better than nothing.

If it works, that's great. If it doesn't, then £1 billion on a project like this over several years is not a lot to chuck away or partially waste.

The true cost of our glorious and triumphant, peace-bringing, democracy-nurturing, humanity-extolling venture into Afghanistan is somewhat (!) higher than that and in decades to come will be demonstrated to have veered several times off a mission that was unrealistic and impossible to carry out from day one.

This looks about as good as one can expect for capital investment in sustainable transport initiatives in a mid-Atlantic capital city in the coming decade.

Some cyclists remind me of England football fans; still harking back to a fluked win in a World Cup decades ago and seeing that as the minimum acceptable standard. England are a quarter-final team. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

In cycling-infrastructure terms, we are doing well if we get five ill-considered and poorly-placed or even utterly dangerous cycle lanes a year. Anything more than that is a bonus.

Be happy!
 
Cyclopathic

Cyclopathic

Veteran
Location
Leicester.
deptfordmarmoset

deptfordmarmoset

Full time tea drinker
Location
Armonmy Way
Sandra6 said:
How many millions will just go to fund the feasibility studies and planning and investigation groups though? There won't be much left to buy any actual green paint to go along the side of the roads!
Click to expand...
Though it's blue paint and not green there doesn't seem to be much progress on the cycle superhighways. After the heavy criticism TfL got after the 2 Bow flyover deaths they seem to have been faced with a ''do it properly or not at all'' dilemma. After reading that they've dropped the plan for a cycle superhighway to Lewisham, South London because there's no easy way of making a safe cycle route through New Cross, it does look like they're quietly going for the ''not at all'' option and spending the money elsewhere. So don't buy shares in blue or green paint makers. As the link in the OP's post says:

The cycle hire scheme and cycle superhighways have consumed the lion’s share of investment in the past four years. Ms Dedring said that while the hire scheme would still receive significant funding, “the very substantial majority of the money is going into the visible improvement of the road network”. New cycle routes will be built, junctions redesigned, signs improved, facilities built in outer London and 80,000 cycle parking spaces added.
Click to expand...

For ''visible'' read ''cosmetic.''
 
Crankarm

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
This scheme may make a marginal improvement in London, but elsewhere little. Let's face it the UK is a cycling intolerant nation, a nation of cycle haters in fact and it will be ever thus. It is rather ironic we now have such good cyclists at Pro and Olympic levels but cycling as a form of transport is still marginalised and frankly ridiculed. It is still a dangerous means of transport. If as a cyclist you love cycling which I guess many on here do, if you really want to be safe when travelling on your bike or merely riding for pleasure then move to Holland, Denmark, France, Belgium or Germany. The UK is a lousy country to ride in.
 
Paul99

Paul99

Über Member
Cyclopathic said:
No, it's exactly the same as nothing outside London. Obviously and continually proved to be to be the only place politicians ever seem to give a damn about. Never mind Scottish independence I think England should go for independence of London. A huge wall stretching the length of the M25 should sort it.
Click to expand...
If London had independence, and were able to ringfence the taxes paid in London, the rest of the country would be in a whole heap of trouble.
 
colly

colly

Re member eR
Location
Leeds
Paul99 said:
If London had independence, and were able to ringfence the taxes paid in London, the rest of the country would be in a whole heap of trouble.
Click to expand...

That's bollocks.

One reason the taxes paid in the London area appear disproportionate is that many (most?) large companies have their head offices there.
The money is EARNED elsewhere but ACCOUNTED for in London.
Another reason is that the ''big earners'' live there. Earning big money is not necessarily connected in any way to the worth or effectiveness of the individual.
Add to that the fact that Government spends a disproportional amount on projects in the SE/London area and it's not surprising more tax is paid (on the whole) by those living there.
Further, the vast proportion of government institutions are based in London. All of course funded by taxes paid across the whole country.
Get the powers that be to spend a similar amount per person in every part of the country and areas that are now impoverished would see growth almost overnight.

Lets see an equalisation of tax paid by every individual across the country. The result of an equalisation of wealth across the country.
 
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