Interview 5 – The Wider Benefits
Identifying the wider benefits of investing in sustainable transport
Gavin Baxter – Cycling Blackpool
Cllr John Rogers – Cycling City Bristol
there’s a great danger when you’re when you’re trying to create cycling infrastructure within the town especially in a time such as now where budgets are getting tighter and tighter and the local population don’t necessarily see that even though the money is coming in from elsewhere um that it couldn’t have been spent by their council in a different way and maybe on a different priority to them and so it’s establishing with all the counselors not just the key ones for us in terms of the building stuff that what we’re doing for cycling is uh a good thing and it’s a sustainable thing and also the the what we’ve also tried to also try and tackle is broadening out what we’re doing so that it’s not just seen as a benefit to cyclists but it’s actually seen as a wider benefit to blackpool and it’s improving the economy it’s improving maybe the the local street area and the local streetscape they’ll be tidying up areas where it’s been untidy before with lots of street furniture and clutter so making it more safe for cyclists to get through but also makes it safer for people on mobility scooters to get through that area now as well so trying to always think of where other people or other users could actually benefit from a particular scheme which has then helped to reduce the level of objection or the level of protest against a particular area even though the actual scheme itself could be considered contentious or slightly controversial with what we’ve been trying to implement we’ve had the 20 mile per hour zones has been another fantastic success in two areas of the city but we’re looking now to roll it out across the whole of bristol because it’s been so popular people recognize that making streets friendlier safer easier calmer quieter less polluted is something that actually they all want and they can’t believe it’s possible to do that for actually relatively little money change putting in a 20 mile per hour zone you’re spending you know a few hundred thousand pounds as opposed to most transport things where you’re spending millions upon millions