[Music] I actually live on the guild wheel in Cotton, so I can just go out my door and do 21 miles uh pretty safely in most weathers. You get a bit of pedestrian issues on the gill wheel. So, you’ve got good good cyclists and bad cyclist. You’ve got good pedestrians, you’ve got bad pedestrians. I’m Dutch, so I think I can’t remember a time that I didn’t have a bicycle. So, I’ve always cycled, you know. I I have just really enjoyed cycling uh around Preston because I find that motorists are less aggressive than they were in Manchester. I always cycled in Manchester, but I, you know, you were not always treated very well. center of town, particularly around sort of Fisher Gate, is quite well provided with with cycle cycle racks, so you can lock your bicycle easily next to next to next to the shop you want to visit. If we’ve got the family going out, um you need to really consider traffic, um obstacles, etc. What we’re really after is a nice um straight path from the center of Preston to the outskirts onto the guild wheel. It’s like driving a car where you have to pedal. I can’t walk easily because of a a hip problem, but it doesn’t affect me cycling. And it’s wonderful to be to be out and and be able to see other people and the countryside around. Certainly, the uh guild wheel is one of our favorites. And uh the marina is uh lucky for us it’s just around the corner on your own. It is you know much more easier than four of us biking together. End up sort of keeping track as where all four of us are. Um and at times uh you can’t be riding together because you’re one behind the other. just not feeling safe. I think is the worst thing because as soon as we leave our road, you are joining the main traffic. Cycling into Preston from here um is great because there’s lots of guild wheel, lots of bits of paths, but once you get down to sort of Ashton and Watery Lane and around that area, they’re really complex and busy road systems and junctions. So that makes it really quite hard work. I’ve just cycled in now from high through higher Walton past the capital center. Um sharing the road with traffic, pedestrians and other cyclists of course and um I’ve seen all aspects families on the foot path which is great. A commuting cyclist on the footpath had to scare the life out of a lady walking so he had to slow down and I stayed on the road cuz I’m a confident cyclist. But I think the really worst thing are some of the junctions where there are two lanes like at the end of the A6 where you suddenly realize that as a cyclist to turn right you have to be on the other side of the road. Um in other places there are bigger um gaps at the front of junctions that you can actually cross safely in and that’s quite useful and it’s just a paint job. I got it during co to try and cheer people up and people are always happy if they’ve got an ice cream at the railway station. It’s brilliant. Now there is a dedicated uh secure cycle facility next to a bike shop itself. The bike shop staff are fantastic. If you have an issue, you can just go and chat with them. Uh and they’ve helped me out a couple of times, certainly when I’ve had uh difficult repairs to do. Western city council need to work very closely with Laner County Council. that would that would really help things. So, they join up where they’re where they’re doing work. Uh repairing the roads is a really big issue because uh cars can cope with ruts and holes, but bicycles find it really difficult. I used to live in Manchester for like 3 months. Uh in Manchester is a lot better than here because they’ve got a plenty of road just for the cycling. But in Preston, I can’t see it. Especially in around town center, you have to mix it with the like with the pavement for the pedestrian. All most of the time I’m just go for the lakes for the cycling. It’s a lot safer and more enjoyable than working at like cycling in town center or in rose or something like that. Active travel is the way forward in our fight against climate change. Recent research by Oxford University has shown that cycling is 10 times more important than electric cars for reaching net zero in our cities. That’s why we need your pledges to improve cycling and all forms of active travel across Preston. The good news is that the county council is already allocating funding for a number of schemes including the penguham to Preston cycle superighway and the frigate intersection on the ringway. Moving away from the city center, we need to focus on lowtra neighborhoods. A development of the traffic-free schemes already evident official gate in the pandemic. LTN’s are spreading across the country as more people become conscious of the high level of air pollution in our towns and cities. And Preston is no exception. And encouraging children to cycle means a fitter and healthier generation. That’s already encouraged in Preston through the bike club, a national venture which has some 500 children in the area renting bikes through the scheme. At the bike club, we offer pay monthly kids bikes which you exchange as your children grow where you can just borrow a bike for5 to 10 to15 a month. Then when the bike has been used and is no longer needed, we collect the bike, give them the next size up or or the next bike they need, bring that used bike back to our refurbishment center, and then it goes through a roughly a 30point checklist. It’s then ready to go back into our fleet to go back out again. It’s about 3% of our bikes are in the Preston area, which definitely shows that there’s there’s a huge amount of opportunity in Preston to get more people and families cycling and to give them a really good introduction to how to how to ride a bike. And what about the cost of all this? Well, it’s estimated according to the Preston transport plan that every £1 spent on cycle infrastructure can generate no less than £550 worth of social benefit. So, what are we waiting for? [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]
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