On your bike, Environment

IS GUERNSEY on a road to nowhere with its transport strategy?

There are some ominous signs.

A year's worth of work by the new board has taken us back down the road we have travelled many, many times before. Except on this occasion there is even less structure to the department's thinking – it has in effect gone out and asked everyone what they think. Good luck in turning that into a strategy.

The most disheartening thing is that the department has had successive attempts at this already. Accepting that there is a new board which would want to put its own stamp on things, it should have mountains of data and information to base its thoughts on.

Last term we were at vision stage, options on the table – admittedly many, many of them – at least until the collapse of the bus contract.

These options were, whatever you thought of them, also costed out, but even then there was fierce criticism about the lack of progress and firm proposals.

The public has not been given any sign of the financial aspect at this stage – a move Public Services made with its waste strategy consultation so as not to cloud people's thinking, but something for which it has been left with egg on its face.

At this point you can hear Environment groaning: 'The States is criticised for not consulting, then it's criticised for consulting too much.'

The trouble is the amount of time that has passed and the quality of that consultation.

Just how is it going to use hundreds of comments to shape its thinking while gathering no real empirical evidence from the consultation?

You may have some sympathy because it is being done on a shoestring, by all accounts. But the department is giving all the signs of driving round and round a roundabout failing to spot the exit because an upside-down map is obscuring the driver's view.

And so, since it wants ideas, let's give it a chance, again, and throw this into the mix – an unashamedly cyclist viewpoint.

The consultation states that 5% of the journeys into Town are by bike. It's a depressingly low figure if it's right.

Now the UK has some evidence from its census to base its policy making on.

The latest was from 2011.

It measured levels of cycling to work which showed that in the leading town or city, Cambridge, the share grew from 25.9% in 2001 to 28.9% in 2011.

Bristol, well known for its recent investment in cycling infrastructure, saw a growth rate of 63.4% to a 7.5% share.

This was all before the Wiggo and Olympics effect.

Elsewhere in Europe, you can find figures of 40% in the best performing city in the Netherlands, Groningen, or 35% in Denmark's Copenhagen.

The figures are all contained in the Get Britain Cycling report, the work of an all-party parliamentary group which earlier this year stated that there was a potential to increase cycling to 30-40% of all journeys.

The cost, it said, was in the order of £10 to £20 per head of population per year, which would simply accord with cycling having the same share of resources that it currently does of total travel, 2%.

There is no clarity as to the amount spent in Guernsey compared with the transport budget, something that is needed for all forms of travel, but remember that bus travel, which accounted for 10% of work journeys, gets a £2.4m.-plus yearly subsidy.

The benefits and payback of investing in cycling can be measured in many ways. They include falling pollution levels, cutting congestion, reduced damage to the roads and so less maintenance and, maybe the one that has the most telling impact on society, health.

Not enough is known about why there is a reluctance among people to cycle in Guernsey because, again, insufficient research has been done.

At first glance, the environment should be right for a cycling boom – a low speed limit, short distances, relatively flat for many and a chance not to have to worry about the mad dash for parking endured by commuters.

Some of it may be cultural, some of it driven by safety, primarily because of the sheer volume of traffic at times and the behaviour of the few.

What cycling infrastructure there is in Guernsey does not always inspire confidence. For example, who knows how exactly you are meant to get on and off the cycle path in Town – an advance stop line for cyclists heading onto the roundabout from the path would help and has been used successfully elsewhere.

Perhaps they may even think about moving the bin near the Salerie that causes pedestrians to step into the cycle path?

The lanes around the Baubigny school are misunderstood by some motorists because there is no clear signage that states the cycle path is itself one-way in the opposite direction.

There are also opportunities that have been lost.

The Guernsey Housing Association's Bouet development could have provided a cycling route to get onto and off the seafront.

The paths that Living Streets' walking route uses, if properly surfaced, could be a great way for those coming from inland to get through to Victoria Avenue and then onto the cycle path.

Just look at an aerial view of Guernsey and there are opportunities, if you could ever get landowners' agreement, to create cycling routes away from traffic.

But it should not all be about hiding cyclists away on elevated paths or behind hedges – you should, as you can in France, for instance, be able to cycle in safety – that is enshrined in its law.

Infrastructure goes beyond getting from A to B and should include the facilities when you get there, whether that is changing areas or safe and dry places to lock and store bikes – and the States has the opportunity to lead not only with planning requirements but with its own developments.

Education, enforced through the driving test, and in schools, is key to a greater understanding of the frustrations of both drivers and cyclists.

Politically, nobody has ever really pushed cycling forward.

It has relied on the voices of enthusiasts to promote it, but there is only so much they can do.

The Get Britain Cycling report said many have grown up thinking that cycling was of small significance compared with the great questions of cars, traffic and public transport, or the universal significance of walking.

'We were wrong,' the author Phil Goodwin says in the report.

'The evidence demonstrates quite clearly that, in the words of one witness to the inquiry, Andy Salkeld of Leicester City Council, cycling is the mode of transport "on the cusp of greatness".'

The danger is that in the latest debate on Guernsey's transport strategy, the potential of cycling is lost as it descends into yet another argument about paid parking and the bus service.