Cycle campaigning

In other interesting news, the Chief Executive at Wandsworth Council posted this in his internal blog:

Is the car still king?

by Martin, Paul
on 04/03/2013 17:24

Examining Wandsworth's 2011 Census results (http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/census) is a fascinating business.

In many ways, the trend in 2001 remains in tact ten years later. Most notably, Wandsworth is the highest local authority nationally for the proportion of its population aged 30-44. 30.6% are in this age range. And Wandsworth is the second highest authority nationally for the proportion of its population aged 25-29 - 15.4% are in this category. Maybe that's why being in Wandsworth makes me feel so old - compared to most of our population, I am. A friend tells me that in a bid to appear better looking, at parties his tactic is to avoid standing next to the most attractive person in the room. Living in Wandsworth is tough for those in the minority older population.

There are some interesting new features in the 2011 census results. Amongst these is an apparent sharp decline in car usage - there is a striking decline in the proportion of Wandsworth people who report travelling to work by car - down from 20% to 13%. Similarly, car ownership has fallen since the last census 10 years before - in almost every part of Wandsworth. This reverses the earlier trend between 1991 and 2001, which had seen car ownership levels rise.

What does this mean for policy makers at the Town Hall?

How far is this a product of improved public transport over the last decade? Is it a question of choice, or is the affordability of car ownership becoming more of a problem with rising rents and house prices? Is this a temporary blip, or a long term trend?

And have we factored in this change sufficiently in our own policies? Do we adequately balance the needs of the pedestrian and cyclist with those of the motorist? Have we made sufficient progress in initiatives like car clubs, being 'bike friendly', running cycle safety programmes? Is there more we can do?

I asked before I posted it to here, and got permission. I do have to point out that this is written by him in a totally personal capacity, not in his role as Chief Exec.

I thought that it was really interesting that the trend that was pulled out was the drop in car useage. However, what more do we need to do as a Council? Obviously things like segregated cycle paths would be ideal, but is there anything that we can do that comes into the fast and cheap wins side of this scale that I can suggest?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/onbj08a8h30nnyh/costspeed.JPG?m