Pop-up cycle lanes the best way to go? On yer bike!
COUNCILLOR SAYS LONGER-TERM IMPROVEMENTS ARE NEEDED
POP-UP cycle lanes are ‘not a magic bullet’ for encouraging safer ways of travelling during the coronavirus pandemic, a senior Manchester councillor has said.
The town hall has resisted calls to set up temporary routes and are instead hoping to make long-term improvements to help residents get around on foot and by bike.
While the council has committed to working with other councils proposing cycle routes into Manchester, it is still coming under fire from residents and campaigners.
Environmental group Extinction Rebellion, protesting the council’s ‘inaction,’ took it upon themselves to install their own pop-up lane on the A56 Chester Road in the city centre.
But executive member for environment, planning and transport, Coun Angeliki Stogia, insists that pop-up lanes offer little to pedestrians or cyclists making short journeys. She said more people have taken up cycling as a leisure activity during lockdown, either staying locally or venturing to places like Rochdale Canal, where journeys by bike have increased fivefold.
“Pop-up lanes are popular by and large with a section of commuter cyclists,” Coun Stogia told a council meeting. “I know people are passionate about them but they don’t do anything for pedestrians or people who aren’t able to use them. We also have commuter cyclists as well as people with varying competencies in terms of cycling abilities.”
Local authorities have been told by the Department for Transport to implement emergency measures to reallocate road space ‘as swiftly as possible’ to support social distancing for cyclists and pedestrians.
Coun Stogia told the meeting that road traffic was returning to prepandemic levels faster than any other mode of travel.
It was also pointed out that Trafford council had removed a section of a pop-up route along the A56 after two days following complaints from drivers that it was causing gridlock. She said: “Until confidence in capacity is there so residents can get back into public transport, if we take out capacity on major routes then we will get back to congestion a lot quicker. These pop-up lanes are not a magic bullet. We need careful and planned active travel interventions as it’s far more complicated than often presented how we help people get around the city.”
Coun Richard Kilpatrick, a member of the scrutiny committee, voiced his disappointment that the council’s decision-making on pop-up lanes would not be subject to further exploration.
Instead the issue will be debated in more detail at a future meeting between the executive member and ward councillors, though it remains unclear if it will be held in public.
Coun Stogia said she was surprised that Coun Kilpatrick, a Liberal Democrat councillor, supported pop-up lanes as the party ‘was never for permanent infrastructure.’
She added: “We should put a whole lot of cones in Chorlton and Wilmslow Road and see how long it lasts.”
The executive member’s response was described as ‘patronising’ by Coun Kilpatrick, who said: “Shortterm pop-up solutions in this situation will be the foundation for success of active travel in the future. The reality is you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to create a political argument, and residents deserve a bit better.”