Minutes of meeting Derby Cycling Group Tuesday 6th December 2011 Brunswick
Present:
Tony Roelich, Dave Clasby, Les Sims (Chair), Martin Aldred, Martin Quarton, Ian Alexander, Nigel Aspdin, Ian Care. Vijaya Ramisetti, John Palmer.
Apologies
Lucy Care, Ian Dent, Jean Baird.
There appears to be a lot of useful information on the mix of transport types used in various cities across the UK and Europe (with a few others worldwide) which is documented at http://epomm.eu/
In particular there is a map based interface that lets you compare various cities. Derby isn’t included although Nottingham and Leicester are. See http://epomm.eu/tems/index.phtml?Main_ID=2928
Some of the jargon is hard to get through but I think there is probably a lot of useful information here if you make the effort to plough through the jargon.
One question (which I can’t answer) is why Derby isn’t included.
A guide to Disability cycling has been published by Get Cycling and can be downloaded from here
The “Bikes not Barriers” website can be accessed here
There is a strong campaign in many parts of the country to persuade local authorities to lower speed limits in residential areas. Take a look at the Twenty’s Plenty web site.Derby City Council have started work on some improvements to the cycle path between the Silk Mill and Darley Fields, this being part of Route 54 of the National Cycle Network and is on both sides of Handyside’s Bridge which crosses the River Derwent. From there, the narrow path which runs along the river bank beside Parker’s Piece, off City Road, is being widened and re-surfaced. New tarmac is being laid on the other side of the bridge and the board walk which passes beneath St. Mary’s Bridge is being replaced. See photo. We have asked for the graffiti on the bridge to be cleaned off. Whilst the work is in progress an alternative route using Sowter Road is available and this has been signed.
We’ve received a video from Alistair Clark who thought other members might be interested in viewing it. You can give yourself a small test of how well you know Derby when viewing it to see if your recognise all the locations!
Any other budding film directors are welcome to submit their work. All members can create their own posts together with the video.
Today I attended my second meeting of the “East Midlands Road Users and Environment Committee” of the Highways Agency (HA) in Leicester on behalf of Derby Cycling Group. This is a way that the Highways Agency, that oversees the trunk road network, liaises with non-motorised users of its network – including cyclists, pedestrians and horse-riders.
Today’s meeting included a briefing on the way they judge whether improvements meet their aims, which is done by consultants to give some independence to the assessment. We also had an update from one of the HA’s traffic officers. These patrol the network responding to issues causing delays with the aim of keeping traffic moving. They work closely with the police, who lead on more serious incidents.
A number of other issues were raised, including operational issues like litter-picking, and environmental ones like air quality and noise. They had appreciated the award we’d given them for their good management of cycle routes during the Alvaston bypass construction works!
There was quite a lot of discussion on the A52 going into Nottingham – more on this on my website – and we also had a discussion on the consultation being planned for raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph.
Aimed at all schools in the UK, The Big Pedal is back and this time it promises to be bigger and better than ever before. The organisers have made some improvements to the race – including the participation of scooters!
The race is open to every school in the UK and takes place between 5-23 March 2012.
It’s completely free to enter and there are some brilliant prizes up for grabs.
To guarantee your school’s place in the race, please make sure that you pre-register your school now
The Liveable Streets website (based in the US) contains a lot of videos including one on the recent Suffragettes and Cycling event in Leicester.
Folded Brompton
I regularly take a folded Brompton onto buses in Derby and Nottingham and, until recently, have always found it really easy. However, a couple of recent episodes have caused me problems. These were:
In general, I see a general trend from the bus companies in trying to find reasons not to allow the folded cycles onto their services rather than actively trying to encourage more passengers to combine the use of cycles and buses. I hope to see this trend reverse in the near future.
One tip for Brompton users is that the IKEA large blue plastic/fabric bag (cost of 40p each from the checkouts) is large enough to place a folded Brompton into.
I should say that, apart from the recent incident with the Red Arrow, I have found Trent Barton to be very accomodating to me and my folded cycle and hope they can continue this excellent attitude.
