Councils paid per m of cycle lane?

Is it true that councils get money based on the length of cycle lanes/
route they have created? If they do, who gives out this money?

In this newsgroup people often suggest some of the really useless
cycle lanes are built because it increases the length of lanes that a
particular area has but I'm not sure if anyone's ever linked this
length to a source of money.

peter

"naked_draughtsman" wrote in message
...
Is it true that councils get money based on the length of cycle lanes/
route they have created? If they do, who gives out this money?

In this newsgroup people often suggest some of the really useless
cycle lanes are built because it increases the length of lanes that a
particular area has but I'm not sure if anyone's ever linked this
length to a source of money.

peter



Isn't it more of a case of money being ring fenced only to be spent on
cycling facilities

pk

naked_draughtsman writtificated

Is it true that councils get money based on the length of cycle lanes/
route they have created? If they do, who gives out this money?

In this newsgroup people often suggest some of the really useless
cycle lanes are built because it increases the length of lanes that a
particular area has but I'm not sure if anyone's ever linked this
length to a source of money.

Lots of people clamour for these facilities and the designers often haven't
been trained in good practice, so we get miles of pathetically narrow lanes
with obvious and significant dangers - awful junctions, too close to parked
cars etc.

What we need is better guidance/standards (much improved, more on the way),
better training for the people that need to be aware of this new guidance
(not here yet) and support for the engineers when doing nothing is better
than a bodge (should be there if you've got a Cycling Officer).

In Manchester there's a huge difference between the older cycle lanes
(pathetically narrow) and the new ones (almost wide enough). In addition,
it's obvious that a lot of thought has gone into many of the new cycle
facilities. They're still mostly flawed, but things are slowly improving.

What is still evident is the abscence of *real* thought into the 'problem'.
Improving the road so that a facility is not needed at all is the ultimate
aim, but that doesn't seem to be happening in practice. When this approach
is finally accepted we'll start to see major drops in pedestrian and
cyclist deaths.

"naked_draughtsman" wrote in message
...
Is it true that councils get money based on the length of cycle
lanes/
route they have created? If they do, who gives out this money?

[snip]

It's not quite true, but all too close. Councils get their money
based a plan of what they are *going* to do. They have to write a
plan, and get it approved by the money people. They can't just build
something at random and send a bill in afterwards.

The moral of this is that you should get hold of your local plan and
read it. Do this early, before things get set in concrete, and there
is still time to get the worst horrors changed.

Remember, that Britain is a democracy, and there will have been
inputs from all sorts of people, most of whom know nothing about
cycling, and do not even know that they know nothing about cycling.

In London things are mostly built by the boroughs, who have got
together and written a joint plan, of what will be done between now
and 2010. People are beginning to wonder what will happen about the
bits that won't be finished by 2010, and other people are beginning
to think about what to do in the second phase.

In London the money mostly comes from Transport for London, who in
turn get most of it as part of the general handout of money from the
government to London. In the rest of England, in Scotland, and in
Northern Ireland, things are different.

Jeremy Parker

On Feb 26, 7:43 pm, "PK" wrote:
Isn't it more of a case of money being ring fenced only to be spent on
cycling facilities

That sounds more plausible. The more metres/miles they get for that
money looks better on paper I guess and might help them get money
again in the future.

peter