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Tim Stahl RIP

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Tim Stahl Memorium

Cycling campaigners in Darlington will today be mourning the passing away of a great bicycle advocate. Tim helped found Darlington Cycling Campaign way back in January 2005, and was a leading campaigner throughout our history, as so many posts in our archive show. Early in the campaign’s life, Tim was already leading tours of Darlington’s limited cycling infrastructure, like this one in July 2005.

In 2007, Tim and I cycled together to Bremen on a memorable journey that we documented for this blog. Travelling with Tim was always such a positive experience.

In 2008, Tim led some sterling work on cycling in the pedestrian heart of the town, working on a body of research that showed that there was little danger to pedestrians by allowing cycling. His efforts finally convinced the council to allow cyclists to cross the town through the pedestrianised areas.

But perhaps Tim will be more widely remembered for his cameo appearance in Beauty and the Bike. Taking the film to cinema screens across the world, the warmest smiles (and indeed laughs) came from the audiences as they watched Tim build a flat-pack dutch bike.  His unforgettable dialogue with my daughter Ellie:

Tim – “What’s the rule about pedals?”

Ellie – ” I don’t know. Use them?”

always produced a roar of approval from audiences. But Tim’s razor sharp analysis of the health benefits of cycling was also in there, delivered in his wonderfully clear and precise way. So here, an epitaph for all time, are Tim’s wise words. RIP, Tim.

40 Darlington Deaths Caused by Dirty Air in 2014

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Darlovelo this week highlighted the cost to Darlington of air pollution caused by motor traffic. In an article in the Northern Echo, and using Department of Health figures, we calculated the number of deaths in 2014, directly attributable to man made air pollution, and the results are frightening. We estimate there were 40 deaths in Darlington caused by air pollution, that’s one every 6 days.

The same calculations show that the North East has seen 1,009 people die in 2014 due to the dirty air we breath every day, a staggering one person every 8 hours. Figures for deaths caused by air pollution are taken from the Clean Air in Cities app.

People who own a car know the instant convenience of being able to jump into their private form of transport. Car owners feel protected from the elements and other people. It can be easy to ignore the hidden costs that accompany a country dominated by private motor traffic.

NO2 in Darlington

Air pollution levels exceeded target levels in Darlington Town centre (2013 Air Quality Progress Report for Darlington p18).

Matthew Snedker, vice chair of Darlovelo, said; “Air quality is often ignored theses days, as the pollution is not visible to the naked eye. We each breath in 10,000 litres of air every day and the quality of the air we breath has a direct effect on our health.” He continued “It is children’s lungs that are at greatest risk because they are still growing and tend to spend more time outdoors.”

These figures show the cost of loving our cars too much, such as the death toll from air pollution. These very small particles, far too small to see with the naked eye, are generated by all engines, but especially by diesel engines. Particularly dangerous are particles of 2.5 microns in diameter (a micron is one-millionth of a meter) referred to as PM2.5. Other pollutants from engines include NOx (nitrogen oxides). These gases dissolves in the lining of the lung causing bronchitis and emphysema.

Darlington Borough Council’s own report admits that ‘Road traffic fuel and exhaust emissions remain the largest source of air pollution’. This confirms that the way to tackle the dirty air in Darlington is by providing the infrastructure needed to get people out of their cars and taking sustainable transport such as walking and cycling.

The danger to public health from air pollution is in addition to the tragic results of traffic collisions. These can be seen all to frequently in our local and national newspapers. Serious road collisions where pedestrians and cyclists are victim are on the rise. Calculations from the Department of Transport show that these traffic collisions cost Darlington residents £16.4 million per year. To this can be added the cost of inactive lifestyles caused by car dependency. Not taking enough exercise leads to a wide range of health conditions and the cost to Darlington of sedentary lifestyles is £23.7 million per year.

Darlovelo is calling on Darlington Council to install segregated cycle lanes on busy roads, protection for cyclists at junctions and slower speed limits on residential roads.

The Media and the Message

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What with the ongoing Times Cities Fit For Cycling campaign, and the significant debates surrounding the Parliamentary Enquiry into Cycling, it’s easy to forget the typical media take on cycling. 

Yesterday we welcomed members of Cambridge Cycling Campaign to Bremen for a tour of the city’s infrastructure. The fact that the Campaign contacted us, rather than the ADFC or the local authority, is itself a significant reflection of Bremen’s lack of official international engagement. But we were more than happy to offer a semi-outsider’s narrative of why our home city is so cycling friendly.

The tour itself took in a series of examples of infrastructure that explained the historical and cultural stories behind Bremen’s remarkable status as the German cycling city – one of the first cycle paths (early 1900’s) along Am Wall; the rather tired and ageing cycle paths of the 1920’s that are suffering from tree roots, the site of the great battle of the 1970’s, Mozartstrasse, that stopped the building of an urban motorway through a residential district and helped transform the city’s transport policy; the resultant calming of the area through a series of one-way streets for motor traffic, all passable two-way for cyclists; the provision of decent-quality cycle paths along all major routes; and some of the most recent developments, such as a new protected cycle lane on Herdentor, created through the conversion of a full-width traffic lane. 

Throughout the three-hour tour, we were followed by a very friendly camera crew from Radio Bremen, who wanted to produce a short piece for that evening’s local news transmission. Now we were so caught up in preparing the content of the tour – you know the stuff, history, culture, technical standards of infrastructure and so on – that we quite overlooked the media take on what we were doing, and how it might be redacted by our nice TV crew.  Radio Bremen, along with the wider trend in broadcast television, is increasingly interested in populist angles, amusing titbits that make the audience smile, but might not impart much knowledge about the subject in question. But sometimes it works.

Let’s have a bit of fun ourselves, shall we, and consider the piece that went out last night her in Bremen:

Viewers who understand German will have already taken in much of what is to follow, but for the rest here is a brief explanation.

The opening intro describes Cambridge as the city with the highest number of Nobel Prize winners in the world. But here comes a delegation from the city who want to learn something from us, ie German cycling culture. We cut to the first shot from the report – of James, the most eccentric-looking (ie typical English prof type) of the delegation (as it happens I would add one of the most intelligent and thoughtful). Cue Elgar music and the first voice over “This here is for many, many Bremer the worst of all – a bicycle journey around the Stern roundabout….But for the lobby group from Cambridge, it’s a paradise”.

James explains to camera why it is good (the cross-hatching separating cyclists from traffic), and that it’s something worth trying in  the UK. First statement of disbelief from the reporter, given that this roundabout is an accident hotspot. But bear in mind, the whole point of introducing the cross-hatching, which was added just 3 years ago, is to try to reduce these accidents. We filmed previous visitors (from Newcastle Cycling Campaign) to this roundabout last year:

Another member of the Cambridge Campaign, Klaas Brumann, then explains a key point – that Bremen motorists are much more mindful of cyclists than their English counterparts, and this helps at the roundabout.

On to another scene, and another Cambridge campaigner, Martin, marvels at the quality of Bremen cycling infrastructure. Second statement of disbelief from the reporter. “Strange, we Bremer are not so enthusiastic. The cycle paths are too narrow, and haven’t been improved enough”. The dearth of cycling infrastructure in England is then explained.

We then cut to a shot of a row of parked kids bikes, probably outside a kindergarten. We explain how good infrastructure means freedom for kids on bikes, even at the age of 4. And for German viewers, it is explained that young kids “don’t cycle”. Not strictly true, of course, they “play” on their (normally stabiliser-equipped) bikes, but don’t go to nursery on them.

The piece ends with a funny quip about one universal characteristic of cyclists everywhere – their hatred of car drivers. We return to James, who declares that “pedestrians deserve the best surface, cyclists the second best, and motorised vehicles the worst. Motorists don’t need a flat surface.” Even so, the reporter is happy that visitors to Bremen have come, seen, and enthused about cycling in the city.

Did it work? I suspect the piece made Bremen viewers smile at the stereotypical English James. And in between the smiles, perhaps it was helpful to remind people that they’ve got, by international standards, a good quality network of cycling infrastructure. Even we can get too caught up in the internal debates around the Bremen Traffic Development Plan, and forget the solid grounding that underlies much of what is done in Bremen.

What we don’t see in this particular edit is the scene right at the beginning of our tour, when we are showing the map of Bremen cycling infrastructure to our visitors, and the looks of disbelief on their faces.

As we explained, every red line on this map represents a cycle path. And every busy, main road has a cycle path alongside it. This is something that campaigners in the UK can only dream of. Yet it is now built into the DNA of Bremen (though not all German) traffic planners. Busy main roads must provide for good quality, safe and attractive cycling infrastructure. This is what makes Bremen a cycling city. This is what the Cambridge visitors really appreciated.

March 2013 members’ monthly meeting

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Spring is on its way, and our bikes and new family accessories are about ready for the good weather. But meanwhile, we need to campaign for more cycling-friendly infrastructure in Darlington. We shall shortly be launching a revamped website that highlights what is needed to make cycling mainstream – Cycles, Cyclists, and Cycle Paths!

Our March meeting at The Traveller’s Rest will focus on these three issues:
* Cycles: our fleet of beautiful dutch bikes, folders and hybrids is being complimented with a new range of accessories to help the family get into cycling.
* Cyclists: that’s you, the members of Darlovelo.
* Cycle Paths: Darlington was until recently a Cycle Demonstration Town. But what now?

Hope to see you on Thursday.

Traveller’s Rest, Cockerton. Thursday 21st March, 7-9pm

Cycling City in the Sunshine

Posted on by Posted in Bremen, cycling, habitus, river Weser, summer, transport, women cycling
 This winter has been one of the greyest on record in Germany. Never mind the cold temperatures, it has been the permanent cloud that has really got the population into a depression these last few weeks, with few people venturing out in their spare time. There was really only one exception – the wonderful Bremen tradition of Kohl und Pinkelfahrt in January and February. 
But yesterday the first sunshine for what seemed like months finally arrived, and today it was even slightly warm. And in Bremen that means that thousands of people, young, middling and old, meet up along the river after school or work, or if they’re lucky earlier in the day, to soak up the joy-giving rays of sunshine. And inevitably, most of them get to and from the river by bicycle.
Many people gather in groups on the river dyke to chat, play ball games or have an impromptu drink. Groups like this one, older teenagers, will have cycled at least 2 or 3 kilometres from school, and will be cycling another 3 or 4 kilometres to their various homes. In towns and cities where cycling is not the norm, these events are unlikely to take place. Schoolkids who rely on public transport, walking, or even worse being collected by mama taxi service, find it a real hassle to take such a detour on their way home. But here it is part of the deal that comes with the independence cycling offers.
The great thing is that, on days like this, all kinds of people arrive by bike to enjoy the sun, side by side, in their different ways. As we moved along the river, our first thought was that a fair number of people might have arrived by some other means, since we often spotted them without bicycles. But then we watched as individual started to head off home and, almost inevitably, they walked the 30 metres or so to where their bicycle was parked before cycling off. Far more people, it seems, are cycling into the sun today.