City Council presentation

This article was published in 2001, in Newsletter 35.

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Shattering myths: there are only two kinds of cyclist with completely different desires and needs

Late last year we were invited by councillors at the City Council to give a presentation on provision for cyclists. This took place on 11 January, and there were 30 or 40 people in the audience, from both the City and County Councils.

Our hour-long presentation, given by David Earl, covered a wide range of topics, ranging from why Cambridge needs a cycling campaign, to much about our aims-for ‘Better, Safer and More Cycling, in and around Cambridge.’ It concluded with a list of specific suggestions and requests, mostly covering subjects within the City Council’s remit:

  • Take the new Cambridgeshire Cycling Strategy seriously. (There is a lot of good stuff there.)
  • Include traffic offences in future Crime & Disorder Act consultations.
  • Require developers to consult on the details of traffic management.
  • Create service agreements with traffic wardens. (Some revenue from residents’ parking schemes goes to the police for enforcement, but we’ve been told that the City could have more say in levels of enforcement.)
  • If standards are not improved, consider transferring enforcement of parking offences from the police to the Councils (‘decriminalisation’)
  • Help us to advertise the Adult Cycle Training scheme
  • Work with the County to establish a single 0800 phone number to report all highway faults.
  • Rescind the Monday-Friday bike bans.
  • Adopt the Chisholm Trail (a north-south route along the railway ) into planning policies.
  • Set up a working group to progress the Chisholm Trail.


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This disused railway cutting might be made into part of a cycle superhighway across Cambridge (the ‘Chisholm Trail’)

The presentation was followed by a long question-and-answer session, during which we were told that the City Council is in the process of creating a new post and strategy to promote cycling and walking, and to ‘develop a more coherent approach towards the provision of facilities’.

Clare Macrae