Monthly meetings

This article was published in 2007, in Newsletter 72.

Open meetings, to which any member of the Campaign is welcome to attend, are held every month. The diary section of this Newsletter and our website has the dates of forthcoming meetings, which are normally on the first Tuesday of each month at 7.30 pm for 8 pm at the Friends’ Meeting House, Jesus Lane. Tea and coffee are served from around 7.30 pm.

We’re continuing our regular cycle of speakers and other special events at monthly meetings. As below, we hope to have a speaker or presentation for the first half, then items for discussion as usual.

Councillors and other decision-makers, and indeed the general public, are most welcome to attend our meetings, particularly the presentation sections.

Terence Bendixson – Tuesday 5 June 2007

The June monthly meeting’s event is a talk: ‘Cycling and Pay-As-You-Drive Road Charging: Dream or Nightmare?’ by Terence Bendixson.

Terence Bendixson is President of Living Streets (the national organisation that champions streets and public spaces for pedestrians) and secretary of the Independent Transport Commission at the University of Southampton. His 1974 book ‘Instead of Cars’ argued that walking is a key part of urban transport. His talk will cover cycling, road charging and the pressures of new developments, such as those proposed for Cambridge, on transport infrastructure. He will highlight the need for highway engineers to look beyond their usual ‘textbook’ solutions.

Mapping and OpenStreetMap.org – Tuesday 3 July 2007

Dave Earl, our Membership Secretary, recently cycled every street in Cambridge (and now much of the surrounding area), in order to produce a free-to-use map which anyone, ourselves included, can use without charge. His efforts are part of OpenStreetMap.org, a collaborative project which aims to map everywhere, and we featured his work in Newsletter 69.

After a short video clip of a feature televised on regional TV, Dave will speak to us about his work, and explain how the mapping is produced and how it can be put to good use.

Cycle video activism – Tuesday 7 August 2007

Handlebar-mounted camera video makes local media via YouTube.
Image as described adjacent

A number of our members have recently taken to installing a handlebar-mounted video camera on their bikes, in order to demonstrate dramatically the problems of poor driving standards, as well as thoughtless provision, which cyclists encounter daily on the roads.

Last month’s Newsletter mentioned how one video, which shows a bus overtaking – then pulling in front of – the cyclist, resulted in regional media coverage, and a totally inadequate response from the County Council’s Road Safety Team.

On another front, our campaigning on the newly dangerous state of King’s Hedges Road, as a result of buildouts which ignore key safety recommendations, was helped hugely by videos (available on our website) which show how motorists try to overtake through gaps that are simply too narrow. The Council have since promised to widen the gaps to reduce the scale of the problem.

The cyclists will be speaking about their experiences and demonstrating the kit, and taking your questions and ideas.