For the love of cycling

The Better Bike Social reached its halfway point last night. Organiser Joe Morris shares his reflections on stage three of the festival of cycling stuff.

Night three featured several amazing talks to a packed room of over 80, with standing room only at the back. Members of the audience and the speakers themselves had travelled far and wide to take part in what was an utterly captivating few hours of insight, intelligence, passion and activity.

Simon Monk of the London Cycling Campaign, Garmon ap Garth of the Hackney Cycling Campaign, Juliette Tuke of Save-Our-Safer-Streets, Dinah Bornat of ZCD Architects and Chris Bruntlett of the Dutch Cycling Embassy all contributed to a sinuous stream of related ideas, content and stories. John Nordon also performed a live bike service on a colleague’s Raleigh Twenty, as part of his Twenty Inch Project.

There was so much to learn and reflect upon.

The big one; London is a Cycling City and if you aren’t acknowledging it, you are not a serious person! Simon of LCC was clearly moved at several times as he gave an impassioned overview of the amazing work of the campaign group. From the Vision Zero target of 2041 (for eliminating all serious traffic related accidents), to the complexities of the ‘Culture Wars’ and the harm that ‘spin’ and ‘misinformation’ causes, to pushing for ‘LOCAL’ action as well as a city wide influence with a borough to borough pathway programme, and his point about dropping the apologetic stance on talking about cars…'we must talk about cars' and the damage they cause to our mental and physical well-being. 

Above all this talk was about LOVE, JOY, and CYCLING.

These messages were picked up and carried further by Garmon and Juliette, with a bat-and-ball style approach to their pitch, asking and answering their own questions in view of the audience. A lovely way to step into the thought processes needed to kick start an active campaign to save the massive investment already evident in Tower Hamlets with the LTN programme, traffic calming measures, and the many public realm improvements dotted around the borough. Dinah’s impromptu participation was a perfect compliment to the evening, continuing the themes around safer streets, stakeholder engagement, listening to and acting upon the views of children and young people and so forth. Dinah talked about two of the largest regeneration projects in London (The Aberfeldy Masterplan consented at a public hearing at the GLA last week, and Earl’s Court) and mused on the way in which walking and cycling infrastructure must be carefully planned and integrated into the complex urban environment with skilled design.

Closing the evening, Chris Bruntlett’s talk covered a vast array of related topics, offering practical but transformative solutions to the many problems cities face in moving vast numbers of people around every day. There was so much to reflect upon. Currently residing in Delft, Chris was raised in Vancouver, and the difference in car movements between the two cities 100 fold, a fertile breeding ground for his radical views on what we need to do to improve the lives of millions through better transport strategies. Chris travelled from the utopian (dystopian) vision of car ownership peddled in 1950’s America at the root of the problems we face today. He talked about how the evolution of the car has eroded social trust, reflected on the transformative effect of gender mobility and the problems associated with the patriarchal city, he lambasted the hazards of noise pollution caused by cars and how 450million Europeans were living in conditions which exceeded maximum decibel levels as defined by the World Health Organisation, a fact leading to illness, dementia, hearing loss, heart conditions and much more. We heard about the Therapeutic City, with greater emphasis given to how we move our bodies, being connected with nature and having 'face-to-face' encounters with others. We heard about the Accessible City and the Silver Tsunami (the aging population), which requires inclusive infrastructure to ensure we can live active lives in our later years.

Above all, Chris was keen to emphasise that the conversation was not about the BIKE, but about leveraging the bike to reduce CAR DEPENDENCY.

The festival continues tonight and Saturday, ending Sunday. Check the Velocity calendar and the Better Bike Social website for more. Tickets are free of charge and available here.

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