Le vélo n’est pas que pour les classes moyennes… un point de vue du Labour Party.
Cycling has been a neglected area of Labour policy. Sure, our transport spokesmen and women have, over the years, supported the idea of getting more people on bikes with promises of a bit of extra money and lots of positive references in statements and reports. A few good facilities have been built, especially in London and in the few towns that already have a traditionally high number of cyclists, such as Cambridge, York and Oxford. In Scotland, great progress has been made in Edinburgh, where the local authority has committed to spend 10 per cent of its transport budget on cycling. More often than not, though, the few cycle lanes that have been built are unsafe as they are not segregated from the rest of traffic, or do not provide a through route, ending abruptly where engineers have thought it was too difficult to continue them. It is therefore no surprise that, overall, cycling’s modal share remains stuck at around 2 per cent, despite the expressions of support from both local and