Southampton Cycling Campaign

Welcome to the website for Southampton Cycling Campaign. Here you will find information about us and our strategy as well as information about cycling in Southampton. Members of the campaign range enormously from occasional cyclists to daily cycle-commuters and their views can vary accordingly. However, all are committed to ensuring that cycling is a viable option for transport and leisure throughout the city. If you are interested in finding out more about these campaigns or can offer some support, please contact us. We meet on the second Monday of every month (except August) upstairs at the Friends Meeting House, Ordnance Road (map). Enter through the side door. Meet at 19:30 for tea and biscuits, with business from 20:00. Everyone is welcome.

John visited Southampton for the Easter Monday ride and sent this report:

I live in London, but I cycled down to Southampton at Easter and joined
the SCC led ride on Monday morning. I really enjoyed it, so I definitely
recommend those rides to any local cyclists. I didn’t know anyone else
there, but they’re a friendly bunch and they all made me feel welcome.
There was a range of abilities, so it was a nice relaxed pace, averaging
12 km/hour. There were a few steep hills, but nothing too strenuous.

We went out to Westwood Local Nature Reserve, cycling on quiet roads and
through the woods. The off-road sections were flat/solid enough that I
didn’t have any trouble on my touring bike, i.e. I didn’t need a
mountain bike. This ride was specifically timed to fit in with the
bluebells flowering, and they made an impressive sight. I used to live
near the Bluebell Railway (down in Sussex), but I haven’t seen them in
years. Similarly, I saw some dandelion clocks, and I can’t remember the
last time I saw one of them. I live surrounded by concrete, but things
like this remind me that I’m still a country boy at heart. I should also
say that the Westwood cafe sells very nice cake!

A couple of people had mechanical problems while we were out: a puncture
and a broken chain. So, it’s a good idea to bring tools with you, e.g. a
pump and a spare inner tube.

Title: Environmental Rock
Location: The Hobbit pub, Bevois Valley Road
Link out: Click here
Description: The 9th annual Environmental Rock festival will take place on Bank Holiday Monday 2nd May 2011 at The Hobbit in Bevois Valley!
The FREE daytime event has gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2003, and attracts hundreds of visitors with its unique mix of music, environmental awareness, workshops and activities and products for sale. 2011 promises to be the biggest and best event yet.

There will be much to interest local cyclists, including stalls representing Sustrans, the World Naked Bike Ride and Ride Ride cycle workshop.
Start Time: 12:00
Date: 2011-05-02
End Time: 18:00

Provocative thoughts from Andy Allan, the co-creator of the OpenCycleMap project.

I’ve been involved in a small amount of cycle campaigning over the last few years, and one theme comes up over and over. To coin a new phrase – there’s too much “cycle complaining” and not enough “cycle campaigning”. By “cycle complaining” I mean where well-intentioned people just draw attention to problems – poor junction layout, narrow lanes, aggressive driving – without either talking about the good stuff or actually doing anything to help fix the problems they identify. It also gives other cycle campaigners a bad name, since the complainers come across as confrontational and obstructionist, and I only need to read my twitter feed to realise that most times cycling campaigning is mentioned, someone somewhere is complaining about something and concrete suggestions are few and far between.

One example that particularly struck a chord was when I went along to a local campaign group meeting to discuss some new developments our local highways authority (in this case TfL) were making. On one road the proposal was to remove a 1m wide “cycle gap”, and the 3ft steel bollard that was slap bang in the middle of it, and add a proper contraflow cycle lane instead. The campaign group were going to formally object to the improvement since it the resulting lane wasn’t quite wide enough for their liking – despite it clearly being an improvement over what was there already. I was slightly shocked, but on further discussion realised that their position was more of a battle-hardened “cycle complaining” mentality than anything they could rationally justify about the matter at hand. Which got me thinking.

Cycle campaign groups are at a huge disadvantage when discussing plans with local councils. Even when TfL showed us some sneak peaks of the roadway engineering diagrams it was tough for the campaigners to deal with them effectively – they were just printouts, not the actual files; even if they had been CAD files there was nobody there who would be able to examine them or draw the suggested amendments. Ideally a campaign group could respond by saying “here are the places where the proposal doesn’t meet standard X, AND here are our suggestions for improvements we’d like to see”.

This works on a wider scale too. If a council approaches a cycle group to ask where they would like more bike parking installed, the cycle group are unlikely to be able to help much more than just saying “roughly here” (even supposing they maintain a list of sites), rather than “here, have some CAD files for our top ten sites prioritised using density analysis of existing locations” . If a cycle group want to approach a council to convert one-way roads into two-way, they are unlikely to have the traffic simulations to show the five most useful changes. There’s just a huge gulf in tools and technologies available to each side, so when the only way things work is for one side to suggest and the other to accept/refuse, it’s easier to see where so much reactionary complaining comes from.

Enter the guys behind CycleStreets, with their “Helping campaigners campaign” proposal. You can read it for yourself, but in summary is a web-based tool to track, manage and develop solutions to infrastructure problems facing cyclists. While it’s not a panacea for everything I’ve discussed, I think it’s a hugely important step forward for all cycle campaigning groups. Their proposal has been short-listed for the GeoVation awards finals in two weeks’ time and I wish them the best of luck, the funding from that would really kick things off. If you want to show your support then go for it, through your blogs, twitter or however you see fit. Even if they don’t manage the grand prize I hope to see their proposals come to fruition in the near future, especially given their track record of getting things done. I hope to get the opportunity to help their ideas see the light of day – it will be an excellent tool to help turn cycle complaining into the results we want to see.

With wonderful weather forecast for the Easter Weekend, come and join a led cycle ride this Easter Monday and see the bluebells in little known Westwood along Weston Shore.
Meet at The Boardwalk Horseshoe Bridge St Denys at 09:50 for prompt 10:00 start and aim to be back there by 1300. We will have a coffee stop so bring your purse and a good tale to tell on route.
Route fine for road bikes but not narrow wheelers. Steady pace 14miles.

Members of Soton Cycling Campaign free; non-members £3pp £5 family;  membership just £10pa

There is now an online petition to protest the introduction of charges for bikes on Hythe ferry. Please sign here. And don’t forget the protest at Town Quay tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at 4.30pm. You don’t have to take the ferry to Hythe. Please show up even if you can only spare a few minutes.

The Hythe Ferry is imposing an additional £1 charge on cyclists from May 1. This is on top of the £5 adult return fare and £3 child return fare.

We think it is unfair to penalise cyclists. The company says it is imposing the charge because it needs to make up the revenue lost from the council’s withdrawal of the subsidy for pensioners. We appreciate that the company has lost income but it is unfair to pick on cyclists.
Here are eight reasons why bicycles should remain free:

1. Cyclists do not use the pier train, which is expensive to run and can become congested. The ferry has more the double the capacity of the pier train.
2. There is ample room on the ferry for bicycles and they impose no extra costs on the company.
3. Charging for bikes makes it more likely that people will choose to drive instead, contributing to pollution and congestion. All passengers using the ferry are helping reduce pollution and congestion, cyclists even more so than some foot passengers because they do not use cars or taxis at either end of their journey.
4. Cyclists widen the catchment area of the ferry, which is an inconvenient walk from villages surrounding Hythe.
5. There is no charge for carrying other large objects on the ferry, such as prams and suitcases, so why pick on bicycles?
6. The company incorrectly states that it is following the “normal procedure” of train companies by charging for bikes. The Association of Train Operating Companies says no train company charges to carry bicycles.
7. The ferry is on National Cycle Route 2 and picks up considerable extra business because of this. The ferry company should welcome cyclists rather than penalising them.
8. Once the principle of charging for bikes has been established, the charge could be raised in future years.

SCC is joining the campaign to oppose this new charge on bikes. You can help in two ways:

1. Meet at Town Quay at 4.30 pm on Friday 15th April with bicycles and posters etc to catch the 5.00pm ferry to Hythe in order to deliver a petition to the ferry management.
2. Sign a petition, which you can download here, then email it to Ben Webster at the email address in the document, or post it to him at 11 Blenheim Gardens, Dibden Purlieu, Southampton, SO45 4RW

Title: Hythe Ferry protest
Location: Town Quay
Description: Meet at Town Quay and take Hythe Ferry to protest against new charges for bikes on the ferry.
Start Time: 16:30
Date: 2011-04-15

Title: Cycle Jumble
Location: Burley Village Hall
Link out: Click here
Description: Admission 50 pence

Light Refreshments Available

To book a table ring Jim Hatton
01425 280 889
Start Time: 10:00
Date: 2011-05-28
End Time: 14:00

Many of you will be familiar with efforts to designate Fareham footpath 3a (the Hamble shore / Warsash path) as a restricted byway, therefore available to cyclists. We have covered the issue in articles here, here and here. Hampshire County Council has recently reported this will be investigated this as a priority because of the high level of interest and the relevance of this to their action plan.

User evidence forms (downloadable here) are still required, so if you have not already submitted one, please do so, to:

The Rights of Way Office, Hampshire County Council, Mottisfont Court, High Street, Winchester, SO23 8ZF.

Title: ‘How can we improve transport in Britain?’ GeoVation Camp at Ordnance Survey
Location: Ordnance Survey, Adnac Drive, SO16 0AS
Link out: Click here
Description: Thank you for the 155 great ideas submitted for our second GeoVation Challenge of the year: How can we improve transport in Britain? We were delighted at the quality and scope of the ideas of how you could use geography to improve transport.

A short-list of ideas (below) has now been chosen by the GeoVation judging panel and teams have been invited to develop their ideas at GeoVation Camp, 25 – 27 March, at Ordnance Survey’s new head office in Southampton.
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2011-03-25

FROM THE DAILY ECHO:

MANY motorists stuck in Southampton’s morning rush hour must have wondered if there’s an easier way to get to work.

Now it’s been proven there is – with a commuter race through the city centre.

As the Daily Echo continues with the Don’t be a Fuel Fool campaign, which looks at ways of getting around the rising costs at the pump, it’s been shown that ditching the car on the daily commute could save time as well as money.

A car driver, cyclist, walker and bus user set off at 8.30am from Southampton General Hospital yesterday morning to settle once and for all which is the quickest way to get across the city.

It was cyclist Thea Bjaalan, 30, from Portswood, who crossed the finish line at Guildhall Square first, having made the 3.5mile journey in a time of 15 minutes.

And she says she didn’t even pick the quickest route – but instead opted for a scenic ride through Southampton Common.

She said: “It was probably slightly quicker to go the road way but it was a really nice cycle ride through the common. The sun was shining, there were no cars – it was a treat and definitely better than being in the car and getting annoyed by the traffic lights and other drivers.” [Read the whole story here.]