11 minute read
ON YOUR BIKE
[BRIDLINGTON]
ON YOUR BIKE
The combination of pandemic and climate change is encouraging more and more of us to switch from cars to more active forms of travel, such as cycling or walking. Yet the UK’s active travel network remains woefully patchy and under-resourced. This has to change, and well-lit active travel infrastructure could be a key part of the solution
By Trystan Williams
In the 1950s and 1960s, the motorcar was king. Its primacy brought the construction of our meandering motorway network, which carved through the countryside, connecting urban and rural centres with arterial routes, taking cues from examples such as the autobahn in Germany and the USA’s interstate highway network.
Journeys became shorter, more comfortable and the default transport mode of the twentieth century – the car – was established and entrenched in our infrastructure. From this newfound mobility, we emerged into the second half of the century with optimism, supported by a fitfor-purpose transport network.
So complete was this adoption that the government of the day deemed it was OK for nearly 35% of railway lines and 55% of train stations to be axed under the Beeching cuts of the 1960s; decisive action had been taken and a result was realised [1].
The subsequent decades brought the renaissance of our industry, one where lighting our road networks became the clear priority. For some 60 years this market grew with ongoing enhancements and increasing efficiencies and safety as, alongside it, we saw exponential traffic growth.
Climate change is now, of course, shifting this dial significantly, with the pandemic, in turn, shattering long-accepted
JANUARY 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL 23
norms of how the UK works, commutes and travels, both for leisure and business.
Transport – much less the car – is no longer the silver bullet it once was. We are all being encouraged and exhorted, quite rightly, to switch away from the most polluting modes of transport for the sake of the planet and for future generations.
Alongside this, the pandemic has encouraged more and more of us to think long and hard about not just how and where we work but how we get to and from work and how we travel more generally. The pandemic has made us all focus much more on our health and wellbeing and, within that, healthier and more active transport options.
CYCLEWAYS GUIDANCE
This has been partly because of people feeling less inclined to go on potentially crowded buses and trains, partly because of wanting to maintain fitness during the various lockdowns and partly, too, because of worries over climate change. This change was reflected in the ILP’s fast-track creation of a new Professional Lighting Guide, PLG23: Lighting for Cycling Infrastructure, precisely to update guidance for lighting cycleways [2].
All of which brings us rather neatly to active travel schemes. Active travel schemes, for those who are unaware, are temporary highway schemes designed to aid social distancing, to reallocate existing road space, and to enable more journeys by walking and cycling.
Historically, however, active travel schemes – and the UK’s active travel network – have been hamstrung by inadequate infrastructure, a lack of consistent demand, difficulties in maintenance and low funding.
But dramatic shifts in circumstances over the past few years – notably of course the arrival of a pandemic and the acceleration of climate change – have put active travel back into the spotlight. There is greater urgency over the sort of answers active travel schemes can provide, the incentives currently in place to encourage their development, how to encourage greater public engagement in active travel, and the vital role active travel can play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Alongside the debates and conversations around net zero – highlighted of course at November’s COP26 – there are other public health factors at play here. There’s the health impacts of car emissions, notably around asthma and other respiratory diseases.
By reducing emissions produced through short car journeys, and the additional benefit to personal and public health in making this journey ‘active’, more options are open to policymakers to maintain sound public health, a policy area which has been rudely thrust into the arena.
On top of this, well-serviced (and well lit) active travel networks provide an opportunity for connecting our cities in new ways, encouraging collective community support, adoption and use of healthier transport infrastructure. Of course, to make this a reality, we must bring rural, urban and suburban areas into the conversation and ask: what network services everyone? How should these networks be designed and maintained? How do we make people feel safe?
For me, the key word in ‘active travel network’ is ‘network’. A ‘network’ implies a well-serviced, interconnected web of routes fusing urban centres with rural communities and commercial areas with residential.
It is about making active travel as a concept practical and attractive, something that cannot be achieved without strong infrastructural investment, spent pragmatically.
The separated cycle path that now runs along the Victoria Embankment in London
MORE ATTRACTIVE OPTIONS
Our motorway and rail networks would be less popular without the provision of complementary facilities. So, if we want to grasp the opportunity that has been presented by the sea-change in attitudes we have seen during the pandemic, active travel networks can no longer be (as they sometimes are) little more than a potholed length of tarmac. We need to rethink.
To my mind, if we’re willing to grasp it, a snowball effect is possible. The increasing availability of cycle-to-work schemes and increasing visibility of cycling clubs will likely prompt more motorists into considering active travel options. As more people embrace this option, so more will follow.
However, that initial interest and enthusiasm is only going to be sustained if taking the plunge into active travel options is enjoyable, safe and, crucially, works. If you’ve ever taken a rest on the lone, damp bench on your local ATS route, you’ll know it’s the lack of facility and service provision which prevents universal adoption.
Facilities that encourage regular, intrinsic use should be prioritised. This might include water pumps, bike repair stations, covered communal areas and defibrillator stations – all properly lit, regularly serviced, pragmatically delivered. For me, it’s an adaptation of the adage ‘if you build it, they will come’ to ‘if you build well, they will come’. And come again, and again.
And this, critically, is where the lighting industry can contribute. Without the ingenuity of our sector, our roads would be dark, dangerous places – improving visibility and energy savings through LED technology, the introduction and development of passive safety or essential services such as automated traffic lights have all been key contributors.
We must replicate this ingenuity on our active travel networks and, in the process, facilitate and embed the transit system of the future.
One of the ironies of this is that many cycleways are built upon former rail lines; flat sections of ground that can be resurfaced, commonly have the desired topographic characteristics for good drainage for example, and always take direct routes from A to B. Might it therefore be that the often-lamented lost railway lines of the pre-Beeching 1960s turn out to be the driver (no pun intended) of a new, genuinely national, active travel network? To my mind, quite possibly.
There are, however, barriers and obstacles that need to be overcome. Similar to the situation we’re now seeing with EV charge-points, until the era of ‘token funding’ ends and significant thought and investment is ploughed in we’ll continue only to advance in baby steps rather than the seismic change that is actually needed.
Organisations such as Wheelrights, a Swansea-based campaign group, will continue to wearily voice their concerns on active travel useability, particularly concerning the clearance of rainwater and the provision of
sufficient lighting [3]. Ultimately, if active travellers are going to stay active travellers and not just get back into their cars they need reliable, safe routes. And sufficient funding goes beyond simple capital investment; supporting ongoing maintenance is vital for longevity.
This money might be ringfenced sector funding as opposed to an appendage to the carriageway budget. However it is allocated, and from whatever budget, it is about allowing operatives to competently plan and deliver sector-specific enhancements and facilitate the development of, again, sector-specific technology for sector-specific problems. This might help to distinguish active travel from the conventional road network as a safer, conscious, efficient travel option.
NEED TO SEPARATE ACTIVE TRAVEL
A further important issue is how to encourage and facilitate the increasing separation of, and distinction between, active and car travel, as this will encourage more regular active travel use among children particularly.
Damningly, nearly half (49%) of people in a recent Welsh Government survey believed roads were unsafe for cyclists, and 59% thought it unsafe for children to cycle to school on public roads. A similarly large percentage, 59%, of 1,305 children in a 2018 YouGov survey said they were worried about air pollution near their school [4]. Our kids currently have a bad deal when it comes to active transport options.
Of course, segregating roads and active travel networks is not practical everywhere. On a macro scale, topography is a limiting factor, particularly in regions such as the south of Wales. At the micro level, interfaces between our active travel networks and our road, rail and air travel infrastructure are necessary where space is short.
To encourage regular use, it’s important that the ‘UK National Cycle Network’ map begins to look like a network distinct from the road network [5]. It needs to be much, much more than a patchwork of cycle track sections strung together by sections of ‘cycle friendly’ carriageway.
Interfaces are important to ensure a holistic ‘multi-modal’ network is achieved, or one that encourages the ability to transport between different transport modes. We should be, for example, allowing travellers improved bike storage on trains to encourage bike-train-bike travel arrangements. This will, of course, require careful consideration in design, especially where active and conventional transport network combine.
Both the Tarka Trail in north Devon (left) and the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire (right) have been created from disused railway lines
ROLE OF LIGHTING
Where and how, then, can lighting play a role in potentially transformational change? I’d argue we must use our expertise to engender co-existence and to shift attitudes.
Smart traffic management, preferential sequencing of lights for active travellers and ensuing such locations are well lit, might be starting points. Any lighting system installed should ensure minimal downtime during maintenance; these are intended as critical transport modes for the general public, after all.
This might mean, for example, installing more raise and lower columns, allowing maintenance with minimal downtime and maximum reliability, or the inclusion of CMS systems to ensure lighting is always sufficient.
We might need to see more ‘passenger’ counters, pollution sensors and various data collection devices for ongoing monitoring. These, in turn, might become more important as genuine additional revenue streams, and indispensable in the efficient maintenance and enhancement of the network.
Public consultation, continuous monitoring, and the involvement of local businesses from the outset – this, for me, is how active travel networks can be developed and scaled up. It is about encouraging people to switch habits because they want to and because the alternative is attractive, more attractive in fact, than what has gone before. It is also about aiding local economies, dare I say it ‘levelling up’, through incentives and investment opportunities; this may need leadership and support from national government if genuine national change is be effected.
Ultimately, pragmatism and detail will be key. We need a network that works for all of us. One that is accessible and attractive to all. How we approach this alongside all the other post-Covid challenges and opportunities, the solutions we develop and offer as an industry, will be imperative to the long-term health of our industry going forward as we transition away – because we have no option but to – from conventional transport networks and options.
On top of this of course, the keenness with which we accept and rise to this challenge, against the backdrop of climate change and the need for more sustainable transport solutions across the board, could play a critical role in preserving all of our futures.
[1] ‘Britain’s trains: let’s undo the Beeching legacy’, by Jeremy Williams, March 2011, within The Earthbound Report, https://earthbound.report/2011/03/28/britains-trains-lets-undo-thebeeching-legacy/ [2] ‘Pedal power’ Lighting Journal September 2020, (vol 85 no 8); PLG23: Lighting for Cycling Infrastructure, https://theilp.org.uk/resources/ [3] Swansea Wheelrights, https://www.facebook.com/pg/Wheelrights/posts/ [4] ‘Traffic Orders and 20mph public attitudes survey’, Welsh Government, November 2020, pp.8, https://gov.wales/traffic-orders-and20mph-public-attitudes-survey; ‘School kids call for more cycling as 59% see “too many cars” at school gates’, Cycling Industry News, April 2021, https://cyclingindustry.news/walking-andcycling-tackle-air-pollution-sustrans-survey/ [5] The National Cycle Network, Sustrans, https://www.sustrans.org.uk/national-cycle-network Trystan Williams is market analyst at The Aluminium Lighting Company
