Ian Robertson:
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Fear sells.
Why don’t businesses want a £30m cycle-friendly upgrade? From The Guardian:
Bike lane blues: why don’t businesses want a £30m cycle-friendly upgrade?
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A London borough plans to turn four traffic-filled roads into Dutch-style streets which are safer for bikes and pedestrians. Many shops and residents are up in arms, despite growing evidence the project will benefit the local economy. Why?
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It seems the same ‘discussion’ is happening everywhere. The politics of fear and change and the disbelief that anyone could design a better place.
How is it possible to counter knee-jerk anti-everything posters, and is it a failure of the Mini Holland project to not anticipate and at least try to get out in front of the issue?
Every time in the past when you get a scheme like this, you have people saying it’ll damage trade, and it’s not true – it always boosts trade. It makes the town a nicer place to be. It’ll be nicer for pedestrians. There will be more trees, there’ll actually be more car parking … In their current state, are we really saying these high streets are the best they can be? That there’s nothing we can do to improve them?
There’s something about cycling, though, which seems to destroy people’s sense of proportion.
100% of high street customers are pedestrians. They may have ridden on a bus or bike or arrived in the area by car, but in order for them to buy anything they must abandon their vehicle and become a pedestrian. Therefore schemes like mini-Holland need to focus on improvements to the pedestrian realm first and foremost.