Newcastle Cycling Campaign

Month: November 2014

Road safety week, sustainable or not?

Uncategorized

It is UK Road Safety Week, 17-23 November. Newcycling.org, Newcastle’s cycling campaign, reacts to that tradition by calling for urgent change in thinking and doing. Katja Leyendecker, chair of newcycling.org, says “UK Road Safety Week is not welcome in its current format. It’s degrading and counterproductive in many ways. It is tackling a serious problem from a wrong angle and can be very hurtful to victims of traffic and road danger. Hiviz, ‘been seen’ and ‘looking out for each other’ have been messages we’ve heard for years, yet motor dominance has increased. If left untackled, it makes those patronising messages[…]

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Structuring the campaign

News

Under this year’s motto “Shifting Up A Gear” we started growing the Campaign as well as started looking at the growing demands of the Campaign. It’s fantastic to see us steadily expanding – after all, it means we have a louder and more concerted voice that can be translated into more influence. However this also means that we have to keep an eye on our organisational needs and make sure our structures support this as best as can. The Committee meeting held on 4 November 2014 formally approved an aspirational Committee structure. We also said that we want to be an active committee – never a “talking shop” – with its members taking on roles and tasks.[…]

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consultation response image

Our response to the Durham Road QTC consultation in Gateshead

Consultation replies

The proposed plan for Durham Road QTC can be found here (external link) Newcycling’s response sent to Nick Clennett (cc Andrew Low), Gateshead Council on 6 November 2014 TS‐109 Durham Road QTC Phase 4 – Consultation – Not In Favour Of Proposals Dear Nick, I have reviewed the proposed Durham Road highway scheme issued for consultation by Gateshead Council. I ask the council to undertake a redesign of the scheme and address serious issues with the design as issued for consultation. Local representatives of charities and user groups concerned with walking and cycling take a keen interest in this scheme given the routes importance as a[…]

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3/5 Sustainable Safety principle – Predictability

News

In June 2014 we adopted Sustainable Safety as our first policy. Here we will describe the five principles of Sustainable Safety. This article will talk about Predictability and what it means. We have previously discussed Functionality and Homogeneity. We explained the need for clear classification of roads and how the difference in speed and mass of vehicles creates a need for different types of cycle provision depending on the function of the road. In Advancing Sustainable Safety by SWOV (http://www.swov.nl/rapport/DMDV/Advancing_Sustainable_Safety.pdf page 13) Predictability is described: “road environment and road user behaviour that support road user expectations through consistency and continuity in road[…]

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Letter to Stagecoach

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Dear Mr Medlicott, We write to you about the ‘cyclists pass with care’ stickers that have appeared on Stagecoach buses recently. Newcycling, Newcastle’s cycling campaign, is campaigning for safe space for cycling, better road designs and cycle infrastructure that promotes clarity of space and removal of conflicting movements between drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Our cities’ road designs are terribly flawed, skewed towards driving a vehicle, and leave cyclists rather little space and more often than not reliant on ‘survival tactics’. In other words, oftentimes any action is put on the cyclist when it should be on the driver. For these[…]

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