World Bicycle Day

Today, by United Nations’ Resolution, marks World Bicycle Day and by coincidence I had a fairly heavy questioning on the doorstep about cycling provision in the town.

Cycling has a strong history in Crawley. When the New Town was first built, along with cornershops and launderettes, every neighbourhood parade had a bicycle repair shop as an essential piece of infrastructure. I’m told that in the 1950s Manor Royal looked like a mini-Holland at the end of the work day due to the number of bicycles and the town. At the time the town’s parking and road infrastructure was set down, the assumption was that there would be no more than one car for every ten houses.

Times move on, but with Crawley being largely flat and with various cut-throughs, the town retains significant potential for bicycles as mass-transit. However, for that to happen, the various cycling routes across the town need to be better connected to make it as easy as possible for those new to utility cycling to feel confident giving it a go.

Cyclists don’t want to have to deal with sharing highway space with cars or pedestrians, and cars and pedestrians don’t want to have to share highway space with cyclists. While some try to portray investing in cycling routes as a war on the motorist, the reality is that by segregating the different modes of transport we enable everyone to get where they are trying to get to quicker while reducing accidents.

At the same time, even a relatively small increase in the number of cyclists would help to address local congestion and the town’s appalling air quality problems, while helping people to keep fit and save money.

Since Labour regained control of the council, we have successfully secured significant grant funding to deliver various improvements in cycle network connectivity, particularly through/around the town centre, across Manor Royal and connecting into Three Bridges station (this does not include the problematic temporary cycle lane constructed during COVID, which the borough council actively objected to).

In fact, despite not being the Highways authority, we’ve produced a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan, to set out our ambitions for making sustainable transport easier for all those who want to undertake it.

So, the car may now have replaced the bicycle as Crawley households’ main means of transportation, but the bicycle remains firmly in the mix, and under Crawley Labour the town remains committed to helping all those who want to cycle to do so as safely as possible and without annoying motorists.