Letter: Only One in Ten of Us Are Potential Cyclists

Published on: 27 Oct, 2024
Updated on: 27 Oct, 2024

From David Roberts

In response to: To Believe Drivers Will Switch to Cycling is Absurd

Cycling should be encouraged for both health and environmental reasons. But planners need to accept that most people will never shift from four to two wheels.

By “most people”, I include the very young and very old. Many disabled people. The overweight, unfit, nervous, lazy or infirm. People who support public transport. People carrying shopping or luggage or accompanied by pets. Those with too far to go. People who like to travel in comfort or company. People who love their car, treat it as a safe, personal space and appreciate the freedom it brings.

Then there are commuters and others too short of time to cycle and need to arrive looking neat and tidy. Cyclists who cycle only for fun rather than for getting from A to B in fumes and heavy traffic. Villagers living on dark, flooded, potholed roads.

And there are people who see EVs [electric vehicles] as a green reason to carry on driving. People in flats and small homes with nowhere to keep a bike for themselves, let alone each family member. People with nowhere safe to park a bike at work or other destinations. The many people who can’t even afford a bike. And people like me who never learnt to ride one.

Realistically, that probably leaves only about 10 per cent of Guildford’s population who are ever going to cycle routinely. The vision of a general “modal shift” to cycling is as illusory as the 1950s prediction that, by now, we’d all be travelling around in personal rockets.