Season’s Greetings

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Time to Cycle!

More than 120 riders are making their way to Paris to call for an end to environmental damage and to get urgent action on climate change at the COP21 summit. The first group of cyclists arrived from Balcombe on the A23 cycle track video here and called at Withdean Park in Brighton on Sunday December 6th before a reception at Brighthelm. You can follow their journey. See Time to Cycle and Brighton’s Climate Action Network for links.

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Brighton and Hove City Council signs up to Space for Cycling

IMG_2288ed2 Great news! We are delighted that Brighton and Hove City Council have voted to support CTC’s Space for Cycling campaign. There was agreement at the Environment Transport and Sustainability committee on November 25th 2015 to ask Brighton and Hove’s Chief Executive Officer to sign the council up to the initiative. 20140514 - SpaceforCyclingcropped This shows admirable unity of purpose between the Labour Chair of the committee, Councillor Gill Mitchell and the Green Group, led by Councillor Pete West, who tabled the motion. Bricycles has been promoting Space for Cycling since the start of the campaign led nationally by the cycling charity CTC. We now hope to see a continued and renewed focus at local level on the remaining barriers to cycling, particularly dealing with busy roads and dangerous junctions.

CTC’s blog on this and the Autumn Spending Review

Space for Cycling has 6 themes:

Protected space on main roads
Removing through motor traffic in residential areas
Lower speed limits
Cycle-friendly town centres
Safe routes to school
Routes through green spaces

More information here on what Space for Cycling means.

Ride for Space for Cycling!

We are delighted to see that the new Leader of the Labour Party chooses to ride a bike! We’re inviting Jeremy Corbyn and all the delegates from the Labour Party Conference to ride with us to support Space for Cycling. The conference runs from Sunday September 27th to Wednesday 30th September. It will probably be one morning before conference starts! More details soon. They will be posted on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/Bricycles

Access to Brighton Station

Is this access to Brighton station good enough? What do you think of the design of this lane in Queens Road? What do you think of the use of the “orca” lane separators? Let us know by leaving a comment or emailing bricyclesbrighton@gmail.com Join us on Facebook www.facebook.com/Bricycles

Vote Bike

If you care about cycling, ask your parliamentary candidates where they stand on five cycling themes, listed below.

Responses and comments can be seen on the website. Cycling needs champions in Westminster! They will set the future funding for transport.

AMBITION Measures to increase levels of cycling to 10% of trips by 2025 and 25% by 2050.

FUNDING An average government spend of at least £10 per person per year on cycling.

DESIGN STANDARDS Action to create consistently high design standards for cycling in all highway and traffic schemes, new developments and planned road maintenance work.

SAFETY Measures to improve cycle safety by strengthening road traffic law and its enforcement and revising the Highway Code. Including cycle skills training, for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

Election 2015: Check out these local manifestos for cycling and transport

Brighton and Hove City Council is made up of 54 councillors. All these seats are up for election on May 7th 2015. Check out the local manifestos from the political parties! This is what the the candidates say they’ll do if you vote for them!

Conservative party manifesto See particularly pages 8 and 11

Green party manifesto See particularly pages 24-26

Labour party manifesto See particularly pages 16-17

There are a lot of differences in their approach to cycling and transport!

www.facebook.com/Bricycles

Space for Cycling: must try harder!

Bricycles has asked all Brighton and Hove City Councillors to sign up to Space for Cycling which aims to improve the quality of life for all by making our streets and roads safer and more inviting for everyone to cycle. The main themes are:

Protected space on main roads and at junctions
Removal of through motor traffic on residential streets.
Lower speed limits. 20mph in villages and built-up areas. 40mph or lower on rural lanes.
Cycle-friendly town centres with people prioritised over motor traffic to create high streets that are economically viable and socially vibrant.
Routes through green spaces and parks
Safe routes to schools

The breakdown of Brighton and Hove City Councillors signed up to this essential 6-point commitment to cycling is as follows:

1 Conservative councillor

1 Labour councillor

17 Green councillors

There are 54 councillors in total. The map of Councillors signed up for Space for Cycling is at http://www.ctc.org.uk/campaign/space-for-cycling/space-for-cycling-your-councillors-views Click on Brighton on the map.

If you have not already written to your councillors, please do so through www.space4cycling.org.uk or contact them directly. If they don’t sign, please challenge them about why they haven’t! Let us know what happens.

More information in Bricycles News103 including your suggestions for local improvements, and in Bricycles News102