Cycling worth £3bn a year to the UK Economy

chewmylegoff

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

Currently cycle to work 3 days a week, but I'm still paying for an annual zone 2 travel card so I'd say I'm doing my bit for the economy!

I wonder if the figures account for the fact that if someone is using a bike for their trip (unless it's just a fun ride) then they are going to not be paying for another way to make the journey? Jumping on the bike for a quick trip to the shops means you don't need to put petrol in the car.

what a strange arrangement. surely it must be cheaper on pay as you go if you're only using public transport 2 days a week. or even 4 if you use it at weekends.

chewmylegoff

cycling may be "contributing" £3bn to the economy but it's not making us any richer. with only £51 million going to british manufacturers, either a bike costs £13.75, or british people buying bikes is making someone else richer.

custardy

thing is,theres lots of talk of cycle lanes but in reality they are often poorly thought out and implemented
an excuse for councils to say they have X miles of cycle lanes

puddy

chewmylegoff wrote: »

what a strange arrangement. surely it must be cheaper on pay as you go if you're only using public transport 2 days a week. or even 4 if you use it at weekends.

if he's buying it annually it wont work out cheaper pay as you go, plus all the little trips out at the weekend, visiting friends, shopping, coming home on the night bus, cant do all them things on a cycle

Generali

chewmylegoff wrote: »

cycling may be "contributing" £3bn to the economy but it's not making us any richer. with only £51 million going to british manufacturers, either a bike costs £13.75, or british people buying bikes is making someone else richer.

It's a made up figure designed to get something in the paper.

Sky run Britain's biggest cycling team.

Don't get me wrong, I think cycling's great. It's cheap, enjoyable (for me anyway), it's great exercise, you can do it at pretty much any age from 18 months until well past retirement age and I 38 years of cycling pretty much every week the only injuries I've had have been caused by contact with tarmac or other vehicles; it's very easy on the body.

There is plenty of tourism associated with cycling and there could be plenty more. Southern England has some of the great accessible single track riding in the world for example and the weather in the UK is surprisingly good for cycling as it doesn't get too hot. Pub-to-pub MTB would make a great part-time rural business.

chewmylegoff

puddy wrote: »

if he's buying it annually it wont work out cheaper pay as you go, plus all the little trips out at the weekend, visiting friends, shopping, coming home on the night bus, cant do all them things on a cycle

well, i haven't done the sums on zones 1-2 personally, but on zones 1-4, if i was only going in 2 days a week and using a travel card on both days of every weekend, i would be £400/year better off on payg as opposed to an annual travel card, assuming that i am never off sick.

lostinrates

MFW_10Yrs wrote: »

Totally agree. I do a lot of off-road cycling but never feel safe on roads to actually cycle to work. In other countries in Europe there seems to be a greater commitment to making cycling safer. Here we have yellow lines painted onto our busy roads, which peter out after a while or end up clogged with parked cars.

I used to live in an area a bit like PN's...steep, windy. Now I live in an area that's considerably flatter. The difference in the number of cyclists is staggaring. Children, families, use our roads with NO provision and in fact, I think mixed road usuage makes it generally safer for ever one....cars expect there might be a team of a dozen cyclists around any given bend...so the loan cyclist, or walker or rider gets the benefit. (incidentally we have far fewer walkers here than in last area).

Its really nice to see families cycling togather at weekends, and children still using bikes to get about from village to village to see friends/go to the shop.

Making cycle paths where we are would be expensive for the purpose and return, and eat into other industry....farming...from where the space would need to be taken for ''commuting'' tracks/paths rather than leisure of road tracks, which already exist here..but are shared with riders and walkers and at times offroaders.

mr_fishbulb

chewmylegoff wrote: »

what a strange arrangement. surely it must be cheaper on pay as you go if you're only using public transport 2 days a week. or even 4 if you use it at weekends.

Yeah it is, but I got my annual season ticket last November and I only got into my cycling in April. Next year I'll switch to pay-as-you-go.

mr_fishbulb

custardy wrote: »

thing is,theres lots of talk of cycle lanes but in reality they are often poorly thought out and implemented
an excuse for councils to say they have X miles of cycle lanes

A lot of cycle lanes on pavements I've seen are more dangerous than cycling on the road. You need to stop at every intersecting road to check that there is no traffic turning into/out of it. It's fine if you're poodling along at little speed, but if you're a commuter then it's no help at all.

Also it makes car drivers think the because there is a cycle lane there that cyclists have to be on it. That's not the case ("Use of these facilities is not compulsory"). And if you're reading this Mr bus driver who got flipped the bird after blasting your horn at me for not being on the cycle path, I'm surprised being proficient in the highway code isn't a prerequisite for your job.

Andy_L

HappyMJ wrote: »

Is cycling really that expensive? The contribution to the UK economy is £2.9billion (retail sector sale are £2.47bn). Read the report the number of cycle journeys made is 2010 was 208million. A simple division means that each journey costs just under £14 and there is an average of 16 cycle journeys per year per cyclist. Read the report further and the average journey length is under 3 miles. So it costs about £5 a mile to ride a bike. hmmmmm. I thinks something is wrong with the numbers.

I think the're including the economic benefit of the journey, ie each journey is worth £14 as they cyclist gets to work/does some shopping/stops at the pub/reduces congestion etc