What the West Midlands is getting right, and wrong, for cycling | Birmingham

When the mayor of the West Midlands,

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an unlit section of towpath opposite what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse recently and hailed a “big summer for cycling and walking”, it was perhaps worryingly symbolic. That Friday, hours after Street invited us to “come cycle Birmingham’s canals”, at least two women were pushed into Birmingham waterways by a group of young men.

The West Midlands is proud of its industrial heritage, but unlit, isolated towpaths are no replacement for a cycle network that

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they want to be.

Happily, another part of the region’s heritage is the modern bicycle, invented on Street’s patch by JK Starley in Coventry in 1884, kickstarting an era of bike manufacturing in the region.

Street, the former boss of John Lewis, was elected the region’s Conservative mayor in May 2017. Improvement of the region’s canal network aside, just four miles of protected on-road cycle routes have been built by Birmingham since, and those were funded via the city council rather than Street’s combined authority. Birmingham may have bold plans to cut unnecessary car use, but there are concerns too little is being done to help people cycle in the region.

The West Midlands was given £17.2m from the government’s emergency active travel fund in May, £3.4m to be spent in the next two months on 47 projects including a pop-up cycle route from Coventry city centre to the canal basin, bike parking and cycle training. How the remaining £13.6m will be spent is still under discussion with the region’s seven council leaders.

Street’s team will top that up with a £23m pot granted by government last year. Of that sum, £15m was already assigned to four main projects, three alongside rapid bus or metro extensions for delivery in 2022 or 2023 and a route between Coventry University and University hospital, now being brought forward to start this year. Community projects were allocated £2m.

In the long term, West Midlands’ 200km region-wide “route network plan” lacks the scope, the cohesive branding or urgency of Street’s colleagues’ plans in Manchester – the 1,800-mile £1.5bn Bee network; Sheffield – 620 miles of walking and cycling routes; and Leicester, which is currently adding a mile a week to its active travel network.

Then there’s confusion over the contract of Street’s cycling and walking ambassador, the former world champion cyclist Shanaze Reade, which her agent says Transport for West Midlands decided not to renew last month. Street, however, insists “her contract’s been extended, so as far as I’m concerned, we have a cycling champion”. Street’s press department said they are looking to work with Reade “ad hoc” in what sounds like a zero-hours version of roles held by counterparts Chris Boardman in Manchester and Sarah Storey in Sheffield.

Street recently told attendees at an online conference: “In a region like this, even if we do well, you will only get about 5% of people cycling.” An academic analysis, however, estimates that a Dutch-style cycle network would produce at least double that in the region’s most rural areas, and up to 29% in Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Street’s own figures show 41% of trips made by car in the West Midlands are under two miles, distances easily cycled.

Street said targets could be revised upwards in light of cycling growth during lockdown, but he seems to want to let the situation find its own equilibrium first as traffic levels rise. While 5% may be triple the 1.7% of current bike mode share in the region, and a fair five-year target for the region, according to Cycling UK, it’s still underestimating potential significantly as a long-term goal.

This is perhaps worrying for anyone who wants more cycling in the West Midlands, and many people do. Research by Sustrans found the region had among the highest unmet desire to cycle in the country. Thirty per cent of people said they’d get on their bikes if it were safer, and 76% that they wanted more physically protected cycle lanes. Right now, Sustrans says, only 3% cycle five or more days a week for transport.

As mayor it’s Street’s job to cheerlead for investment in the region and to allocate government funding for the seven councils to spend, but he seems to be talking cycling down while saying “the best way of getting people out of their cars is to invest in rail and that is what we want to do“. He is also still banging a drum for the car industry, a major employer in the region.

More worryingly, a document published this week detailing the region’s post-coronavirus recovery plans and setting out requests for funding from central government makes only a single passing mention of cycling. This may be a missed opportunity, given the government has explicitly told local councils they must support walking and cycling in any plans.

It’s fair to say the region hasn’t had the cycling investment London has enjoyed, and high-quality routes are not always cheap – though they still cost a fraction of the amounts pledged to road building. Street says Birmingham’s two protected routes cost £60m, although Birmingham city council’s website says they cost £12.4m, including a city-centre link. Either way, with the £23m pot alone, they have £10 per head to spend on cycling in the next year, a lot more than most UK cities.

Street’s own government has said it wants to “decarbonise transport” and reduce car use, and Boris Johnson has called for a “golden age of cycling”.

Street says with the money available, current cycling plans are realistic. But are they really ambitious? His response: “The evidence of that is, once we’ve got just this little bit of emergency funding, how imaginatively, quickly, in a united way – no political difficulties over this – all of our boroughs have got behind the opportunity.

“There is no lack of desire or ambition. It’s a question of how rapidly we can assemble the funding, as it was not here historically. I actually think we’ve done a pretty decent job.”

It’s good to hear this, and there is progress. The region’s bike hire scheme, NextBike, foundered last year after supplier issues led to the contract being terminated, which Street says was a frustration. A new supplier will be chosen in July and “we will be rolling that out through this year”, he said.

Street’s position, like other city mayors, is in limbo, with elections postponed during the coronavirus crisis. This leaves him a choice: He can talk up cycling as a viable means of mass transport, or he can keep it a minority pursuit to be delivered while keeping cycles on towpaths out of the way of cars.

If he wants the former, that means having a big vision for it, as he does with his £15bn public transport network. He could learn from counterparts in Manchester, Leicester, Sheffield and indeed London – think, talk and plan big for cycling, ready for the next round of funding when it comes, which it will. He could realise the huge potential for cycling in the region by planning a genuine network of safe, protected cycle routes on roads – the network that already takes people where they want to go.

The potential is huge, but now is the time for deeds to match words.