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MCC News, Issue 51, April/May 2009
Merton Cycling Survey; have your say!
MCC is carrying out a
survey to establish the best and worst provision for cycling in the borough. We
aim to issue a press release with the findings which will also be passed on to
the council.
The survey includes
questions on the best provision for cycling in the borough. This could be a
cycle lane on the carriageway, a road crossing, a junction, a facility on the
pavement shared with pedestrians, an off-road route through an open space/along
towpath etc.
We are also asking
respondents to nominate locations in Merton which are most in need of improved
provision for cycling. This could be a specific junction that you find
intimidating, an unpleasant section of road, a one-way street that you think
needs two-way cycle provision, a pedestrianised area etc. Anything that makes
cycling around the borough seems inconvenient, unpleasant, or dangerous.
We are also asking about
cycle parking, both suggestions for examples of best practice (e.g. at shops,
on streets, in stations, recreational facilities etc) and locations, which
either have no cycle parking or very poor provision.
Finally, respondents are
asked what they think should be the general priority to get more people cycling
in Merton. This can cover all issues relating to cycling (e.g. adverts, maps, training,
promotion, infrastructure, etc).
We are hoping to put
questionnaires in some of the bike shops across the borough. However, if you
would like to receive electronically, please send an email to: survey@mertoncyclists.org.uk
Neil Guthrie
Interview with Charles Barraball – Part 1
Recently, Charles
Barraball, an MCC activist, has been elected to the Board of London Cycling
Campaign. To find out what the LCC Board is about, Harriet Bazley held an interview
with him, to reveal ‘behind the scenes’ of the LCC organisation.
Harriet Bazley (HB): I gather that you’ve
been elected to the LCC Board – congratulations. Personally I wasn’t aware that
the London Cycling Campaign had a Board; can you tell me what how many people
it consists of, and what it does?
Charles Barraball (CB): I was not certain about the Board either,
but as a far-too-late-in-life ordinary member since early 2007 – getting more
involved in cycling had been my retirement plan - I thought it would be a “good
thing” to stand for, and in so doing, find out more.
The LCC is a Registered
Charity and Company Limited by Guarantee; it has to be such an august body so that
it can be a fair employer of the very professional staff, lease premises, and
so forth. Having the right paperwork in place means that LCC can benefit from
grants. It means that there are procedures in place to look after your
subscriptions.
So there has to be a
Board, with a Chair, a vice-chair and 10 or so other people with experience and
specialist knowledge –
legal, financial,
personal, and so on. We are all Trustees. Reporting to us are Koy Thomson
(Chief Executive) and Kim Bailey (Finance and Operations Manager. The ordinary
Members of LCC hold the Board to account at the AGM.
To be effective there are
various sub-committees, members of these comprise Board members, and others who
are co-opted to help. I sit on the main Board, and the Human Resources,
Finance, and Local Groups sub-committees, and there are other sub-committees.
So I am down for probably 22 meetings this year. The Board are entirely
volunteers. OK, we do get sandwiches, tea or coffee, but we are not paid.
The main Board sets objectives
and budgets, agrees what the LCC does and gets reports from its sub-committees
and the staff. It is very much about steering the direction, setting the pace
and making sure destinations are reached, all the time making sure the balance
is right, and keeping a sharp lookout all around. Just like riding a bike
really.
So if you pedal down
Newhams Row SE1 3UZ, don’t be surprised to find a cluster of bikes padlocked to
Number 2 – the staff and your Board are hard at work to try and ensure you (and
they, for they are nearly all cyclists) can cycle into a better future, a
better London.
HB: How long do meetings
last? Do you find that Board membership is a big commitment?
CB: Board meetings are 2 hours, usually from 6.30pm, although we have also
had a four-hour Saturday session (and there are probably going to be some more
of those) they are, from those I have been to so far, vibrant and productive.
We are very fortunate to have the benefit of such sharp minds. Many of the
Board have full-time jobs – and full-time families – so the commitment they
make is considerable. As a retired single-person household perhaps it is not so
much of a commitment for me.
Part 2 of Interview with Charles Barraball will be in
the next issue of MCC News.
Harriet Bazley
Étape du Tour
On July 6th 2008, I rode
the Étape du Tour - a one day stage of the Tour de France for amateur riders –
from Pau to Hautacam via the mighty 2,015m Col du Tourmalet in the
Pyrenees. I loved every minute of it, despite
the atrocious weather conditions – rain on and off, fog at altitude, cold
descents, wet roads, crashes – it was very much the real TdF experience! A pity to miss all the fabulous mountain
scenery in all that murk… oh well I will just have to go and ride it again one
day in the sunshine. And to be frank,
the grim climatic conditions probably helped Brit riders, it's what we know
best. I for one would certainly have
suffered a lot more in fierce tarmac melting heat.
I finished the 169km
route, with some 3,500m of climbing, in 7h41 at an average speed of 22.8km/h,
arriving atop the Hautacam in 2,193rd place out of 7,500 riders. To put that into some perspective, the
winner did 5h38 and the broom wagon followed, sweeping up the slowest, at
9h40. Eight days later the pros went
round the same route and Leonardo Piepoli won the stage in 4h19…
How to follow that? Well I have heard of an event in the Alps
every year called the Marmotte, and browsing the web found a Cycling Weekly
ride write-up by James Shrubsall which starts off like this: "175k and
5,000m climbing... "over the famous Tour de France cols of the Glandon,
Télégraphe and Galibier before finishing atop Alpe d'Huez, it has been
providing riders with a day of pure sadomasochistic fantasy every July since
1982. It is widely considered to be the hardest cyclo-sportive on what is a
rapidly expanding calendar".
I think I'll be giving it
a go!
Richard Evans
Chicanery the Martin Way
The reduced daylight
hours and winter ’08/09 conditions mean that the immediate and established
dangers of venturing down Martin Way on a bicycle need emphatically re-emphasising. Merton Cycling Campaign’s advice is ‘STEER CLEAR’.
They have been on the
case since the first deluge of e-mails from cyclists protested at the
catastrophic chain of chicanes on Martin Way. The installation is now over
one year old and still no remedy has
been agreed. TfL and Merton have independent teams looking into solutions in
the hopes that between them a proposal can be arrived at, but it will be April
2009 before they have something on paper!
Meanwhile MCC have continued to put pressure on Merton to
put up temporary warning signs for cyclists, the fact that neither Merton nor
the Police have gone along with this simple request compounds the Highway
Authority’s irresponsibility as they have not even put up the statutory signs
warning of traffic calming as originally requested by the Safety Auditors.
The Safety Audit in fact
opens up both TfL and Merton to charges of lack of diligence and currently the
Local Government Ombudsman is investigating TfL’s part in it. What the Safety
Audit did get right is that kerb stones would be struck by vehicles and askew
uprooted kerb stones are there for all to see. What MCC hopes they didn’t get right is their inference that vehicular strikes
on cyclists are likely! So once again, cyclists, STEER CLEAR of this chicanery.
Article & Photo: Hugh Morgan
Hugh
Mor