Cycling from Aldridge to Westminster (not actually cycling there, that would be daft)

At the start of the Election Campaign, spurred on by the CTC ( the oldest road using lobby group in the UK) I sent an email to all the prospective parliamentary candidates for their views on five fundamental questions on cycling. Ok it was a pro forma document supplied by the CTC but nonetheless the questions were valid, reasonable and fair. They merely asked how the candidate, if successful would support cycling during their tenure on the green seats of the second highest house.

The questionnaire is available here http://www.ctc.org.uk/news/20150330-vote-bike

For those who haven’t access to the link here are the questions:

• Ambition. Will you support measures to increase levels of cycling to 10% of trips by 2025 and 25% by 2050?
• Funding. Will you support an average government spend of at least £10 per person per year on cycling?
• Design standards. Will you support action to create consistently high design standards for cycling in all highway and traffic schemes, new developments and planned road maintenance work?
• Safety. Will you support measures to improve cycle safety by strengthening road traffic law and its enforcement and revising the Highway Code?
• Positive promotion.  Will you support the positive promotion of cycling, including cycle skills training, for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities?

Without being funny, these aren’t as hard hitting as a Paxo salvo, they aren’t even as hard hitting as a Dimbleby Bullingdon backslap and yet to date only one candidate has bothered to return an answer, for the record this was the Liberal Democrat Ian Garrett.

Perhaps my email was written off as an opportunity for me to score political points in line with my own political agenda but this would be wrong. I am exactly the type of person any of the candidates should be appealing to. I am a disenfranchised socialist. I earn an above average wage. I am over 50 and I care about my locale, the environment and cuddly animals. Quite simply I could, for any number of reasons, vote any way I choose. So, in order to narrow things down, I asked the questions on cycling as I care about it a lot.

As a cyclist, I have been a thrill seeker, a victim, a commuter, an advocate and an enthusiast. Cycling transcends all boundaries, it takes you to places nothing else can. You can get out of a wheeled box at your destination but only on a bike can you live the journey. As Jack Kerouac waxed lyrical about the last hairpin turn, or the road being the journey not the destination, he could have been on a bike, had he not been stoned out of his mind and unable to pedal. But each cyclist carries a little bit of Jack with them.

With so little to differentiate between all the Parties, it only takes something like the view on cycling to make the difference but none were bothered. Perhaps they all feel Wendy Morton is odds on for the seat and can’t be bothered. Wendy isn’t bothered about cycling, I understand she likes parachuting and so doesn’t need to reply, it would eat up photo opportunity time and there is a fridge being opened in Pelsall demanding her attention.

Cycling won’t go away, not even now Pendleton, Hoy and Wiggo have retired (technically Wiggo hasn’t retired but I will put a pound on him not being at the next Olympics). Cycling will become a more viable means of personal transport and yet the Media is allowed to vilify and marginalise cyclists. Increased road usage and congestion victimise the most vulnerable and yet the combustion engine is suffocating the life out of the city and do nothing for the health and well-being of their pilots. Those that try to buck the trend are seen as martyrs or extremists and their attempts litter the roadside in the form of ghost bikes marking their passing.

Something has to change, something has to be done to separate and protect. Investment is required to provide a safe and vibrant infrastructure for human powered transportation and legislation is required to ensure people are put before the profit. By not returning my questionnaire, these candidates are perpetuating an injustice that has gone on too long.

If they want me to put my endorsement behind their expenses, their second homes, the employment for all their relatives, not mentioning the lucrative advisory circuit then at least bother to respond to me.