Nearly £500k is being made available by the DfT through a new competition for ‘innovative’ projects that lead to increased levels of walking and cycling.
Launched today (19 April), the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition aims to reward projects that ‘remove current barriers to walking and cycling’ and ‘encourage people to make more journey stages by bicycle or on foot’.
The competition is part of the government’s vision for cycling and walking to become the natural choice for shorter journeys.
While the competition is open to individuals, groups and organisations, SBRI says it is particularly suitable for early-stage, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Submissions are invited for initiatives which focus on technology, infrastructure, manufacturing or behavioural change.
The competition is split into two phases. Up to £170,000 is allocated for phase one (proof of concept), and up to £300,000 for phase two (demonstrator projects).
The deadline for registration is midday on 7 June, with a briefing event for potential applicants to be held on 24 April. Click here for more information.
Unlike yours Rod which are well known to all. It would appear that some people have already made up their own minds and they are not in accord with yours.
g craven
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Charles
That’s fine. I will leave it there. I think you have said enough to reveal your prejudices. I will let people make up their own minds.
Rod King, Warrington, Cheshire, 20’s Plenty for Us
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Rod, this is a road safety forum, and not a social engineering forum, and so car usage should be accepted as a given. The roads need to be safe for the usage the consumers demand, and the freedom of usage should not be a consideration. And yes, I dispute your observations, all of them, as although some of them may be true for specific instances of car usage, none of them are true for general car use. If you do want to mention genuine disbenefits of car use (being subject to unfair taxes, regulations, restrictions, etc.) then you need also to balance them with the massive and untold benefits they bring – just to set the context fairly.
Charles, England
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Charles. The “anti-car” argument is rather hackneyed now if you will pardon the expression. Are you disputing any of the observations I have made or simply criticising what you may wrongly presume are my motives for making them. What chance is there of any reasonable debate if as soon as the dis-benefits of motorisation are mentioned you cry “anti-car”.
Rod King, Warrington, Cheshire, 20’s Plenty for Us
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Rod, your comments tell us more about your apparent perverse anti-car agenda than they make any logical contribution to the case for artificially and deliberately making driving less attractive despite the overwhelming preferences and aspirations of the community at large to be free to use personal transport modes of their own choosing. As I said, make the playing field level, but do not get in the way of legitimate freedom of choice.
Charles, England
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Thanks for that analogy. Now there’s a thought. If only our individual and collective choice of transport were as benign as deciding which brand of trainers to wear.
For what if :-
Adidas trainers emitted toxic gases whenever they were used.
Adidas trainers had a tendency to kill people, especially the young, the old, the vulnerable.
Adidas trainers were developing an over dependence leading to record levels of obesity and subsequent health costs to the economy.
Adidas trainers required ongoing fuel purchases which meant we were reliant upon selling arms to dubious foreign governments in order to pay for that fuel.
Adidas trainers were developing an envy and worth system whereby people felt that having the latest particular style was a basis for self esteem.
Adidas trainers users were building up staggering levels of personal and national debt in order to sustain their habit.
Maybe in such circumstances it would be entirely correct for society to recognise that it was appropriate to discriminate against Adidas.
So maybe your analogy is rather flawed.
Rod King, Warrington, Cheshire, 20’s Plenty for Us
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Rod, making car journeys less attractive is not the *key*, as you put it. That’s like saying that the key for Nike to sell more trainers is for them to get the government to introduce measures to make Adidas trainers less attractive to the buying public – and that’s not ethically supportable. The customers we are dealing with here are all humans too, not animals or machines, and we should cater for their preferences and aspirations, and not enforce our preferences upon them using underhand and artificial market distortion methods. It’s fair enough to create a level playing field (so to speak) for walking and cycling, as I’ve always proponed here, but to artificially and deliberately make driving less attractive is, I believe, a no-no.
Charles, England
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Charles
The key to walking and cycling success in so many European cities is down to making private car journeys less attractive.
In the 1970’s Stevenage had visitors from the Netherlands across to see the fantastic cycle and walking facilities that were constructed in the new town. However, Stevenage had also built fantastic motorised access. As a result everyone used motor vehicles rather than walking and cycling.
The fact is that you need to both make walking and cycling more attractive, more comfortable and more direct whilst at the same time making motorised vehicle use less so.
As I look around our streets I certainly see “foul play”, but it seems almost universally against the cyclist and walker.
Rod King, Warrington, Cheshire, 20’s Plenty for Us
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I think a proviso should be added that the increased walking must occur as a result of making the walking, itself, more attractive – rather than as a result of making the alternatives less attractive. Nobbling the opposition should be considered as the foul play that it undoubtedly is.
Charles, England
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