Laura Laker

4 days ago | cyclinguk.org | Laura Laker

By Laura Laker The Netherlands has a dense network of high-quality cycling infrastructure. The UK? Some patchy good bits and lots of blue signs, as Laura Laker discovered A set of stairs with a bollard on them was uniquely obstructive, even by National Cycle Network (NCN) standards.

2 weeks ago | lauralaker.substack.com | Laura Laker

The £10bn Lower Thames Crossing will offer no cycle lane or passenger bus to cross the river, and will instead use a single shuttle bus service to ferry cyclists across. The route will be a ‘guaranteed trip generator’ for motor traffic, sources tell me, and the government-owned company, National Highways (NH), is accused of ignoring active travel or public transport as a way to mitigate any predicted increase in car traffic and carbon emissions.

3 weeks ago | lauralaker.substack.com | Laura Laker

A long time ago I lived in the countryside. It was a place with no TV reception, where the gas was delivered in bottles and our delicious spring water was groundwater that gathered in a concrete tank at the edge of a wood, and meandered down a pipe to the house. Eventually a dismembered frog leg and a worm plopped out of the kitchen tap, and then filters were installed on the front of the house, with the help of the local public health team.

1 month ago | lauralaker.substack.com | Laura Laker

I’m not necessarily talking about the NCN here. The National Cycle Network as it is, does the job as best it can with charitable funding, an army of amazing volunteers and no powers or very much land at its disposal. I’m talking about, what if we had national leadership on cycling, for a standardized network of routes that connected city, town and village networks (a few are planned, fewer are built), to the surrounding settlements and beyond?

2 months ago | lauralaker.substack.com | Laura Laker

Anyone who’s been out on the streets in recent weeks will have seen ‘cyclists dismount’ or ‘footpath closed’ signs gathering like blossom drift around various-sized holes in the ground. Across London spring has certainly sprung, and at the end of the financial year the smell of fresh tarmac competes with the flowers as councils scramble to spend their remaining funds on bits and bobs of infrastructure so the money isn’t clawed back next year.