Pedal power

Ten years ago, when the Department of Transport was still building roads, and the green movement meant something to do with digesting vegetables, a group of civil engineers began a Bristol to Bath cycle path.

Now it has grown into a charity with 10,000 members and is seeking Millennium funding to build a national cycle network entering every town and city in the country.

Civil engineer John Grimshaw is the man behind the National Cycle Network which many say is one of the strongest submissions currently under consideration by the Millennium Commission.

The bid, if successful, would produce construction work worth œ175 million over the next five years as the civil engineering charity Sustrans creates a 2,400-mile network of continuous, high quality, safe and attractive routes for cyclists and walkers.

And that's not all. Grimshaw's plan goes further than the mileage planned for the end of the millennium: his intention is to have a 6,000-mile network in place by the year 2005. Achieving this would take construction's total workload up to œ500 million.

Grimshaw has reason to feel optimistic about his fume-free, jam-free, health-promoting project for he has caught a government mood swing at exactly the right time.

Steven Norris, Minister for Local Transport, confesses to being fascinated by the challenge of drawing up an integrated transport policy by the next century. Norris is on record as saying that he wants cycling to become an integral part of the country's local transport strategy.

And a shift in the same direction by the DoT has resulted in government transport funding being awarded to local authorities who submit the best package plan - the DoT's definition of 'best package' being schemes which considers the needs of cyclists in new developments.

All this is sweet music in Grimshaw's ear for he has spent 20 years calling for such government change.

It was the birth of his first son in 1974 that triggered Grimshaw into action. Becoming a father set him thinking about the quality of the world that the next generation would inherit.

'It is important for government to tackle non-motorised modes of transport in a serious fashion,' Grimshaw believes. 'In this country, walkers and cyclists have not been considered to be proper travellers for too long.

'My views weren't new. There had been a serious transport debate ever since the 1960s and a lot of planning people agreed that change was needed.

'The trouble was they were being over-ruled. The wrong side won.'

'This was not the position held by our European neighbours, yet our government, over the years, has taken the view that the other European countries have got it all wrong. I don't believe they have got it wrong - we have.'

After graduating in civil engineering, Grimshaw worked for Taylor Woodrow on such projects as Liverpool's Roman Catholic cathedral, the Heathrow cargo tunnel and London's Barbican.

He next worked overseas, in Uganda, building roads. When Grimshaw returned home he was based in Bristol as a consultant with Rust, working on dams and china clay settlement schemes.

However it was an ever-growing belief in the need for a shake-up of Britain's transport system that led him to form the campaign group Sustrans whose aim is to design and build routes for cyclists and walkers.

Sustrans turned its theory into practice back in 1979 when it started building the 18-mile cycle path on a former railway between Bristol and Bath. Frustrated by officialdom's indifference to cyclists and pedestrians, it set about proving the strength of its case by direct action.

While many of Sustrans' founder members (engineers, surveyors and other practical people) had been to Holland and Germany, noting how popular cycling could be even in countries with high car-ownership, they were nonetheless surprised by the British public's response: as fast as it could build the Bristol-to-Bath path, it filled up with users, many of whom subsequently joined in the volunteer construction effort.

Ten years on, with the Bristol and Bath Railway Path completed, over a million journeys a year were being made on it. Grimshaw knew his beliefs were gaining ground.

Sustrans has gone on to build further paths in Devon, Merseyside, Derbyshire, York, Glasgow and County Durham, from budgets that have climbed steadily to œ2 million a year.

While voluntary labour has been the order of the day so far, a successful bid to the Millennium Fund would change all that overnight.

With a workload running to œ175 million, volunteers would account for less than 5% of the total, leaving the vast majority of the building the National Cycle Network to be done by private contractors.

Sustrans' bid now before the Millennium Commission runs to œ37 million, the balance of the œ175 million of capital would come from local authorities and the DoT.

Norris laid an essential plank for Sustrans' funding bid to the Millennium Commission when he promised, in advance of Sustrans making its application, that DoT funds would be made available to ensure safe and convenient crossings for cyclists 'where the Sustrans network interfaces with the trunk road network'.

This bill, most of which would be needed to build bridges, is estimated to run to œ9 million.

And in a move that would build on the œ175 million figure, Norris has said that he expects local authorities to ensure that the National Cycle Network links into their own transport network.

'If they can do that, then there's an opportunity for the Department to fund part of the work as well,' said Norris recently.

The Minister added: 'The combination will be a very useful way of indicating our support and of allowing us to see [Grimshaw] develop his network in a way which will bring the virtue of cycling home to a great many more people.'

Grimshaw's aim is to create a National Cycle Network that can be found within 10 minute's cycling distance of 20 million people, linking every county in Britain and passing through the centres of most major towns and cities.

The network, a combination of segregation and integration, would be made up of three elements:

n Traffic-free routes for shared use by cyclists and walkers. These will include disused railway lines, riversides, forest roads and paths through parks. Total: 2,200 miles.

n Protected sections in urban areas, including cycle lanes on trafficked roads and special measures at junctions. Protected crossings will be introduced. The aim of these critical links running right through urban areas is to avoid conflict with traffic at busy major roads. Total: 300 miles.

n Traffic-calmed and signposted minor roads where traffic volumes are normally below 1,000 vehicles per day. Total: 2,500 miles.

While construction firms will benefit directly the construction of the National Cycle Network, there are also rewards for housebuilders: Wimpey Homes and Woolwich Homes are finding that new houses built next to sections of the network are easier to sell.

In Paisley, for instance, a development by Wimpey Homes entailed the building of a new stretch of path. Wimpey used material from the sites to construct the track's access ramps.

'It is a benefit because it gives owners of new homes easy access to nearby work centres,' said a Wimpey spokeswoman. 'The whole package, new homes and good transport links, means that the development quickly becomes an integral part of the local community.'

But how will established roads contractors take to working on the National Cycle Network? Grimshaw reckons that they'll have no trouble at all in adapting. Some of the techniques will be different and with the scale of work being smaller than on conventional roads, labour charges, as a proportion of total cost, will be double.

Grimshaw, having nailed his own colours firmly to the mast of an alternative petrol-free transport network, urges contractors to stop sitting on the fence. He doesn't expect them to go as far as joining the cycling cause as enthusiastically as himself, but urges them to make visits to other European countries to look at their integrated transport system.

With this insight of alternatives firmly in their mind, Grimshaw urges them to then take a pro-active stance with their DoT and local authority clients - the transport spenders.

'Britain needs alternative transport systems,' insisted Grimshaw. 'There is not much space left in our country. Those who make a living from building roads must stand up and say something.'