After a bit of chat at work yesterday about Andy Burnham’s proposal to give priority to cars commuting with multiple occupancy I went looking for a picture I remembered posting on my blog which had the slogan: “When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler”. It took a while to find as I’ve blogged quite a bit over the years and I didn’t realise it was over 7 years since my last commuting experiment.
I think it’s time to try it again as there some new options and I’m sure things have improved as long as you aren’t insistent on staying in your car. Whilst cycling to work it’s notable that Bury New Road is now moving slower than me from about 7:20 and similarly on the “Broughton Cycleway” along Great Clowes Street. More of that later.
Yesterday I was taking the tram anyway because an Italian class straight after work made a later than normal bike ride home less appealing and to be honest I could also do my homework on the tram travelling to work: Molto bene! That’s something I couldn’t do by bike although recently I have enjoyed shouting out the numbers on car number plates during commutes (so I’m particularly good at my 50s and 60s). The trams have improved in that they are more regular. The cost has gone up well ahead of inflation (32% in 7 years) and the network is still surprisingly brittle, but when it works it’s quicker than ever. There’s now the ridiculously named “Get me there” Oyster-ish style card for combined mode travel and apps on your smartphone to help avoid dead time waiting for trams. My Monday commute in contained a fortuitous 1 minute change at Piccadilly Gardens and with around 3 minutes wait at Prestwich my door to door time to the office was 43 minutes which improves upon 2010.
Today was back to the bike to give a benchmark to the alternatives.
I’m more relaxed about commuting these days, it definitely helps your attitude not to be rushing and I’m less likely to be tempted into taking chances. I’ve modified my route over the years to make it safer rather than quicker and my improved over-all fitness means I don’t need to shower when I get to work unless the weather is dreadful (not happened yet this year). It took 24 minutes in today and was a bit wet too but nothing my Inov8 overtrousers and Ron Hill jacket couldn’t handle. My quickest time on a roadbike is over 5 minutes quicker but then I’d need to shower and carry clothes in on my back (sometimes key items can be forgotten!) and it brings extra risk to someone who’s not particularly confident with drop handlebars, cleated to pedals and having to weave super slender wheels around potholes. Ah yes potholes – the one thing that unites car and cycle commuters around these part!
So when I’m not reading number plates in Italian or attacking Strava sectors along the commute I sometimes count the number of cars with just a driver in them. This morning, after discounting commercial vehicles and private hire cars, just 11% of cars in my sample had passengers in them and only 1 of those 100 cars contained more than one passenger. Yes I’m sure there are reasons for some why alternatives to driving alone are impossible for some people but surely there’s some room for improvement?
I’ve been cycling this route consistently for 9 years, to be honest the last time I was knocked off was at a mini roundabout along an alternative ‘quieter’ route: National Cycle Route 6. With a bit of extra fitness in me the direct arterial route towards Manchester seems safer and particularly the gradual downhill bits heading to the office where I comfortably ride at 20 mph and either match traffic or slow a little to carefully pass queues whilst keeping my eyes peeled.
Great Clowes St has had its segregated Broughton cycleway for the last 3 years. The state of the cycle path surface is poor though (parts of it degraded in just weeks) and a number of the posts forming the segregation are regularly broken (and promptly replaced). The path is, however, regularly cleared of debris and definitely gives protection as well as a competitive advantage to bikes using it from 7:30am into the rush ‘hour’. I’ve never had any incident around intersecting bus lay-bys or junctions along the 1km stretch that I use. Prior to the cycleway’s creation traffic travelled along that road in 2 narrow lanes (squeezing cyclists at times) though it was no wider than Bury New Road the parallel trunk road through the north side of Manchester’s city centre. In addition, a couple of weeks ago I noticed the facility below that has been put into Albert Park at the north end of the path: a bike repair stand with tools held in place by cables. I’d not seen anything like it before and although I can’t imagine the stand being used a lot it shows that the Salford City Council care about cyclists.
Another commuting pastime through Broughton and Ordsall is counting Mobikes. Today there were 17 and although I admit that none of them were being used each day they seem to be moving around suggesting that they’re used at least once daily. They seem to congregate around student accommodation blocks and since the joining price has dropped and area increased to cover parts of Salford again their numbers on these streets have increased. More on that in the next blog entry.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking an ‘express’ ‘bus with its leather seats and wi-fi coupled with a Smartphone activated Mobike hire-bike: 21st century commuting! Then Thursday back to basics as I’ll be running in with maybe a Mobike and walk home.
Cycling and other adventures 