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Brussels Express – Cycling Advocacy at its best?

 

I think this is a terrific film and well worth 19 minutes of your time. It’s beautifully filmed, the “characters” are engaging and it talks sense about cycling in crowded urban places.

 

I find myself becoming more interested in cycling advocacy for a number of reasons:

– Whilst I live in a relatively small town, there is no where safe for my kids to ride on the road.
– There is no where safe for my wife to learn to ride and gain her confidence
– Even in a town like Tunbridge Wells, I regularly have near misses on my bike on my paltry 2km cycle commute
– There is gridlock in every town/city and the car is prioritised in all places I know of
– Most of the time when you see someone on a bike, it’s one less car and congestion
– When you think about it, a car is actually a really inefficient vehicle for moving people in an urban environment – it moves too few people for the space it takes up. I say this as a car enthusiast who spent several years working for a motor racing team. I still love my car but it makes no sense to use it in town on the whole.

 

I could go on, but I won’t as I still don’t know enough to speak on this subject with any authority.

 

On of the points in the film that I most agree with is that actually the only real way to reduce traffic in our cities and towns is to make it harder for cars to be used. It’s not until the car is obviously a harder way to get about that people will realise that the bicycle can actually be the solution (especially when combined with more useful public transport). I believe this approach was used to help reduce car traffic in the Netherlands – closing roads to cars but leaving them open to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport.

 

Anyway enjoy the film – it’s a cracker.

 

Thanks for reading