This is an average British Street. It has two lanes heading towards a traffic light junction. Its shows 22 riders and 14 sedentary people, this is at an average occupancy rate of 1.55 people per vehicle. Those people can move through a junction at a rate of about 60 per minute by bike, nothing like as quick by car.
The clip here shows around 60 people a minute moving through a junction, illustrating the above point. If youre reading this saying ‘ah but thats London’ youre missing the point- just because there arent as many people living in BCP we could still move that many people through a similar sized space- if it was provided here and people of all types felt like they could use it on two wheels without being threatened. I’m writing this at a point where our towns are really just starting to be re-built for Active Travel. Through this time there will be lots of people criticizing building cycle lanes, claiming ‘there all empty’ -we can move many, many more people by active means rather than sole occupant queues- and they move quicker thats why the lanes dont look full. A BCP 2011 survey found 6,300 people drive less than 2KM to work every day around Bournemouth-likely the same in Poole and Christchurch, perhaps 15,000 such trips daily…. Imagine how much more of a centreparks by sea our area would be if those people used active means instead of sitting alone in a 5 seater car.
