Environmental & Community Services Select Committee, 25 February 2015

The content of interest is the Scrutiny Committee's enquiries into: Cycling Strategy – Progressing the West Sussex Cycling and Walking Delivery Plan

Cllr Pieter Montyn said that he did not want to spend money on cycling infrastructure. County transport officers think that cyclists just need more training, and in a staggering outburst of victim-blaming said that cyclists needed "to develop the right skills and attitudes". Quite what those skills are, other than Yoda abilities to levitate HGVs by using The Force, I don't know.

It seems that WSCC still think that "cyclists" are a distinct species of human being, and haven't yet woken up to the fact that people can become a cyclist just by riding a bike, and stop being a cyclist again just by getting off it. They haven't spotted that almost everyone can cycle, and would cycle local trips, if only there was safe infrastructure. A massively effective solution to transport congestion, pollution and danger is being willfully ignored!

There were some excellent questions from the Committee, and officers certainly looked ill-prepared and not thinking about cycling as transport.

Officers have until the end of 2015 to respond, and the committee will return to this subject in late spring 2016. These things move very slowly, but we seem to be heading in a more positive direction again.