Big budget films offer promise of a cycling paradise
Post categories: Cycling, Transport for London
| 11:58 UK time, Friday, 20 August 2010
Ping!
Another initiative from Transport for London on cycling lands in my inbox. And this one is aimed at young people:
"Radio One DJ Edith Bowman and X-Factor presenter Dermot O'Leary have teamed up with Transport for London (TfL) to promote cycling in the Capital.
They are taking part in a series of short films produced by TfL to highlight the pleasures and ease of using a bike to get around London.
From today (20 August) five films, featuring the well known faces alongside three typical Londoners, can be seen online at www.tfl.gov.uk/cycling (where the videos will be prominently featured for three months) and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/transportforlondon, while a sixth film opens in cinemas.
Each film concentrates on a different aspect of the Mayor of London's cycling revolution, such as the Mayor's flagship Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, or the new Barclays Cycle Superhighways, and tells a story around one of the people taking part.
The films form part of the Mayor and TfL's efforts to increase the number of cycle journeys in the Capital.
The cinema film also features the new Bike Song track by producer and DJ, Mark Ronson."
You can watch one of the films here:
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Transport geeks like myself will have thought "soft measures" when they read that, i.e. it's sometimes cheaper to try and change travelling habits through marketing than build new "hard measures" like a new Underground line.
The most succesful is the Smarter Travel Sutton scheme which cost £5 million over three years.
These films are well made and I quite like them. They may persuade some people to get on their bikes.
However, a couple of points:
- The films cost £300,000 to make. That's £50,000 each. There will be those that say it is a complete waste of money.
- Neither Edith Bowman or Dermot O'Leary are wearing cycling helmets. Of course, cycling helmets are not mandatory in law in the UK but there will be those who say in a cycling promotion video for young people that helmets should have been worn.
Equally, as I'm aware of the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of cycling helmets, there will be those who say wearing no helmets is absolutely fair enough.
TfL are pushing cycling hard at the moment with the cycle superhighways, the bike hire scheme and, now, these films. That can only be a good thing (unless you're a cycle-hating motorist!?)
Perhaps this concentrated effort to get everyone on their bikes is also a cunning ploy to counteract the upcoming Tube strikes?
Thoughts???
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~06~RS~)
© 2012
Comments
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as an occasional cyclist, three days a week or thereabouts, i`m all for cycling helmets, maybe as an option rather than a mandate, it`s your head after all :).
The cycle hire scheme and the superhighways are interesting but why was the cycling highway scheme so high profiled, when the rest of us use them occasionallym but not that often. There are lots of poorly marked and inadequately signed routes across the london network that needed updating, mayeb this would have been a more approapriate use of public money.
The issue of the cycle hire scheme is seperate, why instead of creating a substantial maintenance contract for the TFL network, already looking at 20% cuts next financial year (apparently)and then divvy it out to one mega contractor serco.
The very nature of cycling which is basically cheap wheels for most people (myself included), why could`nt the scheme been have been devolved to a registration scheme, where you paid fifty quid to boris`s green angels, then by economy of scale and on a calculated estimated useage of say three quid a week, got a token or similar chit which you take to your local bike shop and collect a modest bike ? of your own !and by the end of the following year pay off the rest at three quid a week say.
This sort of scheme, would i suspect have a much more positive effect on the financial infrastructure of the city, create sales in a much needed time of downturn, offer maintenance courses create a few maintenance shops, jobs here and there ? maybe even a few small cycle hire shops here and there at key honeypot tourist centres .
maybe my views a bit utopian ?
anyway have a nice sunday
knight
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Will one of the films show how Lorries and Cars ignore the pathetic painted lines that are poor excuses for cycle lanes, with close ups of a cyclist trapped under the wheels?
Until there are proper lanes for cycles with curbs that divide the cycle lanes from car/lorry/bus lanes for cyclist protection and safety, cycling in London will never be safe.
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Hmm. £300k for the videos, 8m people in London. Roughly 4p per person. (More if you use taxpayers rather than the actual population for the calculation).
Cheap and effective, if you ask me.
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It's bad enough that some people think helmets should be compulsory, without also thinking all cycling promotion should also compulsorily feature helmets! Give us a break from the tidal wave of elf'n'safety correctness, please!
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4p per person is a good point. If you look at bus and boat subsidies it's far higher than that. timbo3 - just bringing the points up - not saying I agree with them ... thanks for posting though ;) tom
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made a video, didn't enter it into the competition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgIPGx02VKc
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