Cycling on the Increase In Bristol
More and more people are out on their bikes in Bristol. There has been an increase of 7% in city wide cycling over the period 2000 to 2002 and an 11 % increase in cycling in the central area over the same period.
The proportion of people cycling to work in Bristol has grown by nearly 40% between the Census of 1991 and the one in 2001 with cyclists now making up 4.6% of all commuters.
In comparison with most parts of Britain these are excellent results. Nationally cycling has declined by 5% in recent years although there are some notable exceptions such as London which has seen an increase of 5% overall with a healthy 16% increase in the new congestion zone.
The Bristol figures come from the recently published Local Transport Plan progress report. The data are collected from manual and automatic surveys at points and on screenlines across the city.
The report also shows that while car ownership overall continues to increase the proportion of people using their cars to get to work has actually declined very slightly to 57.1 %. In Bristol some 29% of households do not own a car while the increase in car ownership largely comes from those households owning two or more cars -up from 20% to 25%.
Bristol has a target to triple the number of cycle trips by the year 201 0, which means an increase from the 16,183 trips in 2000 to some 48,000 in 2010. The report recognises that this target is not on track but with the increases achieved in Bristol at least the city is moving in the right direction.
Stuart Andrews
