 Well I will say good morning and good evening to people from all around the world who are joining us today and also to those who are not able to join us today but who have asked for the recording and we know you'll watch it when you do wake up and sorry that we can't find a time that works for everybody but I'm trying to alternate them so we capture everyone but I'd just like to say welcome to this very informal seminar hosted by the Urban Cycling Institute. Thanks Marco for having us. I'm Roxanne Boe. I'm the executive director of CanCycle, the Cambridge Cycling Campaign in the United Kingdom. This concept just started as a few of us wanting to get together and have a chat and it just seemed that everybody wanted to get involved in our chat so now we've just opened it up to everybody but I'll just remind everyone we're being recorded after our presentation and our questions we'll switch it off if we've got time so we can have a bit of a discussion at the end as well but I will start by introducing our guest speaker. We have Simon Monk who is the infrastructure campaigner, Cycling Infrastructure Campaigner for London Cycling Campaign and Simon we caught up in February you came and spoke at CanCycle's monthly meeting and none of this was included. Straight enough. The world has changed a little bit since then. I know I know I'm so glad that we got you to Cambridge while we could but you know Simon's work in London particularly on the Walthamstow Mini Holland which Simon will talk about and his campaigning work I think represents a real turning point in London Cycling and Cycling Infrastructure and I think that that has helped set the stage for what we'll talk about today and the amazing activity that is happening in London. Where are we at the moment? We are in a new golden age of cycling apparently according to the Prime Minister of the UK. So on the I believe just the 6th of May we had Boris Johnson announced in Parliament this new golden age of cycling and I don't think anyone was expecting such a bold statement in British politics to be frank we're all jumping up and down would you agree Simon? Yeah absolutely you know it's interesting time so we're for the UK so one of the one of the things I'm no doubt we'll talk about is the fact that we're in compared to most other European cities compared to most of the global cities in London we have an incredibly fractured kind of political strata as it were so we have 33 boroughs then we have a regional mayor then we have English control then we have UK etc and it's just an incredible moment where everyone from the top all the way down to the bottom are all basically saying the same thing that's that's really never happened before so for the Prime Minister to come out and say it's a golden age for cycling and for then Grant Shaps and the Transport Minister to kind of put out the guidance he has done and essentially every every English council must you know do loads of stuff for walking cycling during this crisis and then for the mayor to say what he said and then the boroughs etc you know that's that's like it's like the planets the stars have aligned for a moment which is quite strange yeah absolutely and and that that announcement as Simon said it came then with further announcement from our Secretary of Transport of the two billion fund for cycling including a 250 million pound emergency fund and that sounds like lots of money but actually it's money that had already been announced several times really this money's been recycled a few times and no one's actually seen any of it but again it sounded different this time because it came with government guidance and this guidance was quite strong saying things like measures should be taken as swiftly as possible and the government therefore expects local authorities to make significant changes to their road layouts to give more space to cyclists and pedestrians and again we've never had such strong wording or instruction from the top and we've now seen it filtered down to local authorities in in a range of ways some have taken to it a bit more than others here in Cambridge we're having lots of fabulous press releases but not really a lot of action yet but in London things are happening and so Simon how did we get to this point I now hand over to you what happened in the past to help things happen now and what's going to happen in the future over to you cool do you want to do want to hit the next slide so by the way by the way before we go off this slide that this is lovely that was a lovely picture of Lambeth of a payment winding that got done in Brixton which does incredibly narrow payments and almost instantly local local community folks just got out and did that so that was just a spontaneous kind of expression of happiness and love and hope and whatever so it's a very lovely picture cool so if we jump on to the next slide a little bit about myself really so I'm Simon Monk the introduction campaign of London site campaigners as Roxanne introduced me very kindly I'm also a resident in Waltham Stowe in Waltham Forest which is a north east outer London borough kind of suburban area of London and from about 2005 I was a campaigner volunteer in Waltham Forest while also being a journalist and Waltham Forest was an utterly unremarkable suburb of London for at the time you know in many ways it still is but but in many ways it isn't so at the time you know that the council attitude to cycling was well we gave you one of those boxes at the front lights what we call an ASL or advanced stop line we gave you one of those boxes what more could you possibly want we just don't understand you cyclists you just you just want want want want want and you know never satisfied so cycling in in that bit of out of London was was hairy to say the least you know it was only for the fast the fit the confident the fearless people like me in other words he'll cycle despite conditions and kind of possibly may have mental health issues and challenges because of our willingness to cycle in in almost any conditions but the mammals you know middle-aged men in lycra as as we call them so so what changed well around about 2007-2008 I was just getting mightily hacked off as were some other campaigners with this council attitude and we did something about it I did a thing called Movers and Shakers where we spent a year getting council leaders out on bikes I'm gonna I'm going to by the way take complete credit for everything that's happened in London since 2005 so just just for everyone to be aware of that but there we go so around 2008 2009 we did a thing called Movers and Shakers where we got council leaders out one on one and bikes and suddenly doing that led some of those council leaders to go from well we gave you an SL one more could you possibly want to oh okay we can see that giving an SL wasn't actually very useful and didn't really get your advice and we had the council leader was in his mid 60s I think at the time right down Liebridge Road which is the most dangerous road in the whole or was the most dangerous road in the whole of the area and the one used by most cyclists as a commuter through route was was one of the most horrific rates and he rode he you know to his credit he rode down the road in his mid 60s having not been on a bike for a decade and I think that led to a real kind of moment where that the council really understood what was going on and that led to the 2012 action plan around the Olympic Games we got a little bit of money from from London to do a few things and essentially the council leader by that point sat down and said well what is it you do want what do what is it you cyclists want that then led to things like 20 miles an hour for the whole borough the 10 worst junctions the borough fixed etc and that then led to the Mini Holland bid Boris Johnson in 2013 announced a program for the London boroughs to bid out of London to bid for the Mini Holland funding in the end three boroughs got Mini Holland funding I get very emotional about this as you probably hear so I may cry I may ramble that is the way of things but we got 30 million for for water forest is one of the three boroughs and since then what's happened because of the political will that had been generated in Wolf Forest is we became essentially the gold stand for London the schemes that are now in and you can probably see some of them on the screen these are roads that are very near my house right you know right now and absolutely quite spectacular at the moment to see these schemes have become the gold standard for London they've become the gold standard for the UK we've had visits so so my colleagues in more for a cycling campaign who also deserve massive credit as to cost a thousands but Paul Gaston on Dan Kelly who who helped get these schemes and keep these in his campaigners have since gone on to do like a hundred plus tools including I took around a bunch of folks from Bogota we've had people in Japan Denmark with a Dutch engineers come over which is quite strange so there's just been a huge shift in in in perception of the area and more importantly as well as the international plaudits and acclaim these schemes have resulted in just huge amounts of people walking cycling and a wide range of people which is really important so Liebridge Road which is a bottom right-hand corner and is on my is on my profile picture like you can see it in the background behind me and that Liebridge Road scheme you know I'm quite often now riding along there at the moment and you'll see women in hijabs you'll see people with trikes family bikes so that was that was mini Holland and then from the mini on the start the success of the mini Holland schemes I then went from that to work at London Sighting Campaign in parallel and if we switch from that slide to the next please rock Sam in parallel London Sighting Campaign we're also up to a bunch of stuff in around 2012 2013 they ran that way in 2012 they ran the Love London Go Dutch campaign which was probably one of the most successful cycling advocacy campaigns ever and it took Boris Johnson who was the mayor at that point to then become a mayor who wasn't just talking about blue paint which he had done up until that point but to start to build the Cycle Supplyways this is a picture of the North South Cycle Supplyway it is at Blackfriars Bridge the the handful of schemes that we had in before the crisis under Boris have been dramatically successful and and they are again a tale of I think campaigning advocacy we have campaigned for these we campaigned for this directly we asked for specific schemes and got them what we've also done and I guess the theme of this entire presentation is really about political will and that's I think that's what's really important for me to talk about and refine myself that I'm talking about is that Boris went from blue paint to Cycle Superhighways and went left office in London and went to become Prime Minister to usher in a golden age of cycling under this situation so we have created a situation where our advocacy LTC but other organizations as well have created a situation where politicians in London cannot and will not openly say I hate cycling or cycling's rubbish or we're not going to do anything for cycling etc in fact the argument over separate space for cycling is basically one the argument over kind of the need for cycling is one the yeah the argument is one and indeed really the question is definitely like how fast we go how bold we can be etc but politicians really understand now the situation and kind of embrace it in a very real way and we then in the run-up to city calm we ran a campaign called time for cycling pretty much everyone signed up to triple the mileage of protect space on main roads and deliver a mini hold in every borough city has pretty much gone on to do arguably everything he said he would it's a it's a kind of there's been some spin around what he's done but let's make no mistake what we've seen is a massive expansion of the cycle network in London under his four years and we've seen a roll out of schemes into boroughs and we've seen a load of other stuff in that period what we've also done is we've really cemented our role I think there's LCC do more do better be brave be bold you know it's great keep going etc that has led to the mayor's transport strategy which is a really bold document but also to embracing concepts like low traffic neighbourhoods which which weren't pioneered in water forest but were very much part of the the wolf and forest kind of experience and we've seen that political will now start to also drive out into other boroughs so that has resulted very much in in what we now started to see in the street space band this this is by the way this is a picture of a parliament fairly obviously a parliament square has a cycle superhighway one of the one of the two and a half core routes that london had during Boris go straight through parliament square this was I think last monday last monday was the highest ever higher rate for Santander high cycles are docked central london higher schemes are booming at the moment and this is what the streets look like right now in central london in outer london as well so where i'm based there is just incredible amounts of family cycling and and we are in a situation now you know one of the things that I keep saying to everyone including all the politicians and we're in a situation where we have a momentary glimpse of the future we want in many ways you know we don't want corona virus we won't don't want you know the in the uk the highest death rate in europe but we do want the clean air that has come with the crisis we do want to retain the walking and cycling rates that we're seeing and in fact we kind of have to say in london is a very large capital city spread out across miles and miles and miles and as a result we have very high distance commutes those commutes now will not be done on public transport tfl estimates that around 15 percent of its previous maximum capacity will be available to people to get on buses and tuit london moves at the moment or it did before the crisis on the bus and on the tube that's how most london's get around so millions of those daily journeys will now no longer be available because of social distancing for the foreseeable future so we face a very very stark situation which is right now this is what central london looks like if I go out to leverage road I will be passed by children on bikes I will see people riding around who just were not on bikes before I can see NHS key workers getting to the local hospital you know to work and stuff other this is a glimpse of a future that we want but the cars are coming back every day and with them in a respiratory crisis comes the pollution so and obviously you know we are pretty much tracking you know two graphs as the cars rise the number of people willing to cycle and in current conditions goes down so we've been given this glimpse and we're fighting and talking to politicians all the time about saying you have a real choice now either you do this stuff fast or this all disappears and all this stuff disappears very very quickly this this is a street space plan and I think all of this leads directly to this which is that the politicians as I said are very much important and our role now I think our role has been much more oppositional in the past and much more kind of punchy and you know kind of there's been a bit of attack politics politics at times and there's needed to be you know so we've needed to do demonstrations that's needed to happen quite a lot we needed to do big mass rides we needed to do all sorts of things that is less our role at the moment on certainly on a regional basis on the london wide basis we have an alignment of political will and as a result the mayor came out with this street space plan really you know and again this followed directly from our calls and other organizations calls to say this is what needs to happen you need to do this stuff and you need to do it fast as a result what we have is a plan that shows that that is modeled by TFL to result in up to a tenfold increase in cycling now we currently have I think it's about seven hundred and thirty thousand daily journeys on bicycles and the the modelling is for a tenfold kilometer increase so that could mean say a five-fold cycling increase and loads of people riding from out of London who don't ride currently but we don't know exactly how it cuts cuts apart but but either way at the moment we're just under three percent mode share for cycling I always said you know I'm 50 now I always said I'd retire when cycling was a mass transport mode in London I'd be quite happy to go out bow out if we're well over 10 percent it now looks like we could be well over 10 percent in a year or two so that's quite a strange feeling but but a very good one so what you what you can see here on the left is is the street space plan the purple lines that are the are the new emergency routes that are planned to go in very rapidly now I believe but we have not had confirmed that this is just phase one this is what they're planning to do in the during the crisis in the current lockdown I in the next month or so I think there's more coming because this doesn't reach far enough out into out to London what you can also see is there's some grey and red and other lines those are our tube lines and fairly obviously right now we've gone from a situation where a lot of the cycling scheme and a lot of results that we were pushing for were about getting people to cycle to town centres replacing short car journeys etc and we're still trying to do that but we're now also very clearly from this map trying to replicate tube and bus routes because they won't be available and and what will happen is we've now faced a situation where if even a few percent people get into their cars that were on buses and tubes before we are utterly stuffed we're stuffed on congestion the whole city you know already runs at well under 10 miles an hour as the average speed central London I think it's about six miles an hour and you know someone I think there was a great headline someone said buses are now in central London buses are now running slower than a horse and cart during Victorian times so London already has a massive congestion crisis it can only get worse if people get into their cars even if it's only a few percent swap from bus or tube to cars but on top of that obviously air pollution will really hit as well and as I said before you know it looks increasingly like this this virus is both its spread and its lethality is exacerbated by high levels of air pollution London has some of the worst air quality in Europe so yeah we really need to get the scheme going so we're now looking at a scheme that not only aims to get short car journeys happening by cycle but also long tube and bus journeys happening by cycle so it's a very strange condition situation but a lot of these routes will be very viable after the scheme you know after the whole thing runs what you can see in the bottom right is in Tower Hamlets that is Old Ford Road and that is a modal filter or road closure or whatever you want to call it but basically as well as these as well as these main road track schemes the temporary track schemes that coming in and there are also now a whole there's a massive plan for low traffic neighbourhoods and in fact we're seeing multiple boroughs as well as TFL push these openly and talk about entire boroughs going low traffic kind of and major chunks of London so the streetspace plan talks about the city of London which is the square mile as it's also known our financial hub that going pretty much low car or car free on top of that we have numerous of the bridges in central London going car free we have big chunks of residential area going low car and these routes as well the issue and I guess finishing off really the issue now is pace so Paris has done you know the last I heard 35 kilometers of cycle track during the crisis as a temporary measure we've done about 500 meters thus far from TFL but we're now starting to see the boroughs pick up so I was saying to Roxanne just before the call started that we have last night Hammersmith the whole of Hammersmith gyratory went cycle tracks all around it now the plan originally for cycle way nine which is where that scheme where the area is was only to the northern side of the gyratory but but last night a borough and a borough that's not known for doing loads and loads of schemes has done the whole of the the gyratory so we're seeing boroughs now step up as well and some really surprising ones so I think if we jump to the next slide I think that covers most of the stuff that I was going to gibber on about I'm just checking my phone as well yeah I think I think other than to really say obviously the two remaining things I was going to say briefly one was that before we hand it over to questions and answers I think one was that that just before the crisis hit we published a report called climate safe streets which I think we're really really proud of everyone should read but it's about recommendations to make London streets or any big city streets carbon neutral by 2030 and and that's the point to make is as well as as well as this crisis hopefully bringing us a you know some some forward momentum to come out of this crisis not going back to the status quo but but we're moving forward we're also need to all recognize that there is a bigger crisis looming you know in the near future and that is the climate so so really if we come out of this crisis and go back to cars as they were not only have we failed on on pollution and COVID-19 and a second wave we've also failed on making sure that we use this moment to reduce our carbon emissions and the final point is free membership I'm just going to do a plug free membership for NHS workers and current offer for membership includes a free deloc a gold secure sold secure deloc and we're currently running an LCC advice line for anyone not just members everyone so if you're getting touched on Facebook Messenger or Twitter or email or phone or whatever we will quite happily talk to people in London or beyond about routes about you know how to lock your bike successfully about you know tips and whatever and riding etc so um so I think you know but most importantly any members you know anyone that gets involved it helps us do our campaigning work so that's our plug thank you thank you Simon for the third time um I know that was probably just the tip of the iceberg of all the work that's been done to get to this point and I'm sure the huge campaigning effort over the last few weeks and um and the plans for what we can see um and I through all of the things that I'm seeing popping up around the world and particularly around England I can't help but wonder have we actually had secret allies sitting in these boroughs sitting in these local authorities who maybe weren't um brave enough yet to put their hand up or they didn't feel that they would get that public support and they've just been sitting on this enthusiasm and these ideas and now they're just going for it do you think that's happening yes uh it's the short answer there are fairly obviously there are you know there are um there's always being support because you know this stuff makes sense you know so so sensible people do exist uh and and so there has always been support but the problem is it's the top you know so as as the earlier there is a theme to my talk and if there is a theme to probably everything I do um it is political will um and so what I think is this there's several things happening at once one is that we have been generating as and not just lcc cam cycle many others in many other cities have been working on political will and we've been getting better at it in a lot of ways um I think that's really important I think secondly you know certainly one of the stories in london which I haven't told today is about engagement and consultation we're learning rapidly how to actually talk to the public as are most of our councils and tfl and whatever you know one of the things we see in london is that the the vast majority of people over and over again in surveys say you know we we want more cycling we support cycling we want to get rid of cars use we want to cut guys so people generally and under get it they know they're breathing in lethal there they know that the inactivity levels are horrific they know that things aren't right um they know road don't you know they can't step out at a crossing without risking their lives so so they know that there are problems and they see that the problem then becomes when you say right okay you like cycling you want more cycling but we're going to put a cycle track on your road at the end of your street or we're going to close your street and then they go uh and it all gets a bit hairy so being able to talk to people engage with people to to bring them on that journey to say your abstract view is right but how do we translate that down to your street down to your area and having those conversations and learning those conversations the wall to forest mini holland was very much further I think has really helped people because so politicians increasing you know not only will people back the general but they'll back the specific and I think that's been really important but I also think you know this crisis very simply we've got local groups turning around to their politicians you know because as I said London is a patchwork we have the mayor controls five percent of the roads via tfl 95 percent roads are down to 33 boroughs that are all their own little fiefdoms some of those boroughs blatantly are not doing anything right now you know I think I've just seen Alex in the chat talk about Westminster um and and you know that's a really surprising kind of site to see Westminster Council openly talking about cycle tracks openly talking about schemes for those who don't know Westminster Council is infamously anti-cycling yet they are coming out you know now but the point is they've been prodded by a lot of campaigning work there are other boroughs that even further back behind Westminster in terms of not doing anything in terms of openly saying they're not going to do anything now our campaigners are out every day saying this is the traffic count on the main road this is a cycle count look yesterday from yesterday you've gone up 10% on motor traffic and down 10% on cycling you know how long are you going to wait is the pollution levels on your main road how long are you going to wait you know essentially we are now making the point very forcefully that a second wave a response to uh this crisis will be on those politicians you know and we will remember and i think there is some real power at the moment with advocacy because this crisis does genuinely represent a situation where if the calls come back it will be disastrous yeah i agree okay let's look at some of these questions well i think we've covered the question about about Westminster i don't know if you can expand on that do do you think they're there for real how have they finally been pressured into doing something after all that that resistance is it just this is the time do you think they'll backtrack on the temporary infrastructure or stick with it they're certainly they're certainly being very they're being very clear in their documents that all of the infrastructure they're going to put out is very temporary you know other boroughs the mayor are like this is a trial for a permanent scheme you know we're going to see if it works and make it permanent and Westminster still talking about we're going to see you we're going to roll it out now and then probably take it back later um they're not there yet but they have been brought along a huge distance um we we have uh in Westminster now campaigner Claire Rogers who uh was uh did a lot of work in Enfield she's been spectacular um at getting things happening and i think there's a coalition there's a Westminster Healthy Streets Coalition that has really made inroads uh in making the case but also again you know Westminster is i think facing a lot of other pressures as well you know what i'm seeing you know for instance is uh lots of people talking about SoHo as a fairly obvious area this is the heart of central London um an area of very narrow streets very narrow pavements huge amounts of employment um and loads of cafes and bars and restaurants it's nightlife kind of area um how that reopens with motor traffic you know it is just beyond any so i think you know again you're seeing Westminster businesses you're seeing the landowners and property developers you're seeing Westminster Healthy Streets you're seeing like noted local icons and things like that all saying we can't do this if the cars come back this doesn't work it just will not work so i think you know Westminster have some very clear pressure on them to move but i think they also have shifted you know they've for the last few years Westminster has been talking a very good game about air quality not doing a lot about it but at least talking about it a lot so it's getting that that will to then turn into action which you know hopefully we're still on so um a question from from Michael from an else one of the lcc groups Hounslow um do you anticipate many battles has that as they have been in the past for local road closures and filtering and i'll add to that as well um we know we've got the quiet ways program in London but often they haven't been particularly quiet so will we have these battles and will we see some of these quiet ways actually getting the interventions they need to to have proper traffic calming so i think there is again you know i think lcc's work means there is widespread recognition now amongst the boroughs that the idea of a quiet route is great but if you just try and build a route through a quiet you know you try and build a route and somehow magically cycling will happen here um but i think most boroughs get it but the issues yeah absolutely we're going to still see opposition but this is again this is the moment where putting in trial schemes like the town hamlets one on old four road you know that that scheme no one was expecting town hamlets to do it they've just done it they did it at a point where the traffic levels were still low enough that the rat runs weren't all back um and as a result people will have the chance to experience it there was a trial of schemes in woltham forest way back at the first low traffic neighborhood um and i think that trial really cemented in in woltham forest the the idea of these schemes people could actually get out and feel it they could see kids cycling about they could see people sitting on a bench having a drink in the in the summer afternoon you know etc so i think the trials is you know these schemes are going to be key to winning people over yeah i agree and we were i was chatting to marco about this earlier that i find sometimes one of the challenges with campaigning is people actually can't imagine what we're talking about and we forget because this is our bread and butter we're always thinking about this we have these amazing images in our mind of what life our lives and our streets could be like and people just can't imagine that but now finally we've given them this taste and we've sparked their imagination and now they know what we're talking about um and we have to help the campaign for it um we've got a a question from peter in melbourne um in australia in in regards to the covid 19 response from tfl uh do you know how they chose which streets to close and make bike only bus only etc you know what kind of tools were used is at low hanging fruit and i would probably add to that as well um one of my questions which is is this very much a temporary network or have you gotten you know do you think in the back of their mind they're thinking about how this works more permanently particularly balancing you you've got these cycle routes along the tube line are they going to feed into the tube line later or be irrelevant if the tubes start running um at capacity again so explicitly if you there is a tfl streets space i keep saying streetscape it's not a street space there is a tfl street space which is the name the plan uh web page so if you just google tfl street space whatever you'll find it um on that plan so we've gone from and that's one of the big shifts in boris's era um you know there wasn't a big data approach to this stuff it was just this makes common sense just do it um and that has certain how can i put it there's a certain charm to that there's a certain uh efficacy to just having someone who just says we're going to do this scheme this scheme works i know it works get on with it um what tfl have shifted to and the mayor's shifted to on will norman is a very much data-led approach so there is a thing called the strategic cycling analysis very much like in the uk we have a thing called the propensity to cycle tool um and and both of these are data-led approaches to travel surveys journey surveys stuff like that to say okay we know that there is a car journey from a to b that is currently under six kilometers that is done by lots of people who aren't carrying heavy loads that are are able bodied that you know it's interesting so these are journeys that should and could be cycled um and there's lots of them happening from point a to point b so let's make a cycle route from point a to point b um and so there's high potential for cycling along this corridor or whatever um london is in the strategic cycling analysis has already done this in general and what that route that set of routes looks like um is very much town centre town centre it's very much kind of not just these radial routes going into london which is what we were doing before it's also lots of orbital routes lots of other kind of into town centre routes um but you know now we've got this new so they've now done another big day trip so and if you look at this the street space guidance there's some really good stuff on there there's things like here's a main road that we think needs cycling but here's a bit of that main road which is wide enough um so we need to put in a bus own bus and cycle only section or we need to get rid of all the parking at that point or something like that so they've they've really done some great analysis of where high potential low traffic neighbourhoods are where there's too narrow for cycle tracks temporary side traces um some of these routes may or may not work in the long term but the mayor has been very explicit on that page you can it says all of this stuff will be monitored all this stuff will then be assessed for future permanent schemes so the idea is very much that these are going to be made permanent and ultimately the point is in London nearly all of the tube lines we're at or beyond capacity um you know one of the things I was in Barnett council a while ago Barnett are not known for being cycle friendly and what was really interesting was the conversation started to talk about cycling because they had seen the modelling from tfl about their tube stations and their tube stations are at capacity right now yet they are predicted to have huge amounts of growth of housing in Barnett so what happens when there's even more people you know tens of thousands of more people living in your borough and your tube lines are at capacity so actually replicating tube lines for instance in London makes really good sense anyway because people are fed up you know even before this crisis people are fed up of trying to squeeze onto a tube and being in someone's armpit for 45 minutes you know and and when you say to people you know you can you can basically get into a really sweaty horrible tube or you can get on a bike they say well we're not going to get on a bike because it takes hours and it's really dangerous but actually doesn't take hours you know most of our cycle routes are about as quick as the tube routes but it's the danger so get rid of the danger a lot of people can shift across excellent so another question from from Matt and I partly know this answer because I know you do some live stream videos once a week from your neighborhood but do you video your neighborhood cycling network to share with other boroughs to convince them how their areas could be rebuilt and I'd say even beyond other boroughs you know we're really hoping that what's happening in your backyard is influencing the whole country well I think it is but there is a I'm well I think we are right now seeing you know the negatives of British exceptionalism to be frank you know politically we have a tendency to think of ourselves as somehow a unique and superior country full of unique and superior people and that doesn't I don't think work very well when it comes to things like you know oh yeah we can go for herd immunity rather than you know actually doing the job of saving lives etc so we have we have some issues with that and I think the way that comes into the kind of cycle campaign and that and I really remember you know when we started doing the water boroughs mini Holland stuff we we had over and over again people saying well but we're not Holland you know you can't be a mini Holland in northeast London we're not Holland we're not Dutch you can't be Dutch as if the Dutch are some kind of alien species with like three arms or something and then we were like but hang on a minute actually really the mini Holland's a bit of a misnomer what we've done is we've taken low traffic neighbours which Hackney which is the next borough over has been doing for decades so we're doing something that's only two miles away a mile away and we're doing cycle tracks you know which you can find in Central London but I don't know but we're not Hackney as if the people in Hackney had three arms you know and then what I noticed was that we actually had old low traffic neighbours in in bits of all the forest have been put in the 70s and 80s and actually a lot of bits of the UK in the 60s 70s 80s people were closing rat runs for some reason that stopped but you can find in most councils you can find bits of quiet neighbourhoods that were done at some point where there was a rat run through it and someone just filtered it and so we we looked at that we were like but there's the Markhouse area he's actually filtered already I know but we're not like the Markhouse there are 500 meters away yes you are like the Markhouse people come on you know how close do you have to be and and we see that exceptions are all over so people go to all the forest and we've had the councils that don't really get here you know or they don't want to get here they've come towards us they've visited they've walked around and they've gone this is amazing this is lovely but you had 30 million pounds of funding and we were like but the low traffic neighbours bit is really cheap you can do this easily oh no no we can't do that why can't you do that why can't so I think the tools have been really important you know Paul and Dan I can't praise them enough for you know doing the amount of tools and we've had councils from all over the UK come and that has been a really visceral experience and there is a video there's an amazing video online if you just google five years of of Enjoy Wolfen Forest I think you'll you know there's a great great video that shows a lot of what's what's happened but showing people a video I'm afraid to say is isn't I don't think it's the answer if someone doesn't have political will before they see the video they won't have it after they see the video what you need to do is is find what motivates them and get them to care you know about cycling and the honest answer is cycling you know is I feel incredibly you know I'm quite glad I'm a cycling campaigner rather than you know campaign about other things because actually it's so easy to make the case on cycling it's such a win-win for everything you know so if you care about social justice cycling is an answer if you care about health cycling is an answer if you care about the environment cycling is an answer if you care you know so pretty much anything that might motivate a politician from the left or from the right from you know wherever they split on party lines or wherever they say there is there's a reason why cycling is actually quite an important thing to consider but you need to kind of unlock that in people somehow and videos don't I'm afraid do I wish they did we have to get them to the point where they start asking oh how do we do that and then we bring the video in but we've got yeah that point of asking that question don't we yeah and I think it's one of the things we're seeing in London at the moment right now is we're seeing lots of boroughs where the council has got kind of a medium level of political will and they turn around and say oh but my officer says no my officer says this my officer is that we can't do it because of his 50 reasons now officers are incredibly good at finding reasons if they don't want to do something but if a council really has political will the conversation doesn't become oh well I asked and they said no the conversation becomes I'm the cabinet lead on this I've told you can do that find me solutions it might not be exactly what I asked for but you're going to find me something that looks roughly right you know and and that the moment that you start having those conversations with council leads you know that you're on a good like that's when you're on the right road and it is you know at the end of the day political will is everything I think it you know it's easy to have words you know Westminster's got great words right now when I see schemes going when I see the program accelerating when I see actually things happening then I can say and then facing down residents and then facing down officers that's the moment which I'm going oh right that's what political will looks like yeah so a really really short answer for this one and then to the last question in the guidance that the government has released they have basically said if councils don't get on with this we're going to come and get involved do you do you foresee that that might happen for some of these reluctant councils or boroughs so it's a very different question to the simple the simple answer is so we have we don't just have a cycling prime minister his key transport advisor Andrew Gilligan is is famous or infamous loved or hated for his attitudes on transport and cycling he's a massive advocate of cycling whatever else you think of him if anyone is likely to come into a council and just take over it's probably Andrew Gilligan and whether that is even achievable or doable legally or whatever you know I think he's slightly under question but flip it I'm just going to rattle that saber as long as and hard as I can because because you know it's a lever that someone has given me I'm going to use that lever yeah so if we can't get that political will through our convincing arguments a bit of fear might bring it on board fear greed love hate you know what it whatever works really I'm a very much a by any means necessary kind of guide yeah right I'm going to make this one then the last question and it's from Marco and so where will the largest resistance come from and in the 1920 we also thought that city streets would never allocate car traffic roads were not built for cars and then hard to link up with much wider a much wider group of people to ensure a majority will keep fighting for it and and I see that as being you know where our allies and our alliances that that we can build and I'll say we're already seeing that internationally and nationally the amount of collaboration that is going on right now is incredible but we're still a bit in our echo chamber so how do we bring more and more people in your your ideas are probably as good as mine but you know build coalitions have a broad conversation bring residents with you you know talk clearly and simply and positively be a critical friend to politicians it's just all the the tools of campaigning that everyone is amazing at you know London is not uniquely brilliant at doing this stuff very obviously because we're not we're far from there yet you know but just keep doing all the stuff that we're doing and keep learning from each other I think it's probably the biggest key on this one I think there's so much kind of efficacy in good positive language I don't do enough of that but that is a really really positive thing I think coalition building is massively the key for us in certainly London where cycling has been viewed as this kind of alien thing and in the UK you know we are seeing huge gains from forming things like healthy streets or better streets group you know because who doesn't want a healthy street and who doesn't want a better street you know it's very easy to say well I don't like cycling but if you say you know I don't like healthy streets what you know you can't do it you can't you know so I think there is and I think you know having that coalition of social justice and green and you know all sorts of things but you know at the end of the day it does cross across so many lines you know it's great we have in in the UK we have a very strong labor cycles movement now but we also have quite a strong conservative cycles movement now so you know politically if you want small government and low kind of you know low public purse levels you know and you want an efficient population you know healthy population is a good thing so cycling is great that way you know so there are all sorts of ways to cut this and all sorts of people to bring in you know I just last night I was talking to a load of taxi drivers who are the biggest enemy for cycling in London you know and I was talking to them about the huge common ground there is between us and actually there is masses of common ground they might they're not going to agree on everything but they're going to agree on some things yeah absolutely we've got to look for those parts that we agree on and and build from there don't we yeah yeah excellent right well I'll say to everyone um I'm not sure what time we're finishing but we might have time for a bit of off the record chat but I'm just going to do the obligatory plug and before we do that I'll say thank you so much Simon for coming in and having a chat to us and it's such a crazy time so really really appreciate that you found the time and you know it wasn't particularly well organized this week because I'm also struggling with the campaigning but we got there and we know that this will reach hundreds of people online all around the world and I think that there was just so much to take from this today about just how do we actually convince people the right people so thank you as always Simon you are leading the way there and I will get this plug one moment I was told by George George couldn't make it today and it it turns out we managed to have almost a double booking there's two sessions today so if you didn't get enough this morning the Urban Cycling Institute has another webinar this afternoon if you're in Europe