How Manchester plans to have "20,000 more cyclists" by 2017

If you listen carefully to this piece on Radio 4's You and Yours, you can start to unpick the figures and find out how Manchester City Council and British Cycling have chosen a measure of cycling that fits the aims of British Cycling whilst leave the general cyclist out in the cold.



The measure they have chosen is Sport England's Active People Survey. It is a measure of sports participation not transport choice.

The survey currently puts Manchester 8th in the country for levels of cycling with 43,000 people getting onto a bicycle once a month. Yes, that's right, the survey counts the number of people who cycle at least once a month and has nothing to do with the proportion of journeys by bicycle.

In other words Manchester City Council can meet its chosen target of 20,000 more cyclists even if the level of cycling on Manchester's streets falls significantly.

All it needs to do is get more people driving to parks and cycle trails and cycling round and round a track for an hour to reach its target. Stand by for massive amounts of council money being spent on facilities for British Cycling and the Sky Ride whilst on-road conditions get even worse...

.......

There is no sign of a press notice containing these figures, and no sign of the Cycling Strategy document on the cycling section of the council's web site. There is no mention on the Leader's Blog either.

If you know what you are looking for you can find the full thing here, and it is rather less of a headline grabber...

.......