Action Briefing Dec 2004 - Jan 2005
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Warehouse Focus: Pushbikes

Action Briefing is running a series of features introducing the unique organisations and businesses with whom Birmingham Friends of the Earth are fortunate enough to share the Warehouse.

Push Bikes has been a Warehouse tenant for just over twenty five years. So how did we get started? Well, we have Birmingham FoE to thank for that.

In 1978 Birmingham FoE formed a ‘bikes group’ as one of their activities; then along came Tom Pettitt who, to quote the FoE newsletter of the time, "having recently arrived from that bicycling jungle Cambridge, is here to get a campaign started.

"There is a huge amount to be done", the article went on to say, "but the fact that numbers of cyclists in London is increasing at about 20% per annum is an encouraging sign." So, on 14th August 1979 Push Bikes was born. We have two members still active who would have been about around that time, John Tozer and Dene Stevens.

Bringing things right up to date, what are we about today? I think a useful starting point is to state our mission: to work towards making Birmingham a safer and more pleasant place to cycle and to encourage people to make more journeys by bike. But how do we go about doing this? One method is to lobby planners, transport representatives and opinion-formers, including the media and business, to improve facilities for cyclists. We also want to encourage cycling as a real alternative to other forms of transport. Cycling is an enjoyable activity for people of all ages, as well as a means of making the City a better place to live for everyone.

Be Cycling
One of our current campaigns is called 'Be Cycling'. This aims to reduce speeds, particularly in residential areas, and is targetted at councillors. Another campaign which we hope is finally coming to fruition is the installation of lockers at New Street Station. A campaign just about to take off is the formation of a coalition to argue for a comprehensive cycle network across the City. This has been made possible with a grant from 'Awards for All'.

One of the more regular, but no less important, things we do is to respond to new road schemes to ensure they adequately cater for cyclists; we also comment on traffic-calming proposals and seek to get contraflows in one-way systems.

Successful campaigns in the past have included: helping to achieve a doubling in spending on cycling in the City; securing a direct route for cyclists underneath the new Bull Ring; working with the City Council in organising 'Bike to Work' in National Bike Week; and, more recently, advising on routes for the new Birmingham cycling map.

Although campaigning is our main activity we also provide a rides programme to help would-be cyclists get out on their bikes. We run one monthly Sunday ride for most of the year and a shorter set of rides in Spring, Summer and early Autumn of a Wednesday evening, all of which are open to non-members. For more information on these and lots more visit our website www.pushbikes.freeserve.co.uk or call 0121 632 6753.

Push Bikes relies solely on membership subscriptions to fund its campaigning work. So what, you might be wondering, do you get for your subscription fee? First, four editions per year of our highly informative newsletter and, secondly, a 10% discount at a range of cycle shops across the City, all for the bargain fee of £10 (waged) and £5 (unwaged). So please consider joining us and help us make the City a safer and more pleasant place to cycle.

Brian Haran
Secretary, Pushbikes