Birmingham City Council’s draft “Low Carbon Transport Strategy 2011+” went out for consultation on 3 October. Unless significant changes are made it seems unlikely to deliver a radical change to the current carbon-intensive transport system.

The document is divided into four areas: Smarter Choices, Smarter Infrastructure, Smarter Technology and Effective Carbon Management Planning. It relies on the ‘nudge’ theory to influence people’s choices. This could be an effective part of the mix, but will not be enough to address Birmingham’s love affair with the motor vehicle.

Nearly all the ideas in the strategy are welcome: investment in walking and cycling infrastructure, implementing planned public transport improvements, and introducing a fleet of fuel-efficient, low-polluting buses. Where the document falls down is that the improvements are hopelessly vague and unambitious. Many proposals that BFoE have been making for years are not even mentioned.

As a non-expert in the field of transport, I found the document maddeningly obtuse, with long words and sentences that seemed to say nothing complete with references to other council publications and unexplained acronyms – TBT, CABLED, SCOOT, UTMC, SPD, etc. A few BFoE volunteers tried to convert the document into Plain English, and found there wasn’t a great deal of substance behind the convoluted sentences.

Some of the glaring omissions were: an automatic allocation of street space to bus and cycle lanes when work is done on roads; a recognition of public transport’s capacity and efficiency problems; the need for proper connections between different local areas, not just into the city centre; and any innovation regarding one major cause of congestion – the school run.

Some long-running BFOE campaigns are alluded to, but only in a very weak sense: certain areas should be given 20mph speed limits, but it doesn’t state how many or which ones. We would like to see this becoming the default speed limit for residential areas, which would play a large part in shifting away from private car use towards pedestrians and cyclists.

   Birmingham Gateway Project

The reopening of the Moseley and Kings Heath rail stations is mentioned, but without dates, costing or timescale, so there is no sign this will become reality any time soon. For projects that have already been agreed on, it is surely time to just get on with it.

The document reflects the Council’s infatuation with the airport, as it considers how best to “improve access” to one of the city's greatest polluters. There is no recognition that what people actually need is a transport system that allows them to get around their own city safely, clearly, quickly, affordably and sustainably, as opposed to getting people to the airport as quickly as possible (so they can spend their money on a weekend in Greece). There are many places in inner-city Birmingham that are a far less accessible than the airport. Birmingham City Council should not be subsidising a private company by reorganising the road infrastructure around its demands.

Overall, the impression given by this Low Carbon Transport Strategy is very much of a box-ticking exercise – little thought seems to have gone into what Birmingham needs to reduce its greenhouse emissions. Rather, the document simply inserts the words ‘low carbon’ in front of all the existing policies. It is disappointing that even with the Local Authority’s commitment to carbon reduction, there is a huge lack of vision and ambition in individual departments. The idea behind ‘effective carbon management planning’ is basically sound – promoting a low carbon culture across the council’s transport and planning services but, as with the rest of the document, there are very few details and no measurable outcomes.

BFOE have submitted a response to the consultation draft and we hope that a change in thinking at the Council’s Transportation Strategy team will occur before too long.

This year, Birmingham city centre was transformed for World Car Free Day, as 5 bike trains pulled into the city centre and cyclists took over Victoria Square. We wanted to get as many people as possible to experience how easy, fun and practical it is to commute to work by bike. In cities such as Brighton, Copenhagen and Amsterdam cycling is more than a specialised sport or a family day out, it is a way of life. Why not Birmingham?

Birmingham Friends of the Earth teamed up with Sustrans and Push Bikes to get people commuting to work by bike and had a great turn out, with around 70 participants coming together from Quinton, Acocks Green, Sutton Coldfield, Cotteridge and Kings Heath. The bike trains went along the main routes into town, picking people up along the way, and everyone had the chance to see how safe and simple it is to cycle, even during rush hour. The sun was out, people were in good humour from all the sunshine and exercise. The event finished with a celebratory round of Fairtrade tea, coffee and breakfast in Victoria Square, provided by three ethical, independent cafés: Six Eight Kafé, Brewsmiths, and Urban Coffee Company.

The feedback we've had from participants has been great with calls for more frequent Bike Trains to happen! We're hoping some of the cyclists on each route will take on the task of organising these for themselves.

We thought it would be great to organise Bike Trains for a number of reasons:

Cycling is good for the environment. It produces zero carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that is polluting and warming Earth the most. Human activities create about 27 billion tonnes a year of CO2, and each time we use a car, plane or train, we contribute to global warming and climate change. By riding a bike, you can help curb this. The pollution from public transport also makes buildings dirty and causes respiratory diseases, whereas cycling does none of these, which is good news for the city and people of Birmingham.

Cycling saves lives – literally! One in four people in the UK are obese and the University of Oxford's Department of public health has discovered there has been a “dramatic rise” in obesity-related deaths. Experts in The Lancet say that 30 minutes of daily exercise is the “bare minimum for health” and cycling is very easy to integrate into your daily routine. (It is also door-to-door and therefore very convenient.) A Dutch study has shown that people who cycle have fewer sick days: “The more often people cycle to work and the longer the distance travelled, the less they report sick.” What's more, research has proven that the health and other benefits of cycling outweigh the potential risks such as being involved in a road traffic accident or exposure to air pollution.

Cycling saves you money. We know that there's an economic crisis, and we know that there's a debt crisis, but few people know that cycling to work can save you a lot of money. For the people who did the Banners Gate to Victoria Square route, that's £6 for the day if they normally drive a car, which works out to £160 a month. Going from Quinton to town by bike and back on a daily basis would save you a whopping £1,222 a year! Just think of all the things you could spend that money on. You also save on parking costs, and if you're fed up of waiting in queues at the petrol station and being stuck in traffic, cycling is really the way to go.

We tried to get as many people as possible involved in the event, and contacted forums, elected councillors, and the media. We tweeted, e-mailed, got articles posted on blogs all over the city, put posters up and handed out flyers.

Disappointingly, Birmingham City Council failed to provide as much support as we'd have liked in promoting the event, although the cycling officer did provide a gazebo, a couple of tables and some hot water. Two councillors, Martin Straker Welds and David Radcliffe, out of the fifty or so we invited gamely joined the trains at Moseley and Row Heath Pavilion and were very enthusiastic about the day.

Media coverage was great as Midlands Today put a helmet cam on one rider, and filmed the ride from start to finish, as well as taking video footage of the gathering at the end. A film crew also filmed the event for Friends of the Earth's 40^th anniversary and all our photos are up on Facebook.

Most of all, however, it was great to see so many commuters congregating in the sunshine and wearing smiles at the end of their journey. How often do you see that in a car park of a morning?

More Info:

1) http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution-overview/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

2) http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/02February/Pages/obesity-death-records-jump.aspx2)