Today was World Bicycle Day. Did you notice?
Here in Shoreham it was hard to tell. People were riding bikes as they were every day: to the shops, to football practice, to visit friends or to the pub. And just like every other day, they did so on increasingly busy roads that have been laid out with little regard for the safety of convenience of people using bikes.
While the rest of England, and much of the rest of the world, seems to have embarked upon a positive journey towards better streets and safer transport choices, here in our corner of West Sussex, it’s hard to notice any change at all.
Our need is great: with hundreds of new homes and an expanding population, Shoreham faces pollution and traffic chaos if people are not empowered to make alternative choices for their short journeys. And now a well-documented secondary school places crisis threatens to make school journeys even more challenging for children, many of whom will be making longer and longer daily journeys on awful roads.
A safe convenient future for Shoreham’s sustainable transport lies in the hands of several key decision-makers: chiefly West Sussex County Council (which has responsibility for our road network), but also Adur District Council (which handles matters like planning, bike parking and bike-sharing); and our MP (who represents us in Parliament, where government bodies have decided that funding for West Sussex is to be severely limited until more competence is demonstrated by our county council).
All three parties – district council, county council and MP – can often be heard to issue positive-sounding words on transport, environment and suchlike. But real tangible change is still barely evident for Shoreham. And it looks a long way off. So while our town gets bigger, the roads get busier and school journeys get longer, we won’t give up asking our elected representatives to actually deliver – and not just to talk.
In the meantime, we’ll keep using our bikes to get around Shoreham and our neighbouring towns. We’ll make the most of this amazing, affordable congestion-free means of transport, hoping that our councils and MP catch up with us soon.
So Happy World Bicycle Day, Shoreham.
SHOREHAM-BY-CYCLE 