Her research threw up Hull as having a particularly toxic view of cyclists, where cycling was and is seen as the only transport choice for people who have no alternative. “For people in Hull, [cycling] was an identity threat as well. If you were a cyclist, you didn’t have any money and that’s quite threatening for a lot of people.”
As the Senior Lecturer on the Masters degree course in Transport Planning and Management, Dr Aldred is seeing an increasing number of professional planners coming through the door from organisations like Transport for London and the Mayor of London office. They are increasingly aware of the need to plan for cycling and walking, rather than just driving.
“We are trying to do something really different. What London is doing is unprecedented. You are saying ‘we really want to have more cycling and walking. How are we going to achieve that’.
Having that academic perspective; what do we need to focus on, what do we need to learn, what are the gaps, is really important. A lot of this stuff hasn’t been done before, and people expect evidence to be there that isn’t. We’ve often built such terrible infrastructure, we haven’t been able to study the effect of good infrastructure.”
An attitudinal shift is also required, according to Dr Aldred. The stereotypical image of cyclists needs to change, and not just from road users. Politicians, planners, and local authorities should rethink what they imagine a cyclist to be, and the cover of the book Cycle Infrastructure Design, still the main handbook for transport planners, is a case in point.
“The cover has a guy in his forties, wearing a helmet, looking sporty, leaning forward and being overtaking by a HGV very closely. That that is our image of what cycling should be like is just crazy! If you show that to people from other countries, they’ll look at you like ‘what on earth?!’”
“It’s a problem because it effects what we plan for – we plan for that guy, in his lycra, when actually there are all these other people who are cycling or want to.”
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