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Mayor of Bristol and Sustrans founding member George Ferguson is to set out his vision for cycling in the city to business and community leaders at the first ever Bristol Cycling Summit tomorrow (Wednesday July 17th).
The event has been organised by Bristol Cycling Campaign (BcyC), which unveiled its own bike manifesto earlier this year. The Bristol Cycling Summit will also be addressed by the Director of Public Health and speakers from Green Capital 2015, Sustrans and LifecycleUK.
“Transport is the hottest topic in Bristol and the Mayor is pressing ahead with parking, bus, rail and road schemes” said BcyC’s Eric Booth. “However, it often overlooked that cycling is already a real Bristol success story with more than twice as many people cycling to work compared to any other UK major city.
“There are plans to invest £500 million in transport over the next few years and with 100,000 adults riding at least once a month, and more every day, businesses and communities are calling for the humble bicycle to have a proper seat at the table to make a healthier, happier, more accessible city.”
According to BCyC, Bristol must adopt an ambitious strategy for coping with and promoting the growth of cycling as other cities are catching up fast. Manchester is adopting a target to be the leading UK city, and the London Mayor recently announced a budget of close to one billion pounds to deliver his ‘Vision for Cycling’.
That Bristol Cycling Manifesto will be discussed, which is now up to over 1,600 supporters. It calls for local councils to adopt a strategy and action plan to quadruple cycling in 12 years through a network of 200 miles of cycling Freeways and Quietways linking cycling neighbourhoods. Speaking at the time of the launch, Booth told BikeBiz that BCyC is keen the local bike trade "as they talk to loads of people and we need to get thousands to sign the petition. We’re getting thousands of flyers printed, hundreds of information leaflets and posters which we hope bike businesses in Bristol will be active in promoting."
