Musings about Sustrans

There is still some antipathy towards Sustrans from other major organizations in the world of cycling. A lot of this seems to be aimed towards John Grimshaw, who is one of those charismatic characters that you either love or loath. John stood down as Chief Engineer (or whatever it was he called himself) around two years ago but his legacy seems to live on. The CEO of Sustrans is now a rather unassuming chap called Malcolm.

Talking to people who currently work for Sustrans, there seems to be two camps forming in the organisation – the engineers who want to continue building cycle routes and the newer people who favour ‘soft’ measures – training, and interventions in schools and with women and the like. Further controversy was caused when BikeBelles, a subsidiary organisation specifically targeted at women, organised a petition calling for more off-road cycle routes as a way to get more women cycling. When challenged on this Sustrans pointed out that this was what women they had surveyed said- not ‘the usual suspects’, but via the WI and the like  - and that they were responding to this. Other groups believe that it is driver behaviour that needs to be tackled if we are to get more people cycling. Nevertheless, I am left with a feeling that there is a fair amount of sexism and patronising behaviour around cycle campaigning.

However, talking to other people about Sustrans is a bit like talking to Londoners about the Mayor. If you ask them what they think about Boris they have to preface what they are going to say with a ten-minute rant about Ken, either how great he was or how terrible he was depending on your point of view. Eventually you have to interrupt them and say “but I asked you about Boris!”Likewise, if you ask the old-school cycle campaigners about Sustrans you get a ten-minute rant about Grimshaw and what an autocrat he was.

It’s time people recognised that organisations can change, and recognised the role that all the cycle promotion groups can play in changing the hearts and minds of the UK population and getting them out on their bikes.