Celebrate the little wins
Mark Philpotts
Sustainable Mobility Design Specialist | City Infinity | Better Streets & Places
Back in 2017, I wrote about the ridiculous UK rule which prohibited people from using cycle tracks with Class 2 and 3 mobility scooters. If you go to the Netherlands you'll always see people using their mobility scooters on cycle tracks because it's a completely sensible thing to do and indeed, cycle tracks are a really handy part of the micromobility puzzle.
Fast forward to 2020 and I helped the All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling & Walking to draft a Parliamentary Question on the matter along with allowing the use of bus and cycle lanes, plus getting shot of some very old fashioned language. Unfortunately the government didn't want to do anything about it at the time.
The issue has rumbled along in the background and lots of people have been pressing for change, including those of us in the Beyond the Bicycle Coalition, but nothing has happened on the ground. However, I was revisiting the issue for an article and on re-reading the rules, I noticed they were now saying that cycle tracks can be used and I thought I was dreaming.
Thanks to Alex Ingram checking an archived version of the rules which I originally referred to in 2017, it turns out that I wasn't dreaming and someone in the Department for Transport has done the sensible thing and updated them.
This might seem to be a small thing, but from a micromobility perspective, those who cycle and those who use mobility scooters (and powered wheelchairs) have very clear common ground on wanting to be protected from traffic and having nice clear smooth space to move around in.
The rules still prohibit the use of bus and cycle lanes which cyclists can of course use, but I'll take this win and I think we should celebrate it while pushing harder.
Freelance specialist in: Access & Inclusion, Highway & Transport Planning, Highway Land Rights, Draughting & Cartography
5 个月Hi Mark, thank you for this - especially as the change had passed me by as well! I had often wondered about the status of powered mobility aids in cycle tracks in the UK and had got very confused whenever I tried to understand it. Frankly, I think it's a no-brainer that Class 3 mobility scooters in particular should be allowed in cycle tracks, as should escooters. My friend David Hicks did some in-depth research into this topic a few years ago in which he compared the situation int he UK, Netherlands and Canada.
Walking and Cycling Infrastructure
5 个月Oh that's interesting, that cycle lanes are still not allowed for use with mobility scooters. Many uni-directional cycle tracks might briefly become a cycle lane, so would the mobility scooter user be breaking the law for a stretch of some tens of metres if so?