First of all Cycle Ipswich would like to thank all 20 people who came along to our open meeting on the 9th October 2014. It was wonderful to see so many new people, who we will hopefully meet or hear from again in the future. The ideas that you wrote on the post-its and the maps were fantastic, and will help to prioritise our campaigning and the creation of some documents to present to the council.
Second, we would like to thank both Ipswich Community Radio, and BBC Radio Suffolk for having us on their breakfast shows. We had several people come along due to the features on the shows.
I’ll give a quick summary of what happened at the meeting for those who couldn’t attend:
First Shaun gave a quick introduction to the Cycle Ipswich organisation, and the meeting.
Second, attendees split into groups to discuss and write on post-its about the problems with cycling in Ipswich, and write down possible solutions or things they would like to see. This evening (Sunday), a few of the key organisers of the group have sat down to summarise the the information written down. The main general topics that were written down and will be taken forward in campaigning were in no particular order:
- Width of cycle paths & shared use problems
- Cycle lanes just ending
- Physical segregation
- Longer cycle lanes lead to ASLs
- Filtered Permeability
- Pot hole repairs – Campaign on reporting
- Enforcement – specifically car parking in cycle lanes; car driver education, and aggression; banning of pavement parking; and ASL enforcement
- Priority across side roads for pavements and cycle paths
Third, a set of maps were handed out to the groups to draw on where they believe there should be improvements, and what they should be. We will be soon be taking a closer look at these and adding these items to Cyclescape. Everyone is welcome to add more items to Cyclescape to be tracked.
The Fourth and final part of the meeting was a closing discussion with some of the highlights of the discussion. The most memorable remark at the end of the discussion was when someone said it was extremely difficult to know where to start with the drawing on the maps exercise as there are so many roads that have problems for cyclists, and need improvement.
Going forward we have a working group working on a few documents with this information to respond to the Suffolk Cycling Strategy, which lacks key elements expected in a strategy or much ambition; and to produce a 30 year vision similar to Leeds Cycling Campaign. We will be presenting the drafts at the next meeting on Thursday 13th November 2014 at 19:30.