People have become so addicted to four wheels that they even take the dog for a walk by car.
Not surprisingly, cyclists are an endangered species in this unfavourable environment. Eight roundabouts control motorised access to the centre and its acres of private and public multi-storey car parks. The Ringway, a noisy dual carriageway, encircles the heart of Basingstoke in Hampshire, a town rebuilt in the 1960s to suit the car and home of the Automobile Association. A challenge organised by the cycling campaign found a typical journey took 11 minutes by bike, 17 minutes by park-and-ride and 25 minutes by car, including finding a parking space.Even with all this apparent interest and enthusiasm, however, Mr Merrett said they had a long way to go to compare with Munster in Germany – one of York’s twin towns – where 50 per cent of all journeys are by bike.. As cycling has become more fashionable and congestion more acute, other city engineers are looking for solutions. They are shown city-centre cycle racks able to hold 900 bikes, 22 miles (35km) of cycle routes, bike-controlled crossings and extensive traffic calming and car-access restrictions.Success has not just come in the form of more cyclists, but also in a reduction in the number of accidents as a result of safe cycling routes, and considerable time savings.

The road network is already close to capacity and we have to maintain or improve the level of cycling”.John Rigby, director of development, is used to a stream of visitors coming to see how it is done. It accelerated when Labour took control in 1986 and has meant more than pounds 1m spent on cycling facilities.Dave Merrett, deputy leader and chair of the transport committee, said the political will was vital if change were to come about, but authorities would soon have no choice but to restrict car use.”We have a fair number of cycling councillors, whereas most local authorities will be lucky to have one or two.”If we took out the 20 per cent of journeys to work by cycle and three- quarters of those people went by car, it would increase car traffic in the city centre dramatically. About 20 per cent of journeys to work are by bike, more than five times the national average of 3.8 per cent.Positive intervention by the city council began in the mid-1980s when a combination of cycle-friendly politicians, committed officers and pressure from cycle campaigners started to produce results. “It is a natural stopping-off point on the 1,000-mile cycle route from Scotland to Dover which will become a major tourism artery in this country.”York’s reputation as being the most progressive city for cyclists has not happened by accident and cannot be accounted for solely by a history of high bicycle use. It is also the home of Bike Culture, a pounds 5 quarterly magazine for “open-minded cycle freaks everywhere”.
Jim McGurn, 41, publisher and editor, is something of a guru in the cycling world and founded New Cyclist, the first non-sporting magazine for cyclists. He chose to live in York because of its cycling credentials and has a vision of the city as a centre of cycle tourism and alternative transport technology.”York has the chance to show how it’s done,” he said.

It is the closest Britain comes to a European cycling city, boasting bike tours, bike rickshaws, bike deliveries and ice-cream sellers on bikes. Controlling public money is one thing; acting unfairly is another.”t The husband and four sons of a woman who died in the Kegworth air crash were yesterday awarded pounds 338,764 damages in the High Court. Kathleen Ryan, 41, a home-help, was one of 47 killed when a British Midland Boeing 737 crashed on the M1 in January 1989.. York is very much the home of bicycle culture. The people who died were people who had risked their lives, sometimes in very dangerous circumstances, and all of their families suffered as a result. This will be done in the near future.”The RAF Board of Inquiry report into the incident, to be published next week, is expected to attribute the crash to pilot error.Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: “For the Ministry of Defence to take what is essentially a technical legal point would be extremely unfair. We’ve been treated abysmally, we’ve been patronised, we’ve been disregarded.”The women are appeal to Malcolm Rifkind, the Secretary of State for Defence, Stella Rimington, the head of MI5, and to the RUC and Army.A Ministry of Defence spokesman said compensation would be paid in accordance with the law, adding: “It would be wrong to comment further until we have had an opportunity to inform the next of kin of the accident victims and their legal advisers.