This is a response to G A Musey’s letter (‘Spending on cycling does not make sense’, Opinion, January 21).

The first claim is that “risk will always be there, as there is in all forms of transport”. Although this is true, it doesn’t matter; every activity possesses some sort of risk, but you can reduce it. Good quality segregated cycle tracks reduce the danger of cycling significantly. Dutch streets are the safest in the world, and that’s without driving people away from them through fear, particularly the more vulnerable.

Researchers now know that inactivity is a greater threat and causes more deaths than obesity. Active transport is one of the most effective ways we can maintain a healthy lifestyle because it is integrated into our day-to-day activities rather than being an add on that most people don’t find the time for. Cycling fits perfectly and is suitable for the distances most of us do. Incidentally, in 1949, more than 30 per cent of kilometres travelled was by bicycle. However, for people to cycle it has to be made attractive and safe. Right now it is neither. Our public spaces have been handed over to the motor vehicle and everything is designed to make it convenient and easy, to the detriment of other forms of transport. If the balance was swung and we had infrastructure with fewer traffic lights for cyclists (as T-junctions, left turns, and cyclist-pedestrian interactions do not require traffic lights ), if the timings for the existing lights were in favour of pedestrians and cyclists, and if cyclists were segregated from the congested roads, then perhaps it could be seen as the more attractive option.

Of course, these are not things from the figment of my imagination. Where good conditions for cycling exist, namely the Netherlands, then a much higher rate of cycling is observed, to the benefit of everyone.

If you believe that the roads should be widened, I suggest you look up ‘induced demand’. In short, road expansion and creation schemes have time and again simply resulted in more traffic that fills in the space. So not only would it be incredibly expensive and even more space would be given up to the motor vehicle, it would ultimately be futile and exist to exasperate the problems of mass car usage. In any case, the roads that the cycle tracks will be built on are wide enough, and no lanes will be taken away from the motor vehicle.

If you are not for cycling infrastructure then you are anti-cycling as it is the only way to have mass cycling.

Tom Mellor

Langdale Gardens, Enfield