Hackney's Cycling Officer Liam Mulrooney (left) and colleague find cycling the quickest way to get the job done

It can be hard to get excited about National Bike Week, which rolls around each June. If the bicycle is the mainstay of your personal travel, every week is bike week. The main value of this annual fixture is the opportunity it offers to introduce the luxury of regular cycle travel to people who don't yet enjoy its benefits.

The highway engineers who are responsible for the design of almost all of Hackney's roads work from offices in the City Road. It was at the Spring cycle liaison meeting there that Hackney LCC co-ordinator Douglas Carnall floated an idea: why don’t the highway engineers try cycling to work and making their site visits on bikes during National Bike Week? To sweeten the pill, officers were promised access to the finest technology for this trial period and - if they wanted - experienced riders to act as mentors.

The magnificent seven, er, six at your service

The Magnificent Seven

Whether in dutiful response to the Council’s ‘Don’t Choke Hackney Month’ campaign, or, as one source close to the Council cynically alleged, chastened by the prospect of a threatened radical restructuring of the workforce, the engineers were encouragingly keen on the idea of 'Project Modal Shift'. A magnificent seven took up the offer of loan machines, kindly supplied by Cycling Today, Bikefix and The London School of Cycling, while other members of the department said they would use their own bikes.

This was not any old team of technocrats, but a group with considerable influence over the conditions which many thousands of cyclists encounter every day. Even if they weren't converted to cycling, it was hoped that the experience of seeing the street layout from a cyclist's point of view would change their perspective and maybe their practice.

The seven volunteers supplied with loan bikes were subjected to a short questionnaire before and after their trial period. All seven currently travel to work by car, with one sometimes reverting to public transport and another an occasional cyclist. Four reported that they were satisfied with this arrangement but of the five who only drive to work three reported that they are dissatisfied with their current travel.

Perks

Different reasons were offered for their current choice of travel mode. One had to deliver his child to primary school before going to work, a couple cited the lack of shower facilities at work, two more mentioned safety or the inconsiderate attitude of most motorists. One candidly observed that if he did not travel to work by car he would be worse off financially. It is ironic that, as many local authorities join central government in launching campaigns that implore citizens to use cars less, their own employment practices and the fiscal climate in which they operate discriminate in favour of motor traffic by offering tax-free car parking and ‘essential car user’s allowance’ as perks.

When asked to anticipate the problems they would encounter during the trial period as a cycle traveller, a couple mentioned the lack of shower facilities at work, two cited the weather and one the dangerous drivers. The engineers rated their fitness from "very good" to "awful", with four taking virtually no exercise. Some planned to ride into work every day, while others were only going to use the bikes to travel out from the office.

Modal Shift in Practice

The loan bikes were duly delivered, foot met pedal, gluteus maximus met saddle, and the highways department underwent modal shift. It certainly looked great in the local press, but how did it go in practice for the individual officers?

Recording their actual experience of cycle travel at the end of the week, the engineers turned out to be less concerned with problems like tiredness and health, and more with a new range of practical concerns. Two riders mentioned potholes or road surfaces, a third "perceived danger" and one found the seat of his loan bike too hard. The things the riders enjoyed about their travel were the chance to take exercise and the lack of traffic jams.

One person only managed one trip, while others rode at every opportunity. Five of the sample found cycle travel easier than expected with one expressing surprise at how enjoyable he found it. Only one of the seven found it harder than expected.

Cycling Makes The Job Easier

Having expected journey times to be longer, one officer found getting to work quicker than by car. Another stated that he "felt more in control of travel time with no congestion to consider". [After twenty years of 'commuter challenges' in which the cyclist always beats the unfortunates travelling by other modes, it is strange that technicians who spend their days wrestling with the problems of urban travel should be surprised that it is quicker by bike!] ^{* Please see footnote!!}

In answer to the final question, "Would you consider becoming a regular cyclist?", two subjects answered with a straightforward "Yes", one with "Yes, during the summer months particularly", one with "Possibly", one with "Yes if more cycle routes" and only two with "No".

Douglas Carnall reckoned the exercise "a resounding success". At the photocall for 'Bike to Work Day' on the Wednesday of Bike Week he found some of the engineers very enthusiastic about the way cycling made the mobile element of their job easier.

"And they were full of ideas for making life easier for cyclists," said Douglas. "It's only when you go into the streets with a bunch of highway engineers that you realise the power that these guys have. There's a tremendous benefit in getting a few of them able to think like cyclists. In a complex decision-making process like highway design it's a lot easier to change the way a few individuals think than to try and monitor every job they do".

Tragicomedy

While the crew waited outside the City Road offices on Friday afternoon to claim back the loaned bikes, they wryly observed the final scene of a tragicomedy enacted there every weekday. An armoured security van pulled up (two wheels on the pavement, naturally) and a guard disappeared into the building. A few minutes later he emerged, struggling under the weight of a case crammed full of cash, courtesy of the steady stream of forlorn motorists who trudge in and out to discharge the tickets they've collected trying to store their vehicles on the mean streets of London. With more traffic engineers on bikes, maybe we’ll start to see downtown life improve for everyone.

This is an edited version of an article which originally appeared in Cycling and Mountain Biking Today. Contact Patrick Field for more information on Project Modal Shift.

* N.B. Cycling Officer Liam Mulrooney assures Cycling in Hackney that his colleagues were actually quite aware of how much quicker it is by bike. 'Project Modal Shift' just helped to remind them how much more pleasant it is!

In May 1993 - long before the term 'road rage' became widely used in the UK - a young man with a car was murdered in a dispute over Hackney road space. The incident did not attract a great deal of attention, partly because of Hackney's history as a hard news area with a high level of violent crime, but also because, in such a congested environment, no one was unduly surprised. When the Borough Council introduced its own traffic warden force, in September 1994, sixteen needed hospital treatment for injuries inflicted by motorists during the first six weeks of their duties.