During March we installed 9 bike shelters in Cardiff alone. NINE (not including scooter racks). I’m chuffed with this stat, but not primarily for business reasons (though naturally, no complaints from me). I’m chuffed with this because it means that there could be well over one hundred kids now cycling or scooting to school in the mornings and learning one of the most important lessons there is to learn; exercise is good for you. Somewhere, between my childhood in the 70s and 80s and here and now in the second decade of the 21st century (by now we were supposed to be flying around in hover cars or strapped to jetpacks weren’t we?) we somehow allowed ourselves to slip into car conformity, where every trip is too far to go under your under steam and people dissolve in the rain. Thankfully, I genuinely think we’ve turned a corner. Alongside some positive social factors (success for British cycling, promotion of cycling in marketing and televisual adverts, increased funding for Sustrans et al.), the perfect storm of economic woes, rising petrol prices, and a potentially subliminal consideration of sustainability, has seen cycle use soar and people start to re-conceptualise their travel use . When I rode to work this morning, I saw so many more commuters and children on bikes that it made the 90s and noughties seem like the dark ages. You know what? I think the kids are going to be alright.
Categories: Comment, Cycle storage, Cycling, Human
CycleStuff 
Reblogged this on The Elwell blog and commented:
….From the Odoni side of things – comment on increased cycle use.