| | | | |
|
|
Snippets of news on various topics relating to cycling in the local area. |
|
| | | | Harborne Walkway Erdington & Acock's Gn Midland Metro Canals | |
|
The pushbikes AGM 2006 was held in The Woodman PH near Curzon Street station on May the 11th. There have been a few retirees whom we'd like to thank for their efforts over the past few years but the first 'thank you' must go to the staff at The Woodman for their excellent hospitality. Martin Wilkinson has been our Membership Secretary for many years and with family commitments has been forced to resign from the post. Our thanks go to him for his length of sterling service and also his continued support while no longer serving on the Committee. David Kinshuck has been with us for a relatively shorter time but has worked very hard 'banging his head against challenging brick wall' and despite the lack of apparent achievement as Campaigns Co-ordinator, his campaigns work may well prove useful to us in the future. David has also forged ahead in not only securing funding for us (AKA David!) to create the Birmingham Cycling Coalition assembled to create a Cycling and Walking Strategy for the West Midlands. He has also secured further funding for us to use in promoting ourselves - in the form of leaflets. David will be missed for his enthusiastic personality and our thanks go to him for all he's done for us. In the last year or two we have had a vacancy in 'Planning'. As a result we have been sharing this work out between the rest of us. With this and other fairly recent developments we've agreed to a slight restructuring. The Membership Secretary post has gone and this job will be merged into the Secretary's job. Both the Planning and Campaigns positions have also gone in favour of 'Area Co-ordinators'. It is hoped that by doing this we will be able to attract more 'active' members as each will be dealing with their own 'local' area. They will be more aware of 'local issues', deal with campaigns in their area as well as promoting pushbikes in their area. If you are interest in cycling in your own area, please get in touch as we'd welcome you aboard as an Area Co-ordinator and give you support to improve cycling on your patch. Your 'area' could be simply on your regular cycle journey although we'd hope you could cover a larger area. Please get in touch with us to find out more. With the loss of 'Campaigns Co-ordinator', we're having a new push on campaigns. Please let us know if there's anything you'd like us to 'push' on. |
| | | | pushbikes AGM Erdington & Acock's Gn Midland Metro Canals | |
|
The 'Harborne Walkway' is a section of disused railway line which used to serve Harborne from the main line near City Hospital. The line was removed and the route made suitable for walking and cycling. Since this was done it received no maintenance at all and degraded badly in places and has been affectionally renamed the 'Harborne Mudway'. It's not just the muddy parts that need attention, as with the neglect it's received(!) other objects such as large branches and bricks etc. now form some of the obstacles on this obstacle course. The route passes through some fairly horrible tunnels, adding to the displeasure one receives when using the route. Over the last two years, enthusiasm has been growing to get the route brought up to scratch with a proper hard surface permitting both cyclists and walkers to pass without carrying off amounts of mud. The feasibility study for this work is ongoing. The 'Brandon passage' part of the route has plans for modification due to the local school seeking an extension to their playground. The proposals are to close the tunnel and re-route the path over the top and install a Toucan crossing. However there are still Right of Way issues to be resolved and a start date for this work has not yet been ear-marked. |
| | | | Harborne Walkway pushbikes AGM Midland Metro Canals | |
|
The City Council have paid consultants (Arup) to look at the Erdington and Acock’s Green areas and how routes for cyclists within them could be created or improved. pushbikes has already had some dialogue with the consultants. If you live in either area and would like to be involved, please let us know. 'Atkins' have taken up the reins from Arup and we have had a further meeting on these projects with Atkins. They have asked us for our comments on areas in both areas under the microscope. Improvements to junctions, contraflow cycle lanes etc. have been highlighted. Both areas need a lot of work on them and the plan is to concentrate on 'quick wins' in each area where relatively uncomplicated improvements could be made yet would be significantly beneficial to cyclists in the two areas. |
| | | | Harborne Walkway Erdington & Acock's Gn pushbikes AGM Canals | |
|
It seems the Midland Metro is generally getting the go-ahead for the line 2 extension from Snow Hill through the City Centre, along Broad Street to just beyond Five-ways. Once this is in, it will give cyclists an opportunity to have accidents as a result of the hazards caused by trams along the streets such as Corporation St. Push Bikes will keep an eye on the progression of the extension and take opportunities to ensure the new hassles for cyclists are kept to a minimum. With the new length of trams, the existing rolling stock would not have been sufficient to serve the additional stops. At the time of the planned extention, it was proposed that a mix of new rolling stock and existing would ply the route. More recently it was considered appropriate to refurbish the existing rolling stock but since it appears the cost to do this and the cost to completely replace the existing rolling stock was similar, it is now proposed to have a completely new fleet of vehicles. We will keep in touch with the development to try to ensure the new rolling stock will accommodate bicycles. |
| | | | pushbikes AGM Harborne Walkway Erdington & Acock's Gn Midland Metro | |
|
Permit or no permit to cycle ? That is the question - and it's one British Waterways can't make it's mind up on. As far as we're aware some sections of canals require permits and others don't - well, that what it seems to us. We've asked the question at a local Canal User's Forum and got "don't know" as an answer. It seems both locally and nationally they don't know what they're doing with permit requirements. |