The Great Big Parliamentary Inquiry Bike Blog Roundup

No question what the biggest story was in bike blog land this week - the Get Britain Cycling inquiry. Cyclists in the City explained why it was so important and ibikelondon looked forward to giving his own evidence, while the Inclusive Cycling Forum considered whether disability issues should be more explicitly considered - and finds one issue that surely everyone can unite around: an inclusive network for all. Pretty much everyone seemed to have an opinion, with Girodilento providing a pretty good summary of the evidence to date while Buffalo Bill wondered if Hackney has the answer. Manc Bike Mummy ran an enquiry of her own, asking her female friends - cycling and non cycling - why they don't cycle to work and got a pretty unanimous answer. There were reports on the first day's evidence from the CTC, Cycling Weekly and The Guardian while BikeBiz looks back at some pretty similar sentiments from a similar enquiry back in 1997. The consensus so far seems to be that what needs to be done is not much in doubt - it's the political will to do it that might be lacking with the ECF summing it up: increasing cycling takes money not just talk...

Big as it was, the Parliamentary enquiry wasn't the only show in town - there's the (possibly a tad less glamorous) local authority parking enforcement enquiry while the ever thorough Diamond Geezer went along in person to the CS2 extension enquiry. The Ranty Highwayman looks at the outcome of the Mile End / A11 consultation and finds it's not much of an improvement while the London Cycling Campaign fears another set of piecemeal solutions - and if you are responding to a consultation exercise, Countercyclical has some tips for you. Nor are these enquiries confined to the UK, with a Dublin study looking into what cyclists want while the EU considers the true cost of automobility - no doubt, as in the US what motorists pay in taxes doesn't even begin to cover it. Meanwhile some bloggers held enquiries of their own with Great Gas Beetle trying to find out why the police park on cycle lanes and the Cottenham cyclist getting a politician's answer from the Police and Crime Commissioner.

In economic terms at least, it seems that local residents, schoolchildren and traders across the country are beginning to understand that more cycle routes and less traffic might be the answer - even though some shops fail to invite passing cyclists in with decent parking. Some companies find that it makes financial sense to give employees incentives to cycle to work - although while redundant industrial sites could become bike friendly districts, Cycle Space cautions that we don't concentrate on urban regeneration at the cost of creating a coherent network.

With winter roaring back this week, the Vole O'Speed finds out the hard way why quiet back routes fail us in winter while drivers in Cambridge don't seem to have read the Highway code and Thinking about Cycling meditates on wind and windpower on a winter bike ride. Ice and snow should have brought out the gritters but, with the exception of Edinburgh they seem to have given most cycle paths a skip - perhaps snap-on snow tyres are the answer - or pedal-powered snow ploughs (yes, more of them). Meanwhile, the Canadians (and Chicagoans) are surely laughing at us, while the Dutch - busy testing their heated bike lanes - just continue to ride

With this hit and run story breaking as this roundup was being compiled, legal issues seem more important than ever - with one driver facing jail for lying about a hit and run (but not for killing a cyclist) - remember if you want to get away with a tiny fine and a slapped wrist you have to make sure you do what others might so easily have done. With LA taking a small step towards stemming its hit and run epidemic, Virginian legislators describe an anti dooring law as asinine - perhaps it's time to look to Martin Luther King to build a coalition for cycling justice. Meanwhile just as Austria updates its road legislation to cover bicycle streets and 'encounter zones', Living Streets notes that the (otherwise welcome) new speed limit guidance marks the passing of Britain's brief flirtation with Home Zones. In Edinburgh, Dave McCraw looks at the evidence for 20mph zones disrupting buses and finds there isn't any.

Perhaps we're looking in the wrong place for justice - not to the courts but to the road designs that make conclict inevitable. In Kawasaki, experimental protected lanes put in in the aftermath of a fatality become permanent and Portland continues its programme of tackling high crash corridors while Streetsblog wonders why protected lanes are still considered experimental in the US, given their proven safety value; in Canada they certainly seem to work at encouraging cycling. Nice urges councils to do more to promote cycling: in other words a bit more of this and a bit less of this. As Easy as Riding a Bike tackles some misconceptions about bus stop bypasses - and some lessons learned from Exhibition Road while Countercyclical looks at bus rapid transit scheme with a little bit of multi modal bus-bike integration.

With plans for Pedal on Parliament gathering momentum (other cycling demonstrations are also available) the Alternative DfT asks if such gatherings need a dress code. Magnatom doesn't care what people wear as long as they attend - while Bikeyface discovers it doesn't matter what you wear, they still can't see you.

With the Cycle to Work scheme seeing substantial growth in 2012, Edinburgh looking to build on its growing cycle rates and cycle training now free in Bristol, it's not perhaps surprising that there were a rash of newly converted cyclists switching from four wheels to two, going on an accidental Boris Bike adventure, or looking back on a year of cycle commuting - from the UK to San Diego. There are, after all plenty of reasons to take up cycling - not least the fact that you need never grow up (or at least not yet)

Elsewhere in the world, Dutch in Dublin kick off their 'cycling with ...' project with a ride in Amsterdam while Bicycle Dutch finds some terrible Dutch infrastructure (no really! There's even an ASL). Beauty and the Bike wonders why Bremen doesn't make more of its cycling credentials while a visitor to Paris wonders what all the fuss is about. The Invisible Visible man considers the true environmental impact of our actions. Bike Style Spokane meets women who roll while a new generation of students in Chicago and cyclists in San Francisco benefit from safer streets - the sort of places where you can take your precious beer out for a bike ride...

And finally, we leave you with a shocking sight of two pedestrians blatantly blocking a bike lane in DC. Perhaps next time we see them, they'll be cycling on it...

Well, we can dream.