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| €30 per person year every year (based on 2010 prices) is enough to build the world's best cycling infrastructure but only if it is spent as an integral part of highway engineering, not on separate "catch up" projects and not used for other items such as cycle training |
Much money is now being spent on improving regional routes, for longer distance commuters (I've covered this before), which leads to higher rates of cycling to work. Improvements of cycle parking around business areas should be done by business themselves.
€487 million euros might sound like a lot, but cycling actually saves Dutch companies considerably more than this each year. Also it has been shown that when all things are considered, building cycling infrastructure works out cheaper than not building it, even when we consider just long distance relatively rarely used cycle-paths.
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The City of Toronto has committed $70 million over five years for cycle infrastructure. That is $14 million per year for 2.5 million people, or $5.60 per person per year.
In addition to this, as part of their "stimulus" plan, the provincial and Dominion governments are kicking in $6,660,000 each which was matched by an additional $9,964,000 by the City. This is for rail and hydro corridor bicycle paths. That comes to $9.31 per person.
Giving us a total of $14.91 per person on annual cycle infrastructure spending.
Not quite up to the Dutch standard of 30 euros per person (OK, nowhere near that standard), but we're working on it.
And the senior levels of government are making noises about "stimulus" spending being cut off after next year.
Source for stimulus spending:
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-23723.pdf
I would be curious to know what the per capita level of cycle infrastructure spending is in other places. Why do I suspect a strong correlation between infrastructure and cycle mode share?
What's the equivalent for the UK? (cringes in anticipation of the number . . .)
Kevin: There is a very strong relationship between long-term spending levels and quality of infrastructure as a result and the cycling level. A few datapoints are shown here.
Karl: "In January 2008, the Government allocated an unprecedented £140m to Cycling England over the next three years", or about 77 pence per person per year, and they also say "The standard amount of funding for cycling initiatives in English local authorities is around £1 per citizen, per year".
What I find a bit dishonest are the attempts to make out that this spending level is closer than it actually is to the level of expenditure in the Netherlands, by talking down the Dutch levels of expenditure in the same sentence as talking up the British, and not bothering to mention that only the British one is time limited: "In contrast, Dutch towns such as Amsterdam are currently spending around £10-20 per year. The new investment means that the Cycling City and Cycling Towns will now have a total budget of around £16 per citizen per year with match funding."
And let's not forget that the Dutch already have quite a cycling infrastructure.
Our money is spend, I think, on gradually expanding and maintaining, where as other countries, like Britain, have almost no infrastructure at all and have a very long way to go.
Building a new infrastructure with 77 pence/year will take a few centuries.
Peter: Actually 77 p a year doesn't really start building infrastructure even at a rate which would take centuries. The comparison is worse than it originally seems.
While the Dutch figure is for spending on new infrastructure, the British money is not all for infrastructure but shared with things like maintenance and "soft measures" such as cycle training and promotion of cycling. These are covered by other budgets (with additional money) in NL.
David: I followed the link. And saw outrageous statements like:
"...levels of investment equivalent to the best European cycling cities."
What a bare-faced lie.
It is great news that even with such good infra-structure already in place the Dutch are prepared to make further investment. It is easy to see that the investment pays back through reduced car operating costs and a healthier population. UK funding may be miserable but then so are the majority of projects that it is spent on. Cycle England could give us much better value.
Mark Garrett, Bristol UK
Wow...Can I come live with you?
As much as I'd like to share Kevin's enthusiasm, the level of support for putting an integrated cycling network in place in Toronto is next to nil. I know. I ride it every day, commuting to work and training on my road bike. The best we can do here is painted white lines that traffic often disobeys, especially in the downtown core. Despite the apparent funding - little of it realized yet, there is very little political support for the kind of system that would actually encourage people to commute to work. The one exception is along the lakeshore and the volume of use is phenomenal. Just imagine of that were replicated across the city. The traffic congestion problems would clear up in no time and we'd have a much healthier population. I can only dream.
david,
first comment on your site; I want to first congratulate for the awesome blog you produce (now with mark).I follow you both almost religiously.
second, I would ask if you know the budget figures for the city of Amsterdam; would be useful to me.
thanks,
Patrice, good to hear that you enjoy the blog.
So far as I know, Amsterdam spends around the average for the Netherlands as a whole. The only figures I have for the city specifically are in this blog post.
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