University of Manchester Bicycle User Group Meeting (UMBUG)

35 members of staff and students attended the December meeting. The majority of people had never attended an UMBUG meeting and had heard about the meeting via the Manchester-Staff weekly email. Here’s a basic summary of what was discussed.

Welcome and Introduction

Andrew Hough has recently been appointed as the Green Travel Coordinator for the Manchester Higher Education Precinct (The University of Manchester, MMU, RNCM and the NHS Hospitals on the Oxford Road Corridor). Cycling is one of the aspects of sustainable travel for which he has responsibility.
Given the scale of the task he has and that he is working unsupported he requested volunteers and support from members of UMBUG.
His involvement in UMBUG seeks to establish a point of reference for cycling matters for all staff and students.

The current situation at the University

The University has recently opened some new secure bike storage locations. These are controlled by swipecard access and are only available to staff and postgraduates. A decision was made during the planning phase that these would not be made available to undergraduates. The reasoning for this is that staff and postgrads tend to work in the same location on a consistent basis, meaning that if they commute by bike the same bike tends to be locked in the same location on a daily basis making it an easier target for thieves. The transient nature of undergraduates it can be argued makes their bikes less vulnerable.
The new facilities have been generally well received and there was thanks from UMBUG to Damian Oatway who was representing Estates (he commutes by bike each day from Bolton). There was some feed back to say that the new facilities needed an automatic door closure mechanism or alarm buzzer so people remembered to close the door. There has been a reported theft from within the secure compounds already. The facility at Stopford is over subscribed and there is a waiting list of 30-40 people. In general provision of bike parking facilities outside Stopford is insufficient and as a result bikes get locked up to all sorts of railings and metalwork.
It was commented that the safe store under the arches on the Sackville Street site contained many abandoned bikes. There is a plan for Estates to work in conjunction with Security to remove these over the summer and donate them to a local charity.
Work is progressing on the physical cycle link between the two campus areas. There are currently two proposals:
- The first is the widening of the existing Preferred Route path between the Materials Science Building under the Mancunian Way and Sackville Street with soft division via demarcation to create a cycle lane.
- The alternative is the development of the subway under Upper Brook Street and the Mancunian Way which would join onto the Preferred Route near the MIB building. Due to security this is less likely.

What can the University do to help current and potential cyclists â€“ priorities

The cycle to work scheme (being able to get a bike through your employer as a tax deductable) was raised as a priority by members of UMBUG. Andrew Hough responded stating that this was recognised and work was taking place to address this. It is a complicated issue requiring buy-in form the institutions and partnership with local bike shops.
A cycle buddy scheme was proposed whereby established bike commuters might be able to show prospective riders established routes onto Campus that avoided the worst of the traffic.
There is little information about the group on the University website. Iâ€™ve volunteered to help take this forward.
Some members commented on the rapport between cyclists and bus drivers and taxi drivers. Avenues for recording driver behaviour need to be opened up.

The structure if the BUG and the route to success

The university does have a vision for increasing the number of staff travelling to work by bike. The aim is to reach 10% by 2015. Stats from previous surveys show that in 1999 this was 5% and in 2005, it was 8%. The target is not very ambitious.
It was felt that it might be possible to use details of staff on user lists for secure bike parks facilities and the waiting lists for these to gauge the levels more accurately.
There is a casual driver parking scheme. Few people know about it and there is confusion over whether or not there is a waiting list to use it or not. If this scheme was more widely recognised it might encourage more people to ride in to work â€“ especially fair weather cyclists.
There is an annual bus and train ticket option that is available to staff via an interest free loan that is tax deductible.
The various cycle lanes around campus are not clearly defined â€“ i.e. not painted green or red. Outside Whitworth Park was used as an example of where this is a problem.
It was expressed that there is a need for coordination between different bodies. i.e. The council have just invested heavily in modifying the road layout outside of Owens Park, but both here and in Rusholme, the cycle lanes are still used as parking spaces because they are not policed by the traffic wardens.
An example was given from the University of Newcastle where the University and City Council had gone into partnership of investment and had consulted their BUG.
The suggestion was made that council cycle officers should be invited to UMBUG meetings. It was felt that as well as Manchester City Council, officers from Tameside, Salford and Trafford should be invited too so that a coordinated policy could be established.

The online cycle forum and wishlist

Members of UMBUG were encouraged to use the forum.
It was clarified that it is not actually a webforum, rather a mailing list: university-cyclists@listserv.manchester.ac.uk – Staff and PGs can sign up to use this. To join send an email to listserv@listserv.manchester.ac.uk with “subscribe university-cyclists” as the only text in the body of the email.
The suggestion was made that a proper web forum would be useful.
Lack of student involvement was raised. A proposal that there should be a no promotion, no exclusion policy was made.
Members were encouraged to get involved with the Connect2 initiative.

Organisation of future meetings

The next meeting for Manchester City Council Cycle Users Group is January 16th at the City Hall. Contact Mark Stevenson for details.
The next UMBUG meeting is Wednesday 6th February in the Alan Turing Building.

In follow up the CycleGM website is a pretty good resource for cyclists in Greater Manchester, especially for finding contact details for people and organisations.