Last September, I decided I would cycle the kids to school every day instead of taking the car. They were a bit bigger now, and one of them was starting a school which was closer to our house.
Three weeks later, I was on a street, whisper-shouting at the children, one of whom was under their bike on the pavement: ‘We are never cycling again, do you hear me?! Never! Not a chance! Don’t even ask about it!’
Continuing to cycle to school really would be over our dead bodies. We’d had near collisions with pedestrians at blind corners, tumbles over kerbs, near misses from opening car doors, near misses on the road. I’d arrive at the school quivering, covered in sweat, wondering how many years had been shaved off my life span. Cycling without a safe route wasn’t worth it, and it seemed few other parents thought it was either. Out of hundreds of school children, all of whom lived within cyclable distance, only a handful could be seen with a bike.
And all this in a high-population area with lots of schools, and allegedly one of the best places to live in Northern Ireland.
The Greenway
I kept my word about the school run, but thankfully it wasn’t the end of us cycling in the East. We’re fortunate to have the Connswater Greenway, a ‘linear park’ that runs across East Belfast, opened in 2016. Along it you have parks, play parks, pavement cafés, herons, all kinds of growing things, rivers, swans, squirrels, frogs, and lots of space to walk and cycle. When I’ve cycled it with the kids, we could almost be a happy Dutch family gliding along the canals.
At the greenway’s heart is CS Lewis Square. I was there almost daily during the last winter shutdown. The kids could play with other kids, people were skateboarding, toddlers were staggering, bicycles were passing through. No tables at that time, but you could buy a hot drink. There was the hint of a village square.
The greenway, though, is mostly geared for leisure; it doesn’t connect places that very many people need to go for work or school. For this, it seems we’re meant to take the Glider bus which links the East with the city centre and the West.
The Glider is fast and fun, but can’t we have buses and bicycles? The bicycle parking at certain Glider stops seems to basically admit: ‘get on the bus now – it’s too dangerous to cycle any further’. Remarkably, these signs tell us that Glider lanes are for buses and bicycles, as well as motorbikes and taxis. Wow. Not trains too? What about cruise ships? Where do monster trucks go?
Forced Ouside
Indirectly, the pandemic has highlighted cycling infrastructure by forcing us to eat and drink outside. Back in 2014, I wrote a long blog about pavement cafés in Belfast. Bliss was hard to come by, and I had a feeling that the biggest problem was not our culture, the Troubles, or the weather, but simply cars.
Now there’s no doubt. Cafés, bars and restaurants have put a lot of work and money into trying to make outdoor areas pleasant. But they are all working with spaces defined and confined by cars. It doesn’t matter how many plants surround you if you are marooned in a car park or shouting over an arterial route.
Which is a shame because I reckon a lot of people have discovered the great things about eating and drinking outside: the deeper sense of place it gives; the added social energy you get from being in the open air; and even the way food and drink look so much better in natural light…
The Good Life
Pavement cafés and cycling are pillars of the good life. They have shared values and a certain rhythmic interdependence. On the bicycle, we move through the world; in the café, we watch the movement of the world. They are, surely, the future. The task is to turn cities that were built for car-commuting men into cities for wandering children (everyone). The Netherlands, and projects like the greenway, prove it can be done if the will is there. Plans for the Belfast Cycling Network say the right things, but it remains to be seen if all or any of it is realised.
Fortunately, one of the benefits of cycling is increased optimism.
David Mitchell 