For March’s General Meeting, we invited more special guest speakers to provide updates on local campaigns, as well as tips and strategies from further afield.
Opening up was Hannah Kettle, Zooming in from Leeds, where she is working for the charity Possible on the Car Free Leeds campaign. Initiatives as part this include parklets and traffic monitoring, together with consideration of how petrol filling stations could be repurposed as community hubs when they are made redundant in future due to the phasing in of electric vehicles.
Next was Brian Deegan, who is the technical advisor to the Bee Network team. He delivered his presentation on ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ about walking and cycling schemes in 2021, covering Cyclops junctions, Sparrow crossings, side road zebras and plenty more besides animals and mythical creatures.
2 Muslim Night Riders – aka Sham and Nooralom – soon followed to tell us about how sharing their experiences of taking up cycling during lockdown is helping to encourage others to do the same, by putting down their mobile phones and other gadgets in favour of exploring the neighbourhood around them. It’s a story that charmed and inspired our audience and even led to some networking with our next speaker…
Finally, we welcomed back the Greater Manchester Cycling and Walking Commissioner, Chris Boardman, whose presentation provided an update on Bee Network schemes brewing across the region – from LTNs to cycleways, including news on progress with GM Bike Hire, an interim Active Travel Design Guide, and a brand new Bee Network website, which will help to communicate updates in future.
Overall, the webinar provided us with a really positive outlook for active travel in 2021, and it was great to welcome over 100 people to listen to the speakers and provide lively discussion in the text chat box. Our next General Meeting will be in the summer, so keep your eyes peeled for details…