UK has chance to change transport forever - Boardman

LONDON: It has taken a pandemic, empty roads and one of the sunniest Springs on record for Britons to fall back in love with the bicycle but the fear keeping Chris Boardman awake at night is that it will be a brief flirtation.

"I've had a few sleepless nights, to be honest," Boardman, who won pursuit gold at the 1992 Olympics and broke the world hour record three times, told Reuters this week. The 51-year-old says calling the current crisis an"opportunity" for cycling as a primary means of transport sounds odd when thousands have died.

He points to a range of"geeky" statistics. In Greater Manchester he says public transport use has dipped 90per cent since the lockdown with car journeys down 60per cent, figures echoed nationally. "And these are not what you would call 'cyclists' with the lycra and road bikes and stuff, it's normal people, in normal clothes doing normal things."

"A third of people don't have access to a car. If you're saying don't use public transport, but don't provide safe cycling, you've penalised the poorest in the community.

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