Bikes, bombs and barking dogs: Britain’s cycle lane phobia

When it comes to cycle lanes, Britain has an almost unique talent for turning small strips of tarmac into matters of national melodrama. What elsewhere is seen as sensible road safety infrastructure here becomes the stuff of fevered public meetings and lurid headlines. From worried dogs to imagined jewel heists, the objections often tell us more about our fear of change than about cycling itself.

Over the years, opponents have blessed us with some truly outlandish objections - so much so they seem beyond parody. Here is a handful of real examples:

• A Chiswick priest once claimed Cycleway 9 would do “more harm than the Luftwaffe” and urged his parishioners to pray for its cancellation.
• A Welsh resident argued that a cycle lane would disrupt their territorial dog’s peace.
• Councillors warned that lanes could enable jewel heists. Yes, really.
• Another feared terrorists might use them to sabotage London’s underground water pipes.
• Elsewhere, a van parked in one spot since 1990 apparently carried more weight than public safety.

When it comes to cycle infrastructure, Britain’s imagination is boundless.

A national phobia

For decades, Britain has seen bike infrastructure as a threat rather than a tool for safer, more liveable streets. Ducks, dogs, terrorists, jewel thieves, even the Luftwaffe -almost any spectre can be summoned to ward off a strip of tarmac.

But here’s the irony: most of us are too young to remember that Britain once built cycle lanes without fuss. In the 1930s, when new arterial roads like the A40 in west London were laid, segregated cycle tracks were often part of the design. Cycling was still mass transport then, and planners recognised the need to protect people from motor traffic.

It’s only in the postwar decades - when cars became both status symbol and planning obsession - that cycle tracks were effectively erased from the picture. The idea that they are somehow “un-British” is a modern fiction.

Had those 1930s lanes been maintained and expanded, Britain might look more like the Netherlands today - where, over the last half century, cycling is an everyday, safe, unremarkable mode of transport. Instead, we chose the car and nurtured a culture where small strips of bike-friendly road are greeted as existential threats.

The bigger picture

NIMBYism often hides behind the language of “safety” or “community character,” but in practice it prolongs the dominance of motor traffic. Most of the bizarre objections listed above are really stand-ins for resistance to streets being used differently. The result is streets that are more dangerous, more polluted, and less inclusive than they need be.

Perhaps the most irrational fear is the fear of change itself. Social psychologists even have a term for it: status quo bias - the irrational preference for things to stay the same, even when change is demonstrably beneficial. We once built cycle lanes as a matter of course. We can do it again - without summoning jewel thieves, ducks or phantom bombers.

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