The Welsh parliament has passed a law bringing down the speed limit on all residential roads and busy streets to 20 mph (30 km/h). Not everyone is pleased.
  • TipponEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Here’s a reply I made to someone who asked a similar question:

    'Our cities are quite small, and have decent cycling infrastructure as far as I can remember, but it’s been a while since I’ve been to a city centre.

    A large portion of South Wales is small towns and villages built on hills and mountains, so it’s difficult to cycle from place to place for most people. Mid Wales tends to be very spread out and hilly, so again, difficult to cycle around unless it’s for pleasure. If you cycled to work, you’d probably be very sweaty by the time you got there.

    Have a look at Google Street View to see how steep some of our hills are. They’re great for a challenge, but you definitely wouldn’t want to tackle them on a cold, wet, Welsh morning on the way to work.’

    Because of the obstacles I described in that reply, it’s hard to walk particularly far too. There’s physically not enough room for anything bigger than buses, like trains, even if the budget was there. There are some areas where trains used to run for the coal mines, but they’ve been converted to joint footpaths and cycle paths, which would have to be ripped up to convert back.

    A decent rail system running through and around Wales is a desperately needed start, but, again, our geography is a massive obstacle. Even the main road going north to south through the country is a single lane in each direction for the majority of it. It’s only near the capital that it becomes a dual carriageway.

    • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]English
      2•1 year ago

      A large portion of South Wales is small towns and villages built on hills and mountains, so it’s difficult to cycle from place to place for most people.

      The Taff trail forms a convenient path from Pontypridd to Cardiff that doesn’t require travelling over steep hills. Further into the South Wales valleys past Ponty, each valley has their own cycle trail that links to the Taff Trail. Commuting around the valleys and to Cardiff is only tough going if you follow the motorways instead of pre-existing cycling infrastructure.

      The main problem is travelling between valleys since you’re either going over hills or circling 'round to Ponty but this is also a problem with public transit infrastructure which uses Ponty as hub so if you’re going say Merthyr to Maerdy you have to catch a bus or train to Ponty and then a bus to Maerdy.

    • 7bicycles [he/him]English
      2•1 year ago

      A large portion of South Wales is small towns and villages built on hills and mountains, so it’s difficult to cycle from place to place for most people. Mid Wales tends to be very spread out and hilly, so again, difficult to cycle around unless it’s for pleasure. If you cycled to work, you’d probably be very sweaty by the time you got there.

      E-bikes have been invented for a while now

      Have a look at Google Street View to see how steep some of our hills are. They’re great for a challenge, but you definitely wouldn’t want to tackle them on a cold, wet, Welsh morning on the way to work.’

      This is just bog standard “It wouldn’t work here” stuff. It gets cold and wet elsewhere and it doesn’t stop people from cycling

      Even the main road going north to south through the country is a single lane in each direction for the majority of it.

      That’s a policy choice not an inherent condition of geography. Switzerlands full of mountains and they have good trains.