As I’ve mentioned previously, the Manchester Cycling Lab is a new initiative to turn Manchester into a real-life laboratory for the study of cycling.
One of the things that might be holding cycling back in Manchester is a lack of data about how many people cycle regularly, popular routes and destinations, as well as safety hotspots. The council doesn’t even know how many bike parking spaces there are in the city centre (though someone did count once) and there’s no regular counting of bike numbers, to my knowledge.
The Cycling Lab seeks to address that, by working with the council, TfGM and local businesses to identify those gaps in knowledge and hopefully fill them through university level research.
As part of this, the team behind the cycling lab are asking people that cycle in Manchester to fill out a short survey, that will help understand needs and collect ideas. There’s also 3 x £20 vouchers for local bike shops up for grabs, so why not have a go?