AHC Bicycle friendly Britain.

Nick P

Donor
It is 1973, and the Yom Kippur War goes very bad. Missiles fly and bombs are dropped irradiating most of the Middle East, rendering it very difficult to extract oil. The days of cheap petroleum from Saudi Arabia are over.

Europe seeks and finds alternative sources of oil from under their own lands and waters. They help to develop new fields in other places like Africa and the Far East. The USSR gets a huge currency boost as they increase production but mostly only to Warsaw Pact nations - this is a great way to bring down the capitalist nations. The USA and Canada support the NATO countries with oil and gas imports but political pressure from oil firms means it can't be free, it's cheap but still costs more than the Saudi fields did.

Great Britain has the North Sea oilfield and pushes even harder to pump out their own black gold. They even create new oilfields inland in the unlikely areas of Derbyshire and Staffordshire. This is a big help but the cost is still too high. Too much of the UK's cash is going abroad at a time of recession and financial struggle.
If you can't afford to buy oil then you must find another way to get around. Steam locomotive power returns to the railway branches until full electrification can be achieved. Nuclear Energy gets a serious boost to replace the oil and gas power stations with a dozen new plants around the country. What oil we do have goes primarily to industry, the leftover trickles down into private hands.

The sheer cost of running a car becomes too much for the average worker. Cars are only used for special events, long journeys or by the disabled. Travel by bus and coach becomes the norm. Farms get tax rebates on the fuel they use. Companies are pushed (tax breaks!) to relocate out of cities and set up in places where all workers can travel to via public transport, on foot or on two wheels. The telephone, fax and internet industry get an early boost.
This means no out of town supermarkets or retail estates. Car parks install more secure bicycle racks, jobs for the security workers.

Car makers in Dagenham, Coventry and Liverpool convert their plants to build bicycles of all shapes and sizes as demand drops for cars. Unemployment increases massively as car makers and garages and petrol stations go bust. Development of electric cars gets a serious boost and several universities get grants to create better batteries and power sources - this in the age of Lucas Electrics.....XD

The Government decides to expand the New Town scheme and encourage the building of cycle lanes in and between every major town and city. In many cases it's a simple matter of declaring some main roads to be motor vehicle free to make way for increasing numbers of bicycles. Delivery trucks are restricted to certain times of day.
Old railway lines are tarmacked and turned into long distance cycle routes between towns where the roads are deemed unsuitable. Some old roads or byways or farm tracks, rendered unnecessary by modern replacements nearby, are made car free and form part of the National Cycle Network.
The M25 as we know it does not get built, along with many other major road projects of the 1970s and 80s. Regular private journeys of more than 20 miles are rare unless commuting by train or bus.

It takes a couple of decades but eventually the majority of the UK travels to work and school by cycle and the age of the mass produced private car is over.


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I have to admit this seems far-fetched even to me. I'm not convinced we would go that far or that it would make economic sense. However it would take a major disaster for the UK Govt to actually do anything.
 
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