A NEW manifesto from Cyclox – the cycling campaign for Oxford – will soon be published after a year of hard work.

Now all the meetings and drafts are almost over, I’m pretty excited to hold it in my grubby mitts. It’s been worth the hard work. It looking great and the arguments are irresistible.

Catchily titled “A Vision for Cycling in Oxford and Surrounding Areas”, it explains how and why, in this age of air pollution scares and economic austerity, nothing makes more sense than investing in cycling.

This manifesto business started a year ago, when I was still chairman of Cyclox.

For a decade we have been campaigning for a dual cycle network – fast main road routes and quiet backstreet ones – and gradually it is being implemented. Very gradually.

It was dragging on and I felt that Oxford cyclists really needed an exciting new vision to rally around.

I had in mind a list of grand demands such as removing traffic from the congested horror that is Cowley Road, or installing segregated cycle tracks on all bus routes to keep even the most timid cyclist safe.

And of course mass-cycle parking solutions at Carfax, Broad Street and the railway station.

At a public meeting in March last year we were overwhelmed with the 70-plus audience, all keen to see Cyclox include their part of Oxfordshire in its manifesto.

To whet appetites, I’d invited a local architect, Tom Landell-Mills, to talk about his designs for building cycle paths alongside all of the A-roads in the county – there is room on 90 per cent of verges.

Richard Mann, Cyclox’s design guru, showed slides of what Oxford or country town streets would look like if we went ‘”Dutch”.

We threw the meeting open to the floor for suggestions, and I knew we’d end up with a perfect list of must-have “hard” infrastructure projects – and I was wrong.

The meeting sided firmly on “soft” measures such as BikeAbility cycle training and general principles about things like cycling neighbourhoods and integration of bikes and buses (which chimes with the county council’s Western Science corridor plans).

The manifesto sets out how and why cycling is essential for Oxford in terms of economic growth, health, inclusion, clean air and carbon reduction. It makes an indisputable case for an achievable cycling programme.

Read all about the future of cycling in Oxfordshire at www.cyclox.org.uk

onyerbike@oxfordmail.co.uk