SENIOR Oxford city councillors joined members of a cycling group by backing a day encouraging people to get to work by bike.

The city council’s board member for Healthy Oxford, Louise Upton, and its leader, Susan Brown, took to two wheels with members of the Broken Spoke Co-Op near its headquarters on St Aldates.

Dr Upton said: “We are very proud that Oxford is a cycling city and we are keen to encourage more residents to cycle to and from work.

“Encouraging people to cycle to work instead of driving will help to improve our air quality levels, reduce congestion and encourage a healthy and active lifestyle.”

It was as part of Cycle to Work Day, which was run around the country by Cyclescheme.

Oxford has the second largest proportion of people cycling to work of any city in the country. Just Cambridge has a greater proportion.

Other councillors to take part included Labour’s Susanna Pressel and James Fry and the Liberal Democrats’ Paul Harris.

But the lack of good cycle paths was recently recognised by journalist and cycling expert Andrew Gilligan, who recommended that £150m should be pumped into Oxford.

Despite that, the city council is keen to promote cycling and the use of bikes instead of people driving to work.

In July 2017, all 11 roads entering Oxford city centre proclaiming it as a ‘cycling city’ were put up as part of an effort to get more people on their bikes.

And the month after that, the city and county councils agreed to a code of conduct with dockless bike schemes Mobike, Ofo and Pony Bike.

Steve Uwin, of Oxford’s Broken Spoke cycling co-op, said it helped organise the ride so councillors could ‘experience the benefits of cycling to work as well as setting a good example to others’.

Improvements will come to a major cycling route into Oxford after it was approved by the county council’s cabinet last month.

The Botley Road Corridor project should make it easier for people to cycle from Cumnor, along Botley Road and to Oxford Station.

The three and a half mile path will cost £9m and the county council hopes it will be based close to a new park and ride.

The council has said that the project will be used ‘to increase the people-moving capacity of the corridor and make the most of new technology and innovation along the route’.

That work should also improve sections of the Botley Road corridor between Binsey Lane and Eynsham Road.

Despite the Botley Road corridor being the slowest in the city, nearly half of all the crashes recorded on the road involve cyclists. Staggeringly, the average speed recorded by people using the road is just 12mph.

And the county council has said the quality of the road for cyclists is of a ‘low and inconsistent standard, leading to delay and conflict with other users’.

Other work to improve routes for cyclists include laying new tracks as part of the Access to Headington work. That £16m project will end next March.