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A group of campaigners have formed a new organisation pushing for revolution on Cardiff streets aimed at emulating the best cities in Europe for cycling.

The umbrella body – with a working title of Cardiff Cycling City – includes individual cyclists, environmental groups, politicians and other bodies, and are drafting a manifesto on how to transform how many people cycle in the capital.

Among initial ideas floated are the appointment of a “cycling tsar” to push for cycling-friendly policies and infrastructure projects, as well as campaigning for a roll-out of 20mph zones across residential areas of the city.

It comes after the Welsh Government announced more than £1m to help develop cycling facilities in parts of the capital, with £125,000 for a Penarth Road cycle network and £937,000 for improvements to Newport Road and City Road for bus journey times and cycling facilities.

Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Cardiff North, Mari Williams, said the group wanted to change Cardiff’s culture and attitude towards cycling.

Former deputy headteacher Ms Williams, who biked across numerous countries for a year before entering politics, said as Cardiff was relatively flat, there is no reason why it shouldn’t look to emulate cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam who had become cycling havens – and should form part of Cardiff council leader Phil Bale’s vision for the capital to be one of “Europe’s most liveable capital cities”.

She said it the group was an alliance of different groups to “try and get a consensus” on how to achieve that.

“Cardiff is the capital city of Wales and the loads of people have always cycled. The numbers have gone up,” she said.

“The city is really flat, the weather is not too bad. It’s pretty compact as well. I think a lot of the thinking and development of Cardiff has been around the car and I think it’s really important, therefore, as people interested and passionate about cycling – across different parties – work together to say this city could be good for cycling.”

She said the group – which includes Cardiff Cycling Campaign, Sustrans Cymru, Cardiff University urban design specialists, different political parties and Sport Wales – was working to create a “concrete manifesto” to look at possible measures.

Cycling charity Sustrans Cymru’s deputy director of influencing and smarter choices, Carys Thomas, said she Copenhagen – renowned for being a cycle-friendly city – should be a “long-term ideal” for Cardiff to follow, but said it was important for the streets to be “reclaimed” for use non-car use as has happened in other cities, such as Dublin.

The charity launched a campaign to improve safety for the school run after it published a survey which showed more than 40% of parents of five to 11-year olds say their child has been involved in a near-miss while walking or cycling to or from school

Ms Thomas said: “I feel, personally, that cycling around Cardiff is not as positive an experience as it could be. I want to get across to people the fact that more people could be cycling now.

“One of the reasons people cycle is that there is a perception that it is not safe. There is a need for more infrastructure, certainly, but we also need to develop a culture of people seeing the benefits and value of cycling.”

She added: “It’s not just about cycling. We need more vibrant streets.

"Streets shouldn’t be owned by cars, they should be owned by people. To get towards a situation where they are owned by everyone...achieving a ‘cycling city’ is one way to achieve that.”