Poet Philip Larkin described Hull as ‘very nice and flat for cycling’ – and in the 1950s a third of the population rode regularly. It’s still flat, so why is this pioneer cycling city back-pedalling?

“I wish I could think of one nice thing I could tell you about Hull,” Philip Larkin moaned to his friend DJ Enright not long after moving to the city to become university librarian in 1955. “Oh yes … it’s very nice and flat for cycling.”



It’s a shame the poet’s best known pronouncement about his adopted city was a thinly veiled sneer, not least because at the time Hull was buzzing with bikes. According to Hull’s Streetlife Museum, 100,000 people in the city still rode regularly in the early 1950s – one third of the population. The streets would have clattered and rung with the din of thousands of boneshakers as workers streamed to and from factories, docks and building sites. At weekends, they took to their leisure cycles for family trips to the Yorkshire Wolds or else went to watch Raich Carter’s stylish Hull City at the newly built Boothferry Park, dumping their bikes in great heaps outside the ground. It might have been an age of austerity and rationing, but from a modern-day cyclist’s perspective, it looks like heaven.

Eric Dawson, now 84 and still cycling, moved to Hull for work after the second world war. He rode everywhere.



“Hull was flat and laid out like a spider’s web,” he says. “All the roads came out from the city centre. I went to work for a roofing firm and had to go to jobs that would take me 10 or 12 miles out. I always went on my bike. Very few people had cars. Hull was so convenient for cycling.”



It was an age of austerity and rationing, but from a modern-day cyclist’s perspective 1950s Hull looks like heaven

Well, Hull’s still flat. But convenient for cycling ... “nice” even? Figures from the 2011 census revealing a sharp drop in the number cycling to work over the previous decade suggest conditions could be better. At 8%, Hull’s usage is still around three times the national average. But, at a time when other places – notably London, Leicester, Manchester and Leeds – have been working to rediscover their love of bikes, this once pioneering city for cycling seems to be back-pedalling.



Of course, perceptions of Hull’s cycle friendliness depend on who you ask and what they’re used to. Nick Dalton, owner of bike boutique East Coast Bicycles, thinks Hull’s got most things a cyclist needs. “The roads could be better, but then life could be better,” he says. “As a cyclist I control the space. I just go down the middle of the road if I have to. Most of the cars are going slower than you anyway.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Crowds outside Boothferry Park in 1949. Note the rows of bikes parked by the fence. Photograph: Local World/Rex/Shutterstock

Easy for him to say, perhaps, given that it’s an area he’s cycled in all his life. It’s a different story for students, experiencing Hull’s roads for the first time. Adam Newby, manager of Hull University’s cycle hire and repair hub, says the “chief moans” for newcomers are potholes, disrespect from drivers and cycle theft. The culture shock is particularly acute for international students who’ve been “spoilt” by excellent cycling conditions in northern Europe.



“We have people contrasting the experience on the continent with here,” he says. “It’s not favourable. They’re terrified of sharing the roads if they come from Holland and they’re used to segregated bike paths. We try and address that [by offering free] cycle training.”



For most Hull cyclists, the reality of riding on the city’s roads is somewhere between these two extremes, but many see safety as the biggest issue. Bike Life, a 2015 survey of seven UK cities by cycle charity Sustrans, found that 75% of people would back a significant increase in public spending to make cycling safer. All the places undergoing a cycling renaissance have made major investments in infrastructure. Meanwhile, in Hull, an increase in traffic congestion – up by a fifth since 2001 – combined with reduced public budgets for road repair and cycle path provision has made some streets no-go areas for bikes.

For an everyday cyclist like me, the road conditions can be a pain in the arms – you really need to brace yourself for some of those bumps and potholes. And the lack of space on the roads means more people riding on the pavement. This has fanned the simmering conflict between cyclists and other road users, regularly expressed in the comment threads of the local newspaper and on radio phone-ins.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hazy sunshine over the Humber Bridge. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

I understand pedestrians’ anger at people barrelling along busy pavements on their bikes, usually because they can’t be bothered to buy lights. But most responsible cyclists are just trying to stay safe in a city that doesn’t have enough cycle routes.

Hull’s bike network does have its good parts – decent off-road paths that don’t end after 100 yards or have cars parked all over them. The section of the Transpennine Trail linking west and east Hull along a disused railway track is a particular favourite. Taking in old Victorian warehouses, a wrought iron bridge with an operator’s hut on top, and Sutton, a quaint village stranded in the middle of a council estate; it showcases Hull’s eccentric flip side before making a bee-line for the coast at Hornsea.



I ride along it to a new route, combining on- and off-road sections to link Sutton with the recently opened Siemens wind turbine factory on the Humber. It’s a pleasant, well-signed stretch, but apart from a couple of dog walkers enjoying the riverbank scenery, it seems underused.

The second stretch, from the ferry port to the city centre, looks more promising. From its North Sea Ferries terminal, Hull has a direct link to the cycling hotspots of Belgium and the Netherlands. The council has been working with Sustrans to find ways of attracting more of these two-wheel tourists to next year’s UK City of Culture celebrations.



There’s no mistaking the cultural intent – from the garish Hull 2017 billboards telling visitors they can “sleep on the ship” to the trail of sculptures lining the path. More arresting is the grand view of the Siemens plant with its huge wind turbine blades awaiting shipment. Then the path diverts back along the Humber towards town by way of an existing riverside promenade.



The route’s certainly an improvement on what was here before, and it isn’t the only boost planned for cyclists in 2017. New off-road cycle permissions will also form part of the city centre’s ongoing public realm facelift.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hull is the 2017 UK city of culture. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Jon Pywell, Hull council’s culture and place manager, says that making the city more open to cyclists would give it greater “pulling power”.



“Cycling is an essential part of how Hull sees itself. It’s also an essential part of how we plan for the future,” he says. “Our cultural strategy aims to emulate our neighbours in northern Europe and Scandinavia to make cycling a valued form of transport. We’re playing heavily on that.”



Pywell recognises that greater cycle uptake offers many benefits beyond transport – such as for the environment and health. But he admits that changing spatial planning and transport strategy to tackle congestion could take up to 15 years.



Cycling is an essential part of how Hull sees itself. It’s also an essential part of how we plan for the future Jon Pywell

Meanwhile, the gap between Hull and other cities is widening. We might have topography in our favour, but when it comes to funding better cycle provision, we’re way down the field. Greater Manchester’s £40m funding from the Department for Transport’s Cycle City programme is more than Hull’s entire City of Culture budget. It illustrates the growing investment divide within the so-called Northern Powerhouse between devolved city regions in the north-west and the rest of us.



There’s a cultural barrier too. Hull has its share of “lifestyle” cyclists: middle-class mums on posh Dutch town bikes and Mamils burning up bus lanes. But, in general, people here cycle because it’s cheap. You might start by riding your push bike to work but once you earn a bit of money, you’ll be wanting to buy yourself a car. It’s a world away from cycling as a measure of urban liveability, as articulated by Leicester’s bike-friendly mayor, Peter Soulsby.



The roots of this attitude run deep – perhaps back to the late 1950s, when the post-war sense of everyone being “in it together”, epitomised by the push bike, started to give way to the more consumerist, individualistic world view of “you’ve never had it so good”.



Will car drivers ever learn to share the road with bikes? Read more

It will take determination if Hull is ever to get back to its cycling golden age. Hull is already the sixth most congested city in the country, according to one survey. We need cycling to cope with the extra one million visitors expected for City of Culture.

I appreciate the constraints the city council is under – and recent initiatives including Bikeability training in schools, Sky Rides led by experienced cyclists and the decision to build the city’s first closed cycle circuit are all welcome. But political backing for normal, everyday cycling remains patchy.

Adam Fowler, who heads Chef, a local sustainable transport forum, believes that a whole community approach is needed to persuade more people to leave their cars at home.

“Hull has fantastic potential because it’s so compact and flat,” he says. “But if you switch on [the radio] you realise how much antagonism there is between different road users. That conflict has been allowed to develop, so it’s a case of re-educating people. If you’re a cyclist, don’t swerve out in front of the car. If you’re a driver, have a bit of compassion.

“But we also need more direct off-road cycle routes,” Fowler says. “Cyclists in Hull need to lobby for this. If not, they will be completely ostracised.”

Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook and join the discussion

