Public studies done in Helsinki, Barcelona and Milan asked people how they felt comparing commuting by car, public transport and cycling.

Despite such places getting either too much snow or too much sun for us to consider the benefits of cycling, they found that cycling is liked more than public transport or driving.

Obviously much depends on the needs of the individual and their journey. Other studies have found that across a wide range of cities it was not the climate or hills that affected the popularity of cycling.

The biggest factor is the availability of tarmac space where cyclists are not in direct competition with fast-moving traffic. Locally wherever there are off-road cycle paths they rapidly get popular with bikes.

The cycle paths around St Peter’s are great for getting between Duck Brook, Battenhall and Tesco, but they don’t connect to places such as the city centre shops or the Blackpole retail park.

Safety on the road appears to be a frequently cited reason for not cycling. Every person choosing to cycle to work or for shopping is one less person taking the car for that trip. The study above found that there are significant numbers of people who like cycling, cycle at least once a month and have a main journey less than five miles.

Such people are likely to choose to cycle rather than drive on a particular day, but it is usually safety that holds them back.

Of course in order to reduce our carbon footprint everybody ought to consider driving less, but for changing the layout of an actual road or making of off-road bike lane there’s no alternative to government spending.

If a parallel route to a congested road were to exist and fill up with commuters on two wheels, that would sort out congestion along the roadway, costing much less than a fancy traffic scheme.