A few years ago, I found myself in the same room as a senior councillor who was boasting (yes, boasting!) that he had never once caught a Cardiff bus. Imagine!
This came from a person with actual influence (although not directly) over local transport policy in the capital city. He was apparently proud of never having used the service that thousands of people rely on every single day to get to work, to the hospital, to school, and to manage their lives. A dinosaur, in other words. And not self-aware enough to know it.
Personally, if that were me, I’d have kept that schtum. But there’s no accounting for white man confidence, is there? No wonder voters are fed up. There’s a particular kind of political arrogance that comes with telling people what to do while doing the opposite yourself, and it has the shelf life of a prawn in a heatwave.
It’s not a new attitude, either. Margaret Thatcher reportedly said that any man who finds himself on a bus past the age of 26 can count himself a failure in life. It is, of course, an appalling thing to say and to believe. Some politicians, it seems, never got that memo.
Contrast that with the speech Dafydd Trystan Davies gave from the podium after winning a Senedd seat for Plaid Cymru in Caerdydd Ffynnon Tâf. It was, for me, one of the standout moments of the election results coverage. He said:
“There is much work to be done, and much to rebuild trust in politics. For too long, politicians have said one thing and done another; therefore, to begin the trend of doing rather than talking, given the climate emergency we face as a planet…I will take every journey by bike, by train, by bus, on foot, or maybe on a run. And if I have to use a private motor car, then I will. But I will publicly document every single one of those journeys. Because it’s time for actions, not words.”
Actions, not words! Chwarae teg. More of this sort of thing, please. A few days later, to my slight surprise, I took action and bought an ebike.
I’d written them off, if I’m honest. In my head, ebikes were for retired couples with matching waterproofs and mildly dodgy knees, pottering along the Taff Trail at a gentle motor-assisted pace. Not for me, thank you very much.
Then one day I tried an electric bike. And within about thirty seconds, I was seven years old again, whooshing along with the wind in my hair, legs spinning, grinning like an idiot. Only this time, the pedals had a nifty little motor giving them a helpful nudge. Reader, I was converted on the spot.
So converted, in fact, that I’ve since added a basket to the back. Ostensibly, it’s for carrying shopping. In reality, it’s a bike seat for Joni, my chihuahua, who has taken to riding in it with the enthusiasm of a dog who was meant to live like this. She sits behind me, ears pinned back, wind in her face, looking frankly insufferable. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m sure she agrees.
I’ve replaced every car journey I would have done this week with the new bike. And it’s quicker. No circling for parking, no sitting in traffic wondering what the point of it all is. Cardiff Council’s brilliant new secure lockers cost just £1.50 a day, so I can safely stow the bike while I go about my business.
It’s also unexpectedly sorted my commuting problem. With the motor taking the strain, I can arrive at meetings with a fully loaded backpack and without so much as a light sweat. Revolutionary.
And can we talk about what it’s like to actually see the city again? When you’re sealed in a metal box, Cardiff is just a series of obstacles and junctions. On a bike, it’s something else entirely. The murals in Grangetown, the dappled sunlight on the bay, the small moment of joy when you sail past a traffic jam that would otherwise have eaten twenty minutes of your life.
Is it one less car on the road? Yes. Is that a small thing in the grand scheme of a climate emergency? Also yes. Replacing five car journeys a week, I’m saving around 343kg of CO2 a year. Roughly a quarter of a transatlantic flight. Every year. But small things done by enough people stop being small.
None of which is to pretend this is a solution available to everyone. An ebike is a luxury, and I know it. Getting people out of cars for good means public transport that’s actually reliable, affordable, and frequent enough to be a genuine choice rather than a last resort. Wales isn’t there yet. But individual action and systemic change aren’t mutually exclusive. We can demand better from our politicians while also doing what we can ourselves.
Dafydd Trystan’s election-day victory speech lodged itself in my brain and refused to leave. The audacity of just meaning it! No wriggle room, no caveats, just: here’s what I’ll do, and I’ll show you when I don’t. When did that become such a radical act?
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