narrowboatworld

Sustrans provides creative, innovative and practical solutions to the transport challenges affecting us all. By working with communities, local authorities and many other organisations, we create change by putting people at the heart of activities, enabling many more people to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment.

And they aim at 'low carbon' I think they are currently focussed on the very low hanging fruit (i.e. personal car journeys), but they also support other low carbon initiatives.  I can't imagine them condemning M&S(?) for doing their brummy wine deliveries by canal.

Wrong approach

To ban cyclists is the wrong approach, to make all towpaths subject to becoming muddy swamps is not beneficial to any modern canal users (was more friendly on horses hooves, but I can't imagine you're advocating going that far).

The correct solution is to put enough width in place, with a clear (and material) segregation for cyclists.

Imagine a decent width towpath, where some of the path is  'bumpy' (similar to the bumps used to signal crossings etc. to blind pedestrians) for pedestrians etc and the remainder is smooth (making it beneficial for cyclists to stick to the allocated space).

Allowing mooring

I am assuming that the pedestrian side would be on the waterfront (allowing people to moor up while standing on that side.

I am also assuming that the current permit system would be continued, and that the existence of said system would be better signed. The obvious (cf+vocal) minority who break the rules and fail to observe common courtesy would do so whatever vehicle they were in—personally I'd rather they did it on a bike where the possibility of killing people is significantly lower than it would be if they were in a car.