Chapter 6 - Walking and cycling: a positive choice CM 6234

Walking and cycling offer a healthy and enjoyable alternative, particularly for short trips. We want to encourage more people to choose to walk and cycle more often.

The challenge

6.1 Over the last decade the average distance travelled both on foot and by bike has remained fairly constant. There is huge potential for levels of walking and cycling to increase. More than 40 per cent of trips are under two miles and a quarter of car journeys are less than two miles. While there will always be some short trips for which a car is the most convenient choice (carrying heavy shopping, for example), many of these short journeys could be done on foot or by bike.

6.2 We know that concerns about safety deter many people from choosing to cycle or walk. We want to build on the success of our traffic management and other road safety programmes so that people are safer, and feel safer, whether on a bike or on foot. We also need to make sure that the quality of our walking environment is reassuring and attractive, especially for elderly and other mobility impaired groups.

Where we want to be

6.3 Our aim for the next 20 to 30 years is to increase walking and cycling. We want to make it a more convenient, attractive and realistic choice for many more short journeys, especially those to work and school. Because being active is especially important for children, we want to train them to walk and cycle in safety and confidence. This will:

• help to reduce car use and help to tackle social inclusion, making towns and cities safer and more pleasant places to live;
• help to reduce congestion and improve air quality; and
• increase levels of physical activity and improve public health. Moderate physical activity such as walking and cycling helps reduce obesity, heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

What we have achieved

6.4 The funding we have provided for local authorities has paid for thousands of small-scale schemes to encourage walking and cycling, such as crossings, pedestrian areas, cycle lanes or advanced stop signs. It has also funded schemes to tackle road safety hazards which were discouraging people from walking or cycling. For example, local authorities reported that they delivered more than 6,000 kilometres of new cycle routes between 2001-02 and 2003-04.

6.5 But assessments have confirmed that the quality of facilities has been uneven and promotion of them generally poor. We have identified gaps in provision, and targeted the local action in areas such as marketing, facilities and land use planning.

6.6 In June 2004, we published Walking and Cycling: an action plan, a collection of practical actions and good practice studies to support and encourage more walking and cycling. There are many examples of towns, schools, voluntary organisations and businesses that have used different combinations of facilities, marketing and promotion to achieve higher levels of walking and cycling.

What we are going to do next

6.7 We need to ensure that we get the best out of our investment in walking and cycling through a combination of local action planning, strong marketing, sharing good practice and national demonstration projects. We will do this by:

• moving away from the 'one size fits all' national target and towards working closely with individual local authorities to put in place sharper, more focused, local plans and targets for cycling and walking;
• working with the voluntary sector to maximise their contribution to increasing walking and cycling levels;
• helping to fund demonstration projects to illustrate how much can be achieved through the energetic marketing of walking, cycling and public transport to those groups that have been identified as most likely to benefit from alternative travel choices;
• working on an extensive programme of research and promotion to improve street design, which will lead to better designed local roads, with the focus on meeting the needs of local people and creating a more attractive walking environment in both residential and shopping areas. This will include encouraging local authorities to review priorities and reallocate road space to benefit pedestrians, and promoting Home Zones, which are residential streets designed primarily for the local community rather than for traffic. By April 2006 we will have directly funded more than 50 Home Zones around England;
• encouraging children to walk and cycle through school travel plans, which we will roll out to every school in England by 2010. We are providing £40 million for improvements in facilities at schools, including bike racks, lockers and showers, and we will support the piloting of 'Bike It', a scheme intended to accelerate the uptake of cycling and create a culture of cycling in schools through training, bike parking and safer routes;
• working with others to link the existing National Cycle Network to schools to provide safer routes; and
• improving safety for children as pedestrians, with initiatives such as the Kerbcraft project, which trains volunteers from disadvantaged communities to teach children aged five to seven practical roadside skills.

6.8 We have selected three towns to take part in a £10 million initiative to assess and demonstrate the potential to transform levels of walking and cycling, as well as bus use. Over the next five years Worcester, Darlington, and Peterborough will be putting in place new facilities for walking and cycling, improved public information, as well as travel planning and behavioural change programmes. The aim is to achieve radical increases in levels of walking, cycling, and public transport use across all three towns. Each believes that it can reduce traffic by between 7.5 per cent and 10 per cent over five years, with many of these journeys transferring to foot or bike. We will share the lessons from this with other transport authorities.

Conclusion

6.9 The Government is committed to encouraging more people to choose to walk and cycle more often. The strategy outlined here will give transport authorities the funding and information that they need to deliver real improvements.