sustrans - the importance of increasing walking and cycling in the uk

7/29/2019 Sustrans - The Importance of Increasing Walking and Cycling in the UK

1/64. The Importance of Increasing Walking and Cycling in the UK

The Importance ofIncreasing Walking and

Cycling in the UK

4

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2/6Connect2 and Greenway Design Guide

The Importance of IncreasingWalking and Cycling in the UK

Walking and cycling are the two modes

of transport which are available to nearly

everyone, produce almost no emissions,

promote tness and health and make the

minimum impact on the local environment.

As all of these are desirable characteristics

of any modern transport system and it

should be obvious that strategies and

programmes resulting in a greater proportion

of trips being made on foot or by bicycle are

most benecial to our 21st Century Society.

Congestion is a daily problem and

Government views its reduction as a major

objective. The most obvious way to achieve

this is to reduce the number of vehicles

on our roads. By progressively adopting

policies which favour shorter distances and

more compact settlements, and which make

public transport, cycling and walking an

integral part of their policy, the need for so

many private car journeys will be reduced.

Gradually we will be able to reverse the

trend to longer and longer trips, which

currently puts an increasing demand on

our roads.

Congestionat Worcesterwith no real

space left forpedestrians

4.1Congestion

More Walkingand Cycling

Shorter

JourneysLess

Vehicular

Trips

The approachto BristolCity Centrefollowing roadclosure inQueen Square,

has led to amuch more

attractive placeand a vis ibleincrease inthe number of

people walkingand cycling

4.2 CO2

Reduction

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4

CO2

reduction is rapidly becoming a central

challenge for our society. A 60% reduction

on 1990 levels over the next 20 years will notbe achieved by technology alone, but by a

whole range of measures, social decisions

and individual actions to make quite radical

changes in our culture. The government

recently upped the target to 80%, making

the challenge all the more great. We have got

so used to travelling any distance, for any

reason, at any time, that the mere thought of

making the sort of reductions shown in the

diagram may seem absurd.

60% reduction

in C02 from transport



Whilst switching short trips to walking and

cycling will not make much impression on

the total, a focus on what are essentially

short distance forms of transport will help

to focus minds on the huge importance of

travelling less far.

As nearly 70% of all our journeys in the

UK are less than 5 miles in length, there is

ample scope for a much greater proportion

of trips being made on foot and by bicycle.

This can be achieved if we create safe and

attractive conditions for those travelling by

these means, and a society which actively

welcomes them.

There is plenty of evidence from Europe

that much higher levels of cycling can be

achieved. Swedens ambition is for 50% of

all journeys to be made by active methods

(namely walking and cycling), and a number

of cities have as many as 35% of all trips

undertaken by bike!

1950-1960

1970-1980

1990-2000

25%

35%

To work

To school

Journeys by

bicycle (2004)

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Winterthur,Switzerland

(population: 90,000)

cycling data

4.3 Public Healthand Physical Activity

Our transport policies have created a

sedentary society, where obesity and its

accompanying illnesses are on the rise

seemingly remorselessly.

Whilst lack of exercise alone is not the only

cause of this epidemic, it is one which must

be addressed by modifying our transport

programmes to give greater pre-eminenceto walking and cycling before it is too late.

The Chief Medical Ofcer for England

recommends at least 30 minutes a day of

moderate physical activity, ve times a week

as the minimum level to protect health, and

states for most people, the easiest and

most acceptable forms of physical activity

are those that can be incorporated into

everyday life. Examples include walking or

cycling instead of travelling by car1

1975/6 1989/91 1995/7

Source: Fox/Hillsdon presentation

to UK ~ Government ForesightPolicy Development

Programme on Obesity

600

500

400

300

200

100

0

Distance travelled by

walking and car, UK

Walk miles

Car miles x 10

The decline inthe distancewalked in theUK over the

last 30 years

22%

18%

15%16%

15%

11%10%

2%

UK

Sweden

Germany

Switzerland

Levels of Cycling (DfT 1996)

Prevalence of Overweight Children (IOTF 2002)

Diagramcontrasting the

level of cycl ingin variouscountries and

the proportionof overweightchildren in each



This is backed up by the Department for

Transport: walking and cycling are good

for our health, good for getting us around,

good for our public spaces and good for our

society. For all of these reasons we need to

persuade more people to choose to walk and

cycle more often. 2

In the UK context, perhaps the clearest

statement of the importance of walking

and cycling to health came from the

Health Select Committee in 2004: if the

Government were to achieve its target of

trebling cycling in the period 2000-2010 (and

there are very few signs that it will) that might

achieve more in the ght against obesity

than any individual measure we recommend

within this report. Our witnesses stressed

repeatedly that rather than promoting

planned sport or active recreation, which

might require life changes that were

unsustainable, a far more useful and realistic

aim was to increase activity levels within

peoples daily lives. Of these lifestyle

changes, perhaps the single most importantconcerns transport. 3

In public health terms, transport schemes

such as building Greenways, reallocating

road space to non-motorised transport,

area-wide trafc calming or congestion

charge schemes are described as

environmental interventions: they change

the environment to make an active lifestyle

easier to choose. There have of course in

the past been many transport interventions

whose impact was to make a sedentarylifestyle easier than a healthy one indeed,

this is true of the general thrust of transport

policy since the second world war.

The World Health Organisation (WHO)

says at present, more is known about

interventions at a personal level (for example,

in primary care) than about action upstream,

on the environmental determinants of

physical activity. The latter type or action

appears to have greater potential

(our emphasis).

Set ofdiagrams

showingthe

relentlessincreaseof obesity

in the USAas a % ofthe whole

population

1 At least ve a week: evidence on the impactof physical activity and its relationship to

health. A report from the Chief Medica l Ofcer(Department of Health, 2004)

2

Walking and cycling: an action plan(Department for Transport, 2004)3 Obesity: Third Report of Session 2003-2004(House of Commons Health Committee, 2004)

No Data



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Many people in our society do not drive.

They are either too young, too old, cannot

afford to own a car, the car is not available or

do not wish to have one. These individuals

are disadvantaged in a society which is

dominated by vehicles, and yet their desire

not to travel by car too frequently is the very

trend we need to encourage for the reasons

already discussed!

4.4 Equal Access for All

An obvious target group is children.

We know that learning to cycle is easier at

an early age, and getting into the habit ofcycling whilst young is the surest route to

cycling as an adult. For those without a car,

the bicycle represents an alternative form of

independence.

45% would prefer totravel to school by bike

4% travel to school by bike

88% school pupils owning a bike

Kesgrave School, near Ipswich, is

outstanding with 60% of all children cycling

to school. The main route to school is based

around a former country lane, now a classic

Greenway, trafc-free and extending the

whole length of the housing area with directlinks into the school.

Sustrans has found that its Bike It

programme, in which a dedicated ofcer

works with children, parents and teachers,

can bring about a four-fold increase in

cycling in a single year. So important is this

issue that Sustrans is aiming to expand the

Bike It programme and also its Safe Routes

to Schools programme which constructs

direct, attractive and often trafc-free routes,

many of which are greenways linking schoolsto their communities and to the National

Cycle Network.

Whilstalmost all

children have

a bicycle,very few are

allowed touse them

for theireveryday

journey, i.e.to school

Chart comparing cycling to school andcycling to work as a % of all journeys

Childrencycling toKesgraveSchoolwhere 60%+of all trips are

by bicycle

Many students wish to cycle to school

Bike-it survey 2005

0% 50% 100%

Netherlands1989

Odense

Denmark

Winterthur

SwitzerlandBoulder

USA

Kesgrave

IpswichUK

2000

60% 60%

35%

20%

60%

2%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

% of all jouneys by bicycle

Work School

Cycling to school represents a very small

proportion of all school trips in the UK -just 1-4%. There are a few schools which

greatly exceed this.

A new zebracrossing

giving aprior ity routeto St JohnsSchool,Leicester

A routeacross CoeFen, for theLeys School,Cambridge

Greenwayroute toschool inShawclough,Rochdale



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4.5 The Quality of LocalPublic Spaces

Parks, squares, promenades, Greenways

are all convivial places where strangers meet

and society can ourish. Where roads are

closed to trafc, a popular space springs up.

Whether its a local street party, or Trafalgar

Square outside the National Gallery, or Sheaf

Square outside Shefeld Station, almost

every city and town has examples of the

revitalising of local life once the burden of

trafc has been removed.

In summary, more walking and cycling

can only be a good thing, which meets the

objectives of many key strategies in 2007.

It remains to be seen just how this increase

can be achieved, and how the consequent

reduction in car travel can be managed by

agreement of all concerned.

View of typicalstreet party andthe same street

reverted back tonormal

College

Green inBristolused to be

severed bythe A4 toWales

The trafc-free square in Ferrara, Italy, where publicspace is crucia l for publ ic conversation and life, andwhere 30% of all trips in the town are by bicycle

Walking and cycling are the only ways to

move through these spaces and where good

routes allow, and greenways exist, these are

the best ways to reach these local

spaces too.

sustrans - the importance of increasing walking and cycling in the uk

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