Post on 03-Apr-2018
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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7/29/2019 Sustrans - The Importance of Increasing Walking and Cycling in the UK
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
32
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
7/29/2019 Sustrans - The Importance of Increasing Walking and Cycling in the UK
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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)
33
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
7/29/2019 Sustrans - The Importance of Increasing Walking and Cycling in the UK
4/6Connect2 and Greenway Design Guide
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
7/29/2019 Sustrans - The Importance of Increasing Walking and Cycling in the UK
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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.