National Audit Office Report Paints Bleak Picture on Active Travel

A National Audit Office (NAO) report published today has examined the progress made towards the government’s active travel targets. In a move befittin …

By stwhannah

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I walk or cycle the single just over a mile to my daughters school. Some of her classmates are being driven to school from less than 1/2mile away… and then those parents just drive home again.

and people are ‘amazed’ we walk so far…

 

 

 

for everything about active travel, congestion, pollution, road safety etc; there is a big elephant in the room

and people are ‘amazed’ we walk so far…

a huge number of able bodied people thinking that 15-20 minutes of gentle exercise is “amazing” and prohibitively difficult.

we are sleep-waddling our way into a health crisis

Same story. We don’t have great cycle lanes in town. We have very few cycle lanes out of town / connecting satallite twins and villages. If there are cycle lanes they are either poorly maintained railway line or right next to a main road, not separated the other side of a hedge like in Germany (for example) giving relief from noise and spray and meaning I would be happy to send my kids down the cycle lane compared to one on the edge of a curb.

I used to be anti cycle lanes then I realised not everyone was 25-35 fit confident cyclist who was happy bunny hop kerbs and get into fights.

Let me guess, it says “it’s an absolute **** shitshow”?

Just to add I cycled kids to school today (~2miles) lucky for us most of the way along a bridle path which is ok in this weather but not for 9 months of the year unless you want to get your kids changed at the gate. So despite enjoying “untility cycling”, having a quiet route I still don’t do it very often.

I’m not helping. 🙁 Bought an e-bike to commute, pretty much as it arrived Mrs Pondo was diagnosed with a herniated disk and it’s generally too painful to sit, let alone drive, so I have to chauffer her in and out of work (so I’m WFH and spending two hours a day commuting!). She goes under the knife in a fortnight – all being well, then let the e-biking commence! 🙂

(She’ll be e-bike commuting too when better. 🙂 )

Do you want a healthy, fun way to get around?
No. I want an expensive, polluting deathbox please.
Oh, and nobody else is allowed to use the roads, except me…

Let me get this straight ?

? It combats climate change
? It solves congestion
? It saves us money
? It improves public health
? It helps local businesses
? It cleans the air

… and we have to *campaign* for it?? Like. Lol ? pic.twitter.com/2j5Grv6Hfw

— Cllr Ed Lamb (@edwardlamb) June 6, 2023

We do need to recognise the national differences.

Key graph from @NAOorguk report on investment for active travel in England

Meanwhile it should be a no brainer to invest more:
It fights climate change
It solves congestion and makes travel easier for others
It improves public health
It helps local businesses
It cleans the air pic.twitter.com/pVPIA3yymj

— Christian Brand (@_chris_brand_) June 7, 2023

We don’t know if we’re coming or going at work.

We get awarded funding. It gets cut. It gets reannounced. We receive some of it with a promise that the remainder will arrive once we’ve spent the first lot but we can’t spend that without a guarantee of the rest.

We can’t plan anything more than a few months in advance because it takes 4 months between the announcements (and re-announcements) to us actually receiving the money and there’s no guarantee we’ll get any more the following year so we have near zero pipeline of schemes available.

We can’t afford to develop a pipeline because the funding for that is also grant-based.

It’s utterly insane. Government, Treasury, DfT and National Highways all need throwing into the sea and rebuilding from scratch with a massive shift away from roads and towards active travel and public transport with guaranteed 5-year blocks of funding.

Lost count of how many Transport Secretaries we’ve had in the last 3 years… 🙄

It’s utterly insane.

We’re working with DfE on a ‘flagship’ programme for England and Wales. I recognise and relate your experience of working with UK govt.

It’s utterly insane. Government, Treasury, DfT and National Highways all need throwing into the sea and rebuilding from scratch with a massive shift away from roads and towards active travel and public transport with guaranteed 5-year blocks of funding

Absolutely this – and it applies to loads of other areas of public services as well.

A Singletrack led dictatorship to provide some long term stability and direction is what is needed!

It can be done. I live just outside Cambridge, the infrastructure is amazing compared to just five years ago.

The city centre is rammed with bikes, and even the village I live in has loads of kids going to school by bike or ebike.

But there’s still loads of traffic and the planned congestion charging is up against a lot of opposition.

not for 9 months of the year unless you want to get your kids changed at the gate

Do you not own waterproofs?

Don’t get me wrong, riding into my work in the same timeframe is utterly miserable but that’s 7.5 miles along the coast with average gusts sitting around 30mph+ and heading into a 12hr shift. But 2 miles is a lot different, I’d happily do that, especially as I assume (perhaps wrongly) it’s nowhere near as exposed.

I happened to drive through Inverness at school commute time the other week. Loads of infrastructure – kids all over the place riding to school, all ages. Wonder what’s gone right up there? Can’t be the weather!

It’s about breaking the ‘car’ mindset. Obv, it’s more effort to ride/walk, but not that much slower. I actually think there is only a minority of people who really really want to drive everywhere. Most would ride/walk, if they lived in an LTN, for example…

It can be done. I live just outside Cambridge, the infrastructure is amazing compared to just five years ago.

My lad is in Cambridge and has discovered how much quicker and useful a bike is for getting around the city and local area.

It can be done. I live just outside Cambridge, the infrastructure is amazing compared to just five years ago.

The city centre is rammed with bikes, and even the village I live in has loads of kids going to school by bike or ebike.

Various parts of London are similar now but there’s still too much traffic, too many councillors who back down at the first hint of opposition and too much red tape and disconnect around the funding. Very piecemeal for a single scheme over here but none of the required complementary measures over there that would bring out its full potential.

We holidayed in Inverness last year and noticed how brilliant the cycling infrastructure was there and such a chilled out relaxed city. Loved it, now we all want to move there.

was at Centre Parcs the other week. For may UK residents it could be used as an eye opener on how things could work if things were near, and infrastruture in place.