An excellent new £4.5b Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy was recently released in the UK. Low cost, high value, win win.
The policy has three key objectives:
1. Enable more people, particularly the least active, to benefit from physical activity through active travel
2. Make active travel the easy and integrated choice
3. Improve safety for people walking, wheeling and cycling
Here’s a really good six minute interview with Chris Boardman, explaining the immense opportunity and value of this sort of investment:
Chris Boardman, ex-Olympic and world champion cyclist, is now the UK’s Commissioner of Active Travel. His wiki entry says his journey to active travel advocacy began because:
Boardman has worked in various walking and cycling advocacy roles. He first took up these roles after his young daughter asked to ride to the park with him, in the northern seaside town where they lived; Boardman refused, thinking it too dangerous. He said it felt very wrong that he, an ex-Olympic cyclist, did not feel he could keep his child safe on a one-minute 550m ride, so he decided to do something about it.
The policy’s return on investment is reminiscent of the Mayor of Copenhagen saying when asked how the city could afford to invest in cycling: “How can we afford not to?”
“When mayors in other cities ask me how Copenhagen afforded to invest in its cycling networks, I ask them how on earth they have been able to afford highway projects,” Kabell says. “We invested in bike lanes because that was the cheapest option.”
Cycling projects have also paid themselves back quickly.
“We built a bridge for cyclists and pedestrians over a southern part of harbour. It paid itself back in six and a half years, with a socioeconomic return on investment of 14%,” Kabell says, adding that some projects have delivered returns of 19% per annum.
Watching the explainer video above got me doing a little math for an equivalent policy in New Zealand:
The UK has roughly 10 times the population of NZ, so converting to NZD the equivalent here would be a total $900m over five years, of central government funding for active transport across the motu, i.e. a fraction of a single RoNS.
It is standard practice for funds like this to be distributed on a contestable 50:50 basis with local authorities, so it would effectively amount to $1.8bn invested in walking and wheeling projects over five years, between central and local government.
This would enable towns and cities to fix and build safe routes to schools, rapidly crack on with completing cycling network plans, expand connections into rural tourist routes (and intercity connections). So much. Transformational.
What are your thoughts?
For a fraction of the cost of just one of the current government’s long list of dubious value mega-highways, we could make this country a healthier, happier, safer, and more efficient place to move through and enjoy on a daily basis.
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We need a ‘Commissioner of active travel’ here. It is tragic that a country that has such a strong ethos of outdoor activities and athletic success also has the third highest obesity rate in the OECD. In terms of new developments we are now doing this really well, but massive amounts are needed to retrofit the roads and communities we built in the 70s/80s/90s.
If left to me my commissioner of Active Travel would be Mark Inglis.
It is pretty obvious any journey that is undertaken on foot, bicycle or other active mode offers us benefits in health ( physical and mental), community cohesion, reduced emissions and the local economy and much more. Vote for sustainable, active transport.
Cycling is becoming a serious transport mode and that means facing up to some new realities. All of us have to stop coupling walking and cycling (scooters/skate boards/electric bikes/etc) together. Children, disabled people, old people, dogs, dreamers and people looking at the view etc cannot and should not be expected to move in straight lines at a consistent speed. In areas like Wellington’s Oriental Parade these people are being asked to trust badly trained cyclists to keep them safe when going anywhere up to 40km on shared pathways. All over the Wellington the trail biking “community” has built people/bike intersections in the city bush parks. I love cycling and I have watched cycling numbers build up for 40 years – this could be a good problem to have, or, if we don’t don’t find real solutions, it could rebound badly on those using wheels.
It is not just cyclists on the footpath that are a problem. It is electric scooters of various varieties and even electric skateboards. I am a frequent walker and part of a walking group, mainly of older women. We walk along St Lukes Road which has cycle lanes both sides. We regularly get barged off the footpaths by scooter riders. Last month one of us was pushed off the footpath and into the bushes by two scooters travelling together. The did not stop to help her and she badly damaged the tendon in her wrist. Cyclists come up behind us and we cannot hear them. No cyclist seems to possess a bell to indicate their coming. We have walked on shared paths in Europe and had no problems as the cycle culture respects pedestrians.
Cyclists should not be on footpaths. They are a danger to pedestrians and to themselves. Drivers often cannot see them coming because a lot of properties these days have high fences or hedges that obscure the frontage so that if you are coming out of a driveway or a side road, you have very little view of what is coming at speed on the footpath. I want more cycleways so that the only wheels on the footpath belong to baby carriages, mobility scooters and tricycles with an adult supervision.
“Cyclists should not be on footpaths. They are a danger to pedestrians and to themselves”
Unfortunately they are a much bigger danger to themselves on most roads. I take the footpath if I think the road feels unsafe, I’d happily take a specialist cycle lane if there was one.
I do have a bell though and I slow down near peds.
Unfortunately, I have forgotten what a Bell means and how to respond to it.
Thank you for your consideration – you are in a minority. I fully support cycleways that are separated from footpaths and if it narrows the road – so be it.
I hear you on St Luke’s road. Inconsiderable people are a problem, but I hope the most ire is reserved for the builders of that road as the area has major design issues.
Firstly, if you are a student on a bike or scooter heading south from the western cycleway on St Luke’s Road to AIS via Linwood Ave, you are faced with the choice of mixing it with the cars on the road to turn right into Linwood, or riding along a narrow footpath for 100m. Both options are terrible, but I’m not surprised most people choose the latter – it’s far safer.
Further along St Lukes the cycleway ends at Selkirk Road (no exit!), just after the railway line where the road expands into two car lanes, so someone heading to the mall or mega centre by bike or scooter has literally nowhere to go unless they’re comfortable riding among 2 lanes of cars traveling ~50km/h. It’s beyond terrible.
St Luke’s Road needs major work:
– Wider footpaths. It’s ridiculously narrow in places, particularly at the Lyon Ave bus stop and near Linwood Ave. And it’s not like space is lacking.
– A grade-separated cycleway along the full length of St Luke’s Road, all the way from the motorway to the mall at least, but preferably to Balmoral and beyond.
– A proper crossing (lights or zebra) at the intersection with Linwood Ave, enabling scooters and cyclists coming south from the cycleway to use the eastern side of the road.
At the moment the area is far too car-friendly to the detriment of all else, and I’m sure the mall bears a lot of the responsibility for that.
Particularly here in Auckland, we have too many cars. School pick up times are ridiculous, Lake Road, Lunn Ave among others are constantly smelling horrible and no doubt not good for our health.
Cycling was what Cuba did when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Cuba is still alive, even if only just at this moment.
Bikes are fun, freedom, and much faster than walking. Cars have to stop at traffic lights, stink up the air, and then you are stuck in a metal box with wheels, close to maybe a few other people, but not to everyone. In a time that Social Cohesion is what we need, bike rides, trains, ferries and buses are excellent movements for social contact; if you are like me and cannot understand Run Clubs or any action that involves “jogging”.
We will need younger councillors to replace some of the existing: I am not saying that older people are not helpful, but I am mid forties and would love a supergold card…so I cannot understand why anyone over sixty five would not just enjoy life, rather than trying to stay in charge of a world that is changing too fast, even for my “middle” age.
bah humbug
This is another area that needs cross-party consensus, like major infrastructure. We have seen several election flips over something that should be simple to agree – it’s not much capital compared with the big NIP stuff and let’s not mention the white elephants crowding the room – the Really Overblown Notional Spend-ups.
Modest, affordable programme funding that can simply proceed without becoming a political volley-ball should just get agreed and left to get on with steady progress, reporting back on realistic objectives being achieved.
Could there be a case against the government because kids have lost their ability to safely get around, which must be a basic human right?
When I was a kid I cycled everywhere. The roads were wide with no parked cars so the cars came no where near us, and there were few cars anyway. These days even on residential streets you are constantly weaving towards the middle due to parked cars, and the main roads are horrendous.
Cycling infrastructure wasn’t really needed when I was a kid, but it is essential today as the road space is too dangerous to share with bikes. Its not a nice to have.
Additional note.
All current and recently completed active-mode projects, like Te Ara Tupua in Wellington, or stage 4 of GI to Tāmaki, even GNR in Grey Lynn, are the result of funding allocated under the previous government.
It is all about to come to a screeching halt, except for some rural tourist projects, and anything 100% funded by local govt.
Until such a time as there is a new government direction based on evidence and value for money, and not just culture war and ideology.
For the avoidance of doubt, this new UK programme is all for new projects, is over and above maintenance.
One of the changes our current government did along with reducing funding significantly was to cut the active mode fund down to one category to cover both opex and capex. Therefore all current Active mode funding is swallowed up by maintenance.
So depressing.
New Zealand has a 90% car mode share and we WILL NOT ACCEPT a lower mode share than 100%.
If 90% of Kiwi journes are made by car, this means that the remaining 10% need to be helped into their own car.
We have a low population density in New Zealand, so every journey has to be made by car.
It rains in Wellington, you know.
Etc
The supporting growth – Pukekohe/Drury/Paerata and P2B programs have had much of their cycling infrastructure removed due to Simeons GPS no longer allowing for it , project status’s of “removed due to funding constraints” is the usual.
New train stations that were once well connected to communities (Grafton Downs, Paerata, Drury, Pukekohe) and workplaces (Fisher Paykel Healthcare and new Hospital? campii are now only connected via State Highway 22 and insufficient at any size park and ride carparks full by 7:00am
Removal of less than $20M of cycling infrastructure (bridges, paths) has crippled the Active Mode Network leaving only the State Highway 22 to carry the congestion.
Anyone looking to move to this new growth area should buy a comfortable slow car.
This is incredibly idiotic. A complete, clean-slate opportunity to deliver proper, coherent, well-connected active mode infrastructure, derailed by one utter muttonhead.
Meanwhile we have Little Simeon still throwing tantrums any time a cyclist exists and a driver has to slow down for half a second.
I like to take our small dog for a daily walk but increasingly find we are dicing with disablement. Twice brushed by bikes and once by a scooter at speed. Shared paths are the worst with silent cyclists using them for race training, just a nightmare looking over shoulder no fun walk anymore. Need separation and enforcement.
Yes, sounds like a good idea for NZ.