Why don't more people walk or cycle to work or school?

Patrick Coyne discusses the barriers to people taking part in active travel and the new Sustrans campaign to change that.

How do you make your way to work? How do your kids make their way to school? If you said by car, as at least 50% of you will have, you may not be surprised to hear that the 2011 Census revealed that less than 11% of people walked to work and under 3% cycled.

Now, that may not be surprising but it certainly is worrying. Worrying that an easy opportunity to build activity in to everyday life is being missed by so many of us.

Perhaps even more worryingly, earlier this month the Welsh Government found that, as a means of transport (active travel), 34 per cent of people in Wales walk infrequently or not at all and only 6 per cent travelled by bike for active travel trips at least once a week.

Fewer and fewer children are also walking to school. Not even half of 5-to-10-year-olds do so now, compared to 80% of their parent’s generation.

So what’s stopping people?

There are a number of barriers. People are having to commute longer and longer distances. People are made to work long hours and don’t have time to walk their kids to school. But also, perhaps more fundamentally, people are afraid.

Potential cyclists are put off by traffic from cars and lorries – whether it’s from not giving them enough room or simply that they are just going too fast.

For walkers, in cities at least, there is a perception that it’s dangerous to walk alone in poorly-lit streets.

All of these factors are leading to millions of adults and children missing out on something that could change their lives. Earlier this week researchers showed that switching from driving to walking or cycling to work improves our mental wellbeing. 

So not only would walking or cycling to school or work make you healthier – as was so ably demonstrated by the Walking Works report – it would make you happier too.

So when we are in the heart of an inactivity crisis, surely it makes sense to make every effort to remove some of those barriers that put people off from taking part in active travel?

To help, Sustrans, a charity which aims to promote sustainable transport, has come up with the Campaign for Safer Streets.

The campaign calls for a commitment in party political manifestos for the 2015 general election for every child to have the right to a safe journey to school.

Specifically it calls for:

• dedicated funding: long-term investment by government to transform routes and support walking and cycling
• slower speeds: a national 20mph default speed limit in built-up areas to make everyone’s journey safer
• safe routes: stronger duties and incentives to improve local walking and cycling networks.

When we make a concerted effort to get people active as part of everyday life it can be done. For inspiration, we only need to look at how well our European friends have done. Denmark now boasts more bikes than cars and its capital, Copenhagen, now has 36% of its residents cycling to work every day.

If you care about making the streets safer and having a more active nation, join the campaign.

Read more blogs by Patrick.

Read more Sport and Recreation Alliance blogs.

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