What is the post-pandemic direction of travel in switching from a dependency on the car to using a greater mix of active travel to use our town and city centres?
During the last year I have watched-on curiously as the already enjoyable bike ride between my home and office has been gradually upgraded by long-term investment in purpose-built cycleways and a stunning new river crossing. This £21million investment is part of a 21km route connecting hospital, biomedical campus, Cambridge city centre, old and new railway stations, guided bus route, a ‘sustainable’ new town and a traditional market town. Even as a minor beneficiary, I confess that I struggle to get my head around such a scale of investment made for cyclists.
At the same time, I have looked on in disbelief and felt powerless to influence a temporary road and bridge closure at the end of my street that has divided communities in more ways than one. Mill Road is a lively, secondary shopping street that normally also provides a through-route to the city centre. Using pandemic powers afforded by the Government’s Emergency Active Travel Fund (EATF), the road’s railway bridge was hurriedly closed except to buses, bikes and pedestrians. Over the ensuing 15 months plans to replace plastic barriers with welcoming parklets and restaurant terraces failed to materialise, necessary consultation was lacking, the chance to present a convincing case lost and the temporary traffic order was ultimately reversed by a highways committee split-decision.
The pandemic legacy
My professional work in towns across the country has shown that these personal experiences of active travel development during the pandemic have not been unusual. Hastily implemented pedestrianisation schemes or pop-up cycle lanes have polarised opinions in many places and often served as poor adverts for such initiatives’ potential. Elsewhere the scale of long-term ambition and innovation has been inspiring.
The academic rigour of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions has shed more light on the pandemic legacy through thorough analysis of travel adaptations and the future implications from Covid-19 restrictions in its At a Crossroads report published in March 2021. It concluded that one of the defining stories of the behavioural adaptations during lockdown is how different this has been across different forms of transport though these switches need targeted support to become sustainable.
- 56% of people are walking three times a week or more, up from 36 percent pre-pandemic
- cycling levels also increased with levels two to threefold greater
- rail was on average 25% of the previous year’s level and bus use has on average been 35%
- car traffic averaged 70 percent of pre-pandemic levels
Some of these travel changes are nuanced and the motivations not entirely in-line with an increase in active travel and decarbonisation. An increase in cycling for leisure, for example, is partly offset by a reduction in cycling for commuting. Similarly, whilst the increase in cycling has been a feature of debate in the media, increases in walking has been largely hidden. The drop in public transport use has been counter to moves towards carbon reduction.
The report recognised that the introduction of new cycling and walking schemes was done in a hurry during the early stages of the pandemic, and that some were not well used or had design faults. Their research found, however, that people want to see more reallocation of space to active modes of travel. Support for measures which improved walking and cycling outweighed objection to them by a factor of almost 2 to 1. The vocal objectors, it concluded, were in the minority.
The report ended on a note of very cautious optimism for the prospects for active travel growth. It recognised that there had been a rise in the propensity to walk and cycle, even in conditions where every other form of travel has reduced. This suggested a switch in emphasis more profound than even recent government announcements on funding imply. The note of caution was about the extent to which this potential for change will recognised and embedded in truly innovative shifts in policy and practice.
Sharing valuable road space
If we momentarily turn back the clock to the pre-pandemic debates and direction of travel, we see a well-considered case for innovation and investment that changes the last kilometres of our journeys in town and city centres. This was accompanied by a realism about a long-term role of private cars as an important part of our travels to the outskirts of town.
The International Transport Forum’s (ITF) roundtable on reversing car dependency in December 2019, provided a global perspective on the politics and practicalities of cars sharing more road space with active travel.
The reported discussions amongst policy-makers turned the debate about people’s rights to access to cars on its head. Any notion of a “right to use a car” it was determined, might better be recast as “a right to carry out daily activities without needing a car”. The pertinent policy question then became how to ensure an adequate level of car-free accessibility through travel choices that include public transport, walking, cycling and shared micro-mobility. The objective became not to suppress travel by car but to tchannel it to locations and uses where its value to the individual clearly exceeded the costs it imposed on society (including other car users). At the same time, the proceedings acknowledged that for travel between remoter areas, the car is likely to remain irreplaceable on many routes.
The discussions recognised that a reallocation of road space, and urban space more broadly, is key in achieving a more sustainable modal split and improving urban environments. The conclusion was that cars, roads and parking spaces use up a large amount of the already scarce space in towns and cities that could be used for other purposes that would be more beneficial to overall economic welfare.
The Forum’s report made recommendations for policies and practicalities to reverse the dependency on car use in town and city centres, that included:
- use road space allocation to proactively manage traffic, cyclists and pedestrians
- abolish minimum parking space requirements for new developments
- consider road pricing to drive more efficient use of road space
- use parking rates to discourage excessive driving
- end employer-paid parking subsidies
- ensure that quality alternatives to private cars are convenient and efficient
A gradual or radical transition
Much of the debate around the post-pandemic direction of travel shows a split in emphasis between calls for a gradual or more radical transition in changing how we access our town and city centres. Whilst there is widespread acceptance of a climate-led decarbonisation of how we travel, advocates of a more progressive approach seek to strengthen the environmental and social outcomes of inovations.
In its report All aboard from November 2021, the IPPR Environmental Justice Commission scoped-out an ambitious plan for fairly decarbonising how people travel. It set-out how the response to the environmental crises will touch every corner of our lives over the coming decade. One of the most fundamental changes it concluded, will be the design of our public spaces and the changing ways we move through them.
The report quoted UK government forecasts of up to a 51% increase in traffic in England and Wales by 2050, by which time there is expected to be up to 10 million more cars on the road. The report surmised how future visions of mobility in the UK often focus on supporting the status quo through the adoption of electric vehicles, with much less said about the shift from “privately-owned, car-centred mobility”. Research and development, the report argued, also needs to focus on creating new models of shared access within more liveable, smart towns and cities.
Its framework for fairly decarbonising transport outlined the scope for addressing the underlying inequalities of our current transport system between what we might portray as the ‘light green’ and ‘deep green’ responses:
- Light green: A plan for decarbonising transport that leads to a change in the vehicles we use without a reduction in their number or benefits to people and nature.
- Deep green: Places designed for people and nature to thrive, and a transition to a clean, fair and healthy transport system that communities have a stake in.
Government approach to active travel
The Government’s approach for encouraging active travel is set-out in its plan Gear Change: A bold vision for cycling and walking published in July 2020. This vision for a “great walking and cycling nation” included a target for half of all journeys in towns and cities being cycled or walked by 2030. The Government said the new plan aims to build on the significant increase in the number of people cycling during the pandemic, as well as earlier achievements of the 2017 cycling and walking investment strategy.
The Government presented actions to achieve this vision under four themes.
- Better streets for cycling and people
- Putting cycling and walking at the heart of transport, place-making, and health policy
- Empowering and encouraging local authorities
- Enabling people to cycle and protecting them when they cycle
The cycling and walking plan said that cycling in particular must become mass transit with routes designed for larger numbers of cyclists and users of all abilities. It listed the demanding design principles for cycle infrastructure including:
- cyclists must be separated from volume traffic, both at junctions and on the stretches of road between them
- cyclists must be separated from pedestrians
- routes must join together; isolated stretches of good provision are of little value
- routes must feel direct, logical and be intuitively understandable by all road users
This new walking and cycling plan committed to significantly increase spending on walking and cycling with £2bn set to be spent over the next five years to 2025. This budget is held by a new commissioning body and inspectorate, Active Travel England, which provides guidance on the wide range of sources of active travel funding for local authorities and other groups.
In parallel, the UK Government has strengthened its commitment to the decarbonisation of travel by accelerating the switch to electric vehicles. The 10 point plan for a green industrial revolution published in November 2020 confirmed that the Government would pursue this through a two-phased approach:
- Step 1: will see the phase-out date for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars brought forward to 2030
- Step 2: will see all new cars be fully zero emission at the tailpipe from 2035
Getting stakeholder engagement right
One of the lessons learnt from experimentation with low traffic town and city centres during the pandemic, was the need for effective stakeholder consultation to reflect, inform and involve local opinion-leaders.
To help draw out good practice in implementing active travel during the pandemic, the LGA commissioned research looking at lessons learnt from stakeholder engagement in planning low-traffic neighbourhoods using the Emergency Active Travel Fund (EATF). In doing so, it recognised that the initiatives that came forward under the EATF took place in extremely challenging times for local authorities where the usual approach to public engagement was not possible. It recognised that whilst, for many areas, changes were quickly embraced, for some others, they caused tension between different stakeholders within communities.
The lessons learnt from the LGA’s research about how to engage stakeholders in planning low traffic neighbourhoods highlight the value of a well-considered and well-resourced process. These lessons for getting stakeholder engagement right, included:
- it pays to invest in doing engagement well
- the whole community has valuable expertise to contribute
- representative and/or considered views can be very valuable
- principles first, then details
- narratives supported by evidence matter
- trials have a great deal to offer, when done properly
- an accessible and responsive council will earn trust
- transparency remains the best policy
- good schemes take time
Lessons learnt about post-pandemic direction of travel
A combination of personal and professional experience supported by this wider policy review, reinforces for me the importance of monitoring the post-pandemic direction of travel and the implicatios for our town and city centres. Five stand-out themes emerge as necessary to me for helping create effective, accepted and sustainable local solutions for changing how we travel in to and across town:
- Changing travel patterns are achievable though need support to become sustainable: The switch during the pandemic between modes of transport showed adaptability though will need understanding and support for different motivations if they are to be sustained, e.g. leisure cycling has increased though this has not yet been reflected in the routine of returning commuters.
- Innovation and investment are most necessary in the last kilometres of our journeys to town: research repeatedly points to the need to radically redesign our roads and public spaces in our town and city centres to maximise the benefits of active travel though the room for manoeuvre is the most challenging.
- Effective stakeholder engagement is essential in creating well-designed and widely-accepted interventions: hastily implemented active travel schemes during the pandemic have shown the importance of well-considered and well-resourced stakeholder engagement to avoid polarising opinions and embrace how the whole community has knowledge and expertise to contribute.
- There is room for both gradual and radical change from the status quo: A switch to decarbonising and active travel can be achieved by a combination of gradual and more radical change in national policy and local practice. This might, for example, balance an increase in electric vehicles with a freeing-up of town centre space for public transport, cycling and walking solutions.
- Place-leaders need to understand and embrace the opportunities for how users might travel into town and city centres differently: There is a current acceleration in the recognised need and supported opportunities for diversifying the ways people can travel into town and city centres. This spans and has been given added prominence through the pandemic. It is important for place-leaders to review local learning and proactively assess the opportunities created by a rapidly changing national policy context.
Personally and professionally, I need to be confident that cyclists and pedestrians merit levels of innovations and investment that we previously felt were only the domain of the driver. In working with town and city centres to address active travel opportunities, I need to bring my stakeholder engagement skills to the fore as a starting point for creating effective and accepted solutions.
Further information and guidance
People & Places’ approach to promoting travel to town looks at the whole journey. In doing so, we seek to link the online and on-street experience to overcome perceived and physical barriers that limit potential customers’ trips to town.
Our perspective on taking high streets online is “don’t limit your ambitions!” Aspirations for dynamic town centres enabled in part by digital development are essential; it’s part of what we look to understand in our baseline town centre stakeholder surveys.
Read about our new people, places & proximity services analysing GEO-Sense digital foot-flow data as demonstrated in this sample report about understanding Loughborough’s town centre footfall.
We have now taken our understanding of town centres to offer a comprehensive and cost effective People, Places & Parking Process consultancy service for councils, business groups and parking providers. Take a look at the LGA guidance on town centre travel, parking and access; read the LGA case study of our work linking parking and place in Sleaford that uses our process.
Most recently, People & Places Director Chris Wade, has been appointed Business Development Manager for the British Parking Association’s innovative Park Active scheme integrating parking as part of the modal shift to active travel.
