Cycling and walking on the rise since lockdown
More people adopt greener ways to get to work and shops
ASURGE in cycling and walking across the West Midlands has been one silver lining to emerge from the Covid crisis.
Cycling to work has increased sevenfold and cycling to the shops has doubled, while five times as many people are now walking to the shops and four times as many are walking to work.
The increases were shown in the results of a West Midlands Combined Authority survey, which was based on 6,000 responses.
The survey showed one per cent of respondents primarily cycled to work pre-Covid, rising to seven per cent since the crisis. Some two per cent of customers cycled to shops before the pandemic compared to four per cent since.
Just five per cent of respondents used to walk to work, but now an impressive 20 per cent do.
Likewise, eight per cent of those surveyed walked to the shops before, while 40 per cent do now.
Hannah Dayan, cycling and walking development officer at TfWM said: “We conducted an online survey of travel behaviour which had 6,000 responses.
“There wasn’t the ability to do face-to-face so this was online, something that definitely needs to be improved upon.
“You can see cycling and walking to work and shops have improved a fair bit before and after lockdown.” The region has been awarded a £3.85 million grant by the Department for Transport (DfT) for councils to provide fast-track measures to encourage cycling and walking during the crisis.
Schemes proposed and already in place in council areas across the region include pop-up cycle lanes and pavement widening measures. At the same time, the region has been allocated £23 million from the Transforming Cities Fund for cycling and walking and a further £14 million in emergency active travel fund grants.
Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) is working on an action plan with the target of increasing levels of cycling from 1.7 per cent of all trips to five per cent by 2023.
A separate survey conducted with the walking and cycling charity Sustrans gives an indication of the demographic breakdown of cyclists in the region, including:
14 per cent of men and five per cent of women cycle at least one time per week.
11 per cent of white people and six per cent of people from minority ethnic groups cycle one time per week.
A total of 164 new cycle parking spaces were created at key transport hubs across the region including Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton Bus Station in 2019/20.