The third cycling and walking investment strategy (CWIS3): Our thoughts

UK Government is seeking views on the development of its third cycling and walking investment strategy (CWIS3). Here are our responses, what do you think?

Question 1: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed national vision for active travel?

We disagree – in that it won’t produce adequate results

Question 2: If you disagree, why do you disagree with the proposed national vision for active travel and what potential alternatives do you suggest?

To affordably achieve your vision you must change some of the country’s rules or you’ll be spending money very slowly building one project after another which will be nice in places but so piecemeal it won’t enable us to mode switch in significant numbers.

This is what the Government must do:

Make pavement parking against the law.

Reduce the speed limit in built up areas from 30mph to 20mph.

Make paint-only side road zebra crossings lawful and obligatory.

Oblige all transport authorities to create separate joined up walking and cycling networks to a very short deadline and then to bring them up to LTN 1/20 standard within a slightly longer timeframe.

Where a path-width strip of garden or field is needed to connect active travel routes, make it easy to apply Public Right of Way to it – regardless of who owns it.

Oblige transport authorities to make all streets outside schools into School Streets within a year – without the need for separate TROs for each one.

Make it quick and easy to give buses ‘rapid transit’ routes with a lifting of the necessity to go through the TRO process to remove on-street parking where a lane is needed for a new route.

Tax car parking revenue, except for park and ride and co-mobility hub parking, to encourage more use of active travel and public transport and incentivise better use of land. 

Remove diagonal painted lines from the middle of roads so traffic can drive there and make space along the sides of roads which would then be used to widen pavements for walking and cycling and even plant street trees.

Turn all disused railway lines into Public Rights of Way regardless of who owns them. 

These are not anti-car policies – they are improved connectivity policies. They would be as valuable a legacy for this Labour Government as was founding the NHS.

Question 3: Do you agree or disagree with the objective: ‘Ensure people are safe to travel actively’?

We agree that Motherhood and Apple Pie are good but do you have the recipe? See answer to Question 2.

Question 4: If you disagree, why do you disagree with the objective: ‘Ensure people are safe to travel actively’ and what potential alternatives do you suggest?

Question 5: Do you agree or disagree with the objective: ‘Ensure people feel it is an easy choice’?

Question 6: If you disagree, why do you disagree with the objective: ‘Ensure people feel it is an easy choice’ and what potential alternatives do you suggest?

Question 7: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed key performance indicators?

Disagree

Question 8: If you disagree, explain why.

Rather than aim for higher participation in walking and cycling (which may or may not come about for all sorts of reasons – economy or weather etc.) aim for traffic-free, or at least traffic-safe, connectivity of a high standard everywhere.

Question 9: Do you agree or disagree with the proposed approach to performance monitoring of LTA outcomes frameworks using the performance indicators outlined?

Disagree

Question 10: If you disagree with the proposed approach to performance monitoring of LTA outcomes frameworks using the performance indicators outlined above, explain why.

Local authorities have their own ideas about the necessity to prioritise walking and cycling. Quite often they favour the motorist and put up with a low ATE capability score…they may even be quite proud of it. What sort of penalty is it to not receive funding for active travel if you don’t want it anyway? Nation-wide law changes are needed – see answer to Q.2. above.

Question 11: How can ATE support local authorities in delivering local targets?

ATE can provide expertise and training but should also have powers to walk every local authority through the necessary measures to reallocate enough space and resources away from cars to walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport. 

Question 12: Do you agree or disagree with the indicators relating to the work of ATE?

Disagree

Question 13: If you disagree, explain why.

 It is a disgrace to train people, including children, to cycle in the environment we have now. Build safe routes and then train people to use them. 

Rather than to respond quickly to planning applications, create a national  obligation, with the necessary powers, for local transport authorities to build or carve out a minimum level of safe space for active connectivity.

Question 14: Do you have any other comments?

Our own local transport authority has received millions for active travel, written 4 Local Transport Plans and at least 3 LCWIPs and built almost nothing for us. £11.1m of BSIP money is being misappropriated to widen a bridge for general (car) traffic and £5m of Eastbourne, Hastings and Bexhill active travel funds have been spent building the A2690. Our streets and pavements are covered in cars. Our routes to schools don’t have the necessary safe road crossings, our country parks are mud-bound and our local shops are hemmed in by pavement parking. 

If our town had agency over its own public space it would not be like this. If Government required the County (or new Unitary) Council to do a better job – see answer to Q.2 above – the town would not be so aggressively neglected. 

Change for the better is going to require a tighter grip on the process than you suggest in your consultation. This may be politically difficult in the short term but would be transformatively rewarding not long after.