Regional mayors are leading the way in enabling cycling infrastructure
OPINION: THE GOLDEN AGE OF CYCLING?
Three years ago, I spent a week delving into cycling in the West Midlands for an article, as you do. I was concerned that the region’s mayor Andy Street’s plan for cycling back then seemed to amount to a network of unlit canal towpaths. In a region where 41% of journeys are less than two miles, and 30% of people say they would cycle more if it felt safer, targets for 5% of trips to be by bike seemed unambitious and I said this in my Guardian article at the time.
Well, dear reader, how things have changed. Now Street and his team have discovered a newfound cycling verve, attracting hundreds of millions of pounds for cycling over the next five years, and becoming somewhat of a success story. So what happened? While the big, sexy cycle routes (yes, in some circles kerbs are sexy) are the visible results of a major turnaround, a lot more has been going on behind the scenes.
In May 2021, Andy Street was re-elected, and that December he appointed Adam Tranter as walking and cycling commissioner. For the record, Adam is a friend, colleague and podcast co-host of mine, but, girl guides’ honour, this is an honest assessment of their achievements, as I see it.
If Tranter expected the first six months of the job would involve arguing for change, instead he found that while people weren’t standing in the way, the status quo was. While motor traffic is baked into how we manage our streets, cycling and walking are seen as nice to haves, so underfunded that when funds do come along, there are no plans, or people, in place to deliver. What makes change happen, it turns out, are the details: staffing capacity, new road layout designs. Hardly sexy but, over time, life-changing stuff.
There are kerbs, too: the three-mile Coundon Cycleway was completed in late 2022 and the £8.5m Binley Road cycle route will add another three miles from the city centre to a university and hospital. Slowly, spreading like fingers and limbs, are plans for more routes.
Mayoral regions are at the forefront of the golden age of cycling, if such a thing still exists: thanks to devolution, they can set local transport goals and cheerlead for investment to meet them. In the latest £200m round of Active Travel Funding, carried over from before the latest funding cuts, Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Liverpool all attracted more than £12m. More importantly, they can access long-term funding pots such as City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements,
