CIT0175

Written evidence submitted by UK

CORONAVIRUS: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSPORT INTRODUCTION

1. Cycling UK was founded in 1878 and has 72,000 members and supporters. Historically known as ‘CTC’ or the ‘Cyclists’ Touring Club’, Cycling UK’s central charitable mission is to make cycling a safe, accessible, enjoyable and ‘normal’ activity for people of all ages and abilities. Our interests cover cycling both as a form of day-to-day transport and as a leisure activity, which can deliver health, economic, environmental, safety and quality of life benefits, both for individuals and society. Cycling UK is a member of the Walking and Cycling Alliance (along with the Association, , Living Streets, Ramblers and ) as well as the Healthy Air Campaign.

2. Cycling UK has been pleased to provide oral as well as written evidence to a number of Transport Committee inquiries in recent years, notably its inquiry on Active Travel in 2019, whose recommendations we strongly supported. Our written submission to that inquiry1 provides an overview of the economic, environmental, health and quality-of-life arguments for investing in cycling, hence we do not repeat them here.

3. Since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, Cycling UK has been urging UK Governments to support cycling, not only as a form of healthy exercise during lockdown, but also as a means for key workers to continue making essential journeys and, more recently, as a way of recovering from the Covid-19 crisis in a way that would leave us better placed to address the crises of traffic congestion, air pollution, road danger, inactivity-related ill- health and ultimately the climate crisis, while avoiding a car-led recovery.

4. This submission considers firstly the UK Government’s response to calls from Cycling UK and its allies to support cycling during lockdown, and then as part of its post- lockdown recovery. During the period of the coronavirus crisis, there has been a rapid growth in the Government’s appreciation of the role of cycling in helping the nation recover from this crisis in a way that leaves us better equipped to address the pre- existing crises of congestion, air pollution, road danger, ill-health relating to physical inactivity, and ultimately the climate crisis.

5. The Government is now expected to publish an updated Cycling and Walking Plan within weeks, after the Committee’s evidence session with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps MP on 24th June, but probably before the Committee reports on this inquiry. Therefore, instead of concluding this submission with recommendations for the Committee to consider including in its inquiry report, we have suggested questions which the Committee may with to put to the Transport Secretary at this week’s hearing. We then propose to make a supplementary submission to this inquiry once the Government’s Cycling and Walking Plan has been published, in which we will set out recommendations in the light of that Plan.

1 http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/transport-committee/active- travel/written/91593.pdf THE GOVERNMENT’S ACTIONS TO DATE

6. Prior to lockdown, on 11th February, the Prime Minister announced a £5bn funding allocation to support buses and cycling.2 However no information was provided of when this funding would be available, what it would be spent on, or by whom. Nor were any further details provided in the budget of 11th March. Therefore, despite the Government’s legal commitment to having a Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS),3 Councils in England (outside London) began the 2020/21 financial year with no earmarked capital funding at all (and very little revenue funding either) to invest in cycling or walking measures.4 Hence the current financial year began with a regrettable continuation of the long history of under-investment in cycling and walking. Because of this history, many councils still lack staff with the knowledge, training and skills to plan and design cycling networks and schemes.

7. At the start of lockdown, Cycling UK commended the Government’s decisions firstly to support cycle shops as essential businesses that should be allowed to stay open, and then to positively promote cycling as a way that people could gain their once-a-day stint of exercise. Shortly afterwards, the (DfT) also agreed with Cycling UK that we should reconfigure our Big Bike Revival (BBR) project5 (which DfT has funded since 20156), to focus on enabling health and other key workers to get their under-used bikes fixed, so that they could continue making essential journeys.7 Meanwhile, Cycling UK began fundraising so we could offer free memberships to key workers8 – around 3,000 health and social care workers have taken up this offer.

8. At the same time, Cycling UK and its allies also began urging both national9 and local10 Governments throughout the UK to support cycling as a crucial part of their response to the crisis, both to give people a way of gaining healthy exercise during lockdown, and for key workers and others to make essential journeys by means other than public transport. We urged the UK Government and local authorities to install ‘pop-up’ cycle lanes, widen pavements, close streets to through traffic, and other measures to support cycling and walking in ways that were consistent with ‘social distancing’. We pointed to examples that were already appearing in other countries e.g. Berlin,11 Milan12 and many cities in both North and South America13 and elsewhere.14 We also asked researchers from Leeds University to prepare maps showing the roads in 10 major English cities which were wide enough to accommodate an extra lane for cycling, and which had the greatest potential for increased cycle use.15

2 www.gov.uk/government/news/major-boost-for-bus-services-as-pm-outlines-new-vision-for-local-transport 3 www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy 4 www.cyclinguk.org/article/chancellors-budget-fails-get-cycling-done 5 www.cyclinguk.org/taxonomy/term/6701?keys=&field_post_type_tid%5B%5D=101&sort_by=created 6 www.gov.uk/government/speeches/big-bike-revival 7 www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/cycling-uk-keep-covid-19-key-workers-pedalling-free-services 8 https://shop.cyclinguk.org/donate/key-workers 9 www.cyclinguk.org/news/joint-call-more-space-cycling-during-virus 10 www.cyclinguk.org/blog/why-we-need-more-space-cycling-and-walking-during-lockdown 11 www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/pop-up-bike-lanes-help-with-coronavirus-social-distancing-in-germany 12 www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/milan-seeks-to-prevent-post-crisis-return-of-traffic-pollution 13 www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/world-cities-turn-their-streets-over-to-walkers-and-cyclists 14 www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/18/cleaner-and-greener-covid-19-prompts-worlds-cities-to-free-public-space-of-cars 15 www.cyclinguk.org/article/10-cities-where-pop-bike-lanes-could-benefit-millions-explore-maps 9. Unfortunately, the Government was initially slow to respond to our calls for funding to enable councils to rapidly install pop-up cycle lanes and similar measures. At this crucial moment, key members of DfT’s already overstretched cycling and walking team were redeployed to work on other aspects of coronavirus planning. However the urgency of our calls for action became even greater when it became clear that the Government intended to start reopening both schools and businesses, at a time when social distancing rules were (and still are) constraining the use of public transport. At this point, DfT senior management clearly recognised that cycling needed to be a key element of the department’s coronavirus response.

10. On 9th May, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced (at one of the Government’s daily coronavirus briefings) that the Government was encouraging people to walk and cycle for essential journeys, as means to avoid public transport. He also confirmed that the Government would shortly launch a further policy document on cycling and walking. However there were conflicting statements16 17 on whether this document would be a “Cycling and Walking Plan” or an “updated Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy”; whether it would be published “in June” or “in the summer”; and whether it would be launched by the Secretary of State or by the Prime Minister. A subsequent parliamentary answer18 has suggested though that it will not be a full 2nd Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS2), but rather a document that “will outline the process for the development of the second statutory Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy”.

11. Mr Shapps’s 9th May statement also included funding to support local authorities in installing ‘pop-up’ cycle lanes, widened pavements, local road closures and 20mph schemes. £2bn of the previously-announced £5bn for cycling and buses was now earmarked for cycling and walking investment over the next 5 years, with £250m of this forming an ‘Emergency Active Travel Fund’ (EATF) for investment during the current financial year. There have been similar announcements of funding for rapidly installed cycling and walking measures from the governments in Wales,19 Scotland20 21 and Northern Ireland.22

12. Mr Shapps’s statement was accompanied by the launch of statutory guidance to English highway authorities,23 under section 18 of the Traffic Management Act 2004, requiring them to consider the types of measures mentioned above, as part of their Network Management Duty under section 16 of that Act. DfT has since provided local authorities with an excellent evidence-base to support them in deciding where to spend their EATF allocations, in the form of a Rapid Cycleway Prioritisation Tool.24 This was commissioned, at Cycling UK’s suggestion, from the same Leeds University researchers

16 www.gov.uk/government/speeches/transport-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-9-may-2020 17 www.gov.uk/government/news/2-billion-package-to-create-new-era-for-cycling-and-walking 18 www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020-05- 15/47391/ 19 https://media.service.gov.wales/news/gbp-15m-for-covid-proof-travel 20 www.transport.gov.scot/news/guidance-and-next-steps-for-passengers-and-transport-sector/ 21 www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=2020-06-11.16.0#g16.2 22 www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/news/mallon-announces-pop-cycle-lanes-belfast-we-kick-start-bike-week 23 www.gov.uk/government/publications/reallocating-road-space-in-response-to-covid-19-statutory-guidance-for-local- authorities/traffic-management-act-2004-network-management-in-response-to-covid-19 24 www.cyipt.bike/rapid/ who had created our initial 10 city maps, and essentially extends the principle of those maps to cover the whole of England.

13. Regrettably, DfT’s EATF allocations have been slow to come through to local authorities. It was not until 27th May that DfT wrote to councils and combined authorities, inviting them to bid for a share of the EATF, and advising them that it would be available in two tranches:  Tranche 1, worth £45m, was to be spent within weeks on more temporary measures, to support active travel as part of immediate recovery from lockdown, and  Tranche 2, worth £180m, which is to be spent over the coming months on more permanent measures.

The remaining £25m of the £250m EATF will go towards a cycle repair voucher scheme, which had been announced by the Secretary of State on 23rd May.25 A written parliamentary answer has confirmed that this is expected to enable around 500,000 people to spend up to £50 on getting a bicycle repaired. The Government hopes to announce further details of this fund before the end of June,26 presumably as part of its wider Cycling and Walking Plan announcement.

14. The £225m of infrastructure funding is available to all English highway authorities (though in metropolitan or combined authority areas, the funding goes in the first instance to the higher-tier body). Every eligible authority has an ‘indicative allocation’ from this fund,27 which can expect to receive if it sets out a “swift and meaningful plan to reallocate road space to cyclists and pedestrians, including strategic corridors.”28

15. Cycling UK is pleased to note that every authority has bid for its indicative Tranche 1 allocation. DfT is expected to advise them within days (possibly by the time the Committee questions the Secretary of State on Wednesday 24th June) of how much Tranche 1 funding they have secured. They will then be invited to bid for Tranche 2, and can expect to receive their allocations in the summer.

16. To assist local authorities in prioritising their plans, Cycling UK has combined the outputs of the DfT-commissioned Rapid Cycleway Prioritsation Tool with that of the Widen My Path crowdsourcing website (www.widenmypath.com), created by the cycle advocacy social enterprise Cyclestreets.29 Widen My Path allows individuals to click on a map in order to suggest locations where new cycleways, widened footways or road closures are required, and to ‘up-vote’ the suggestions made by other users. NEXT STEPS

17. Based on the Government’s own statements, we can expect the forthcoming Cycling and Walking Plan announcement to include, or be accompanied by:

25 www.gov.uk/government/news/transport-secretary-announces-new-measures-to-keep-passengers-safe-now-and- level-up-for-the-future 26 www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020- 06-11/58669 27 www.gov.uk/government/publications/emergency-active-travel-fund-local-transport-authority-allocations 28 www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/05/29/department-for-transport-letter-to-uk-councils-close-main-roads-to- cars-reallocate-road-space-to-cyclists-pedestrians/#68a9e575a3db 29 www.cyclinguk.org/blog/how-do-i-show-my-council-where-cycle-lane-needed  Revised guidance on the design of cycle-friendly infrastructure. A recent parliamentary answer said this would be released “in the summer”,30 though the Government originally said it would be published before the end of 2018.31  Plans to create the role of a national cycling and walking commissioner, and an inspectorate, to ensure that the new cycling design guidance is consistently adhered to.  Clarity on plans and timescales for the cycle repair voucher scheme (see above).  Proposals to involve the NHS in prescribing cycling as ‘exercise on referral’. These were originally promised in the Conservative Party’s election manifesto last year.32  Steps towards creating a long-term budget for cycling and walking in CWIS2.

18. Over the coming months, we then hope (and expect) Cycling and Walking to be integrated into:

 The Transport Decarbonisation Plan. DfT recently published Decarbonising Transport: setting the challenge’,33 paving the way for a ‘Transport Decarbonisation Plan’ due out later this year. The Secretary of State’s ‘Foreword’ proposes a vision in which “Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities. We will use our cars less”.  The Planning White Paper. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government recently issued ‘Planning for the Future’,34 issued in March, the Planning White Paper was due out in the Spring. Cycling UK believes the Government’s forthcoming new guidelines (see above) need to be integrated into the White Paper, to ensure that the location and design of new housing and other developments support high levels of cycling and walking.  The National Infrastructure Strategy. Having been postponed from its original publication date in March (at the same time as the budget),35 it is now anticipated that it could be re-presented as part of an expected ‘fiscal event’ in July.36  The Transport Decarbonisation Plan and National Infrastructure Strategy will in turn inform a planned multi-year Spending Review, though its timing is unclear.  The 2nd Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS2) is likely to follow soon after the next Spending Review. QUESTIONS FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

19. Clearly the Transport Secretary will not wish to pre-empt the forthcoming publication of the Cycling and Walking Plan, particularly if it is to be launched by the Prime Minister. However, based on what we know so far about the likely content of the Cycling and

30 www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020-05- 20/49716/ 31 www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2018-02- 28/130509 32 https://assets-global.website-files.com/5da42e2cae7ebd3f8bde353c/5dda924905da587992a064ba_ Conservative%202019%20Manifesto.pdf 33 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878642/ decarbonising-transport-setting-the-challenge.pdf 34 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/872091/ Planning_for_the_Future.pdf 35 www.nic.org.uk/news/statement-on-reported-delay-to-national-infrastructure-strategy 36 www.ft.com/content/53f58f76-0d77-479e-a214-e320754c4184 Walking Plan and subsequent developments, we suggest below some questions that could usefully be put to him when he appears before the Committee on Wednesday.

Policy objectives and funding

 In his Department’s recent document ‘Decarbonising Transport: setting the challenge’37 , the Secretary of State’s ‘Foreword’ set out a vision in which “Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities. We will use our cars less”. Will he therefore set targets to halt and reverse road traffic growth as part of the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, with corresponding targets to increase cycling and walking in the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy which follows it?

 Will the launch of the Cycling and Walking Plan will be accompanied by the publication the ‘Cycling Insights’ part of the research commissioned by his Department, to assess the level of funding needed to meet its targets to double cycling trips and increase walking? [n.b. DfT has published most of the outcomes of this research38 but not the crucial section showing what investment is needed. A recent parliamentary answer suggested the missing section will be published “shortly”.39 It is expected to show that investment of at least £6bn for cycling and walking is needed if the Government is to meet its cycling and walking targets for 2025, rather than the £2bn allocated so far over that period.]

Infrastructure

 Will the launch of the Cycling and Walking Plan will be accompanied by the publication of the promised new guidance on cycling infrastructure design? [See paragraph 17 above]

 Once his Department’s new cycling infrastructure design standards are published, what steps will he take to ensure that local authorities consistently adhere to them, not just when designing cycle-specific schemes (including those funded by the Emergency Active Travel Fund) but in all new highway and traffic schemes, and in all new housing and other developments? Will he ensure that Highways England and HS2 Ltd consistently exemplify best practice in delivering consistent high-quality cycling infrastructure as an integral part of their work? [N.B. Highways England had adopted some excellent new cycling design standards in 2016,40 but then weakened them without consultation late in 2019. HS2 Ltd is still working to some truly awful cycling design standards, which remain unpublished].

 What discussions have he or other DfT ministers had with colleagues at the Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government, on ensuring the forthcoming new cycling infrastructure design guidance is integrated into the forthcoming Planning White Paper [see above], to ensure that the location and design of new housing and other developments support high levels of cycling and walking?

37 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878642/ decarbonising-transport-setting-the-challenge.pdf 38 www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy-active-travel-investment-models 39 www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020-05- 20/49717 40 http://programmeofficers.co.uk/Preston/CoreDocuments/LCC057.pdf  Will his Department bring into effect Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004, enabling local authorities outside London to enforce ‘school streets’ schemes? [N.B. School Streets schemes involving closing roads to motor vehicles near schools at school drop-off and pick-up times. Granting non-London authorities ‘civil enforcement’ powers to enforce these and other ‘moving traffic offences’ is something the Transport Committee has repeatedly called for in the past. It is particularly timely as schools start re-opening, given the lack of opportunities for pupils to travel to school on public transport or school buses].

Other measures

 Besides a voucher scheme to enable people to get their under-used bikes fixed, what additional support does he intend offering novice or inexperienced cyclists to take up or resume cycling for day-to-day journeys as schools, colleges and workplaces reopen, to overcome cultural and knowledge barriers which prevent many people from taking up cycling, and to give them the knowledge and skills required to handle busier roads and junctions safely and confidently?

 What discussions have he or other DfT ministers had with colleagues at the Department for Education, to advise schools on making curriculum time available for cycle training for pupils at both primary and secondary school age?

 With large numbers of people (including school pupils) taking up cycling in order to avoid public transport and school buses, what steps will he take to raise driver awareness of the need to respect pedestrians’ and cyclists’ safety?

 What discussions have he or other DfT ministers had with colleagues at the Department of Health (DH), on plans to involve the NHS in promoting cycling and walking as ‘exercise on referral’ and on promoting cycling and walking among NHS staff themselves, e.g. by making the NHS or NHS trusts ‘cycle friendly employers’ [See paragraph 17]

 What consideration is he giving to supporting the uptake in Britain of ‘e-bikes’ (or electrically assisted pedal cycles)? [At present, the Government’s ‘Office for Low Emission Vehicles’ (OLEV) provides subsidies for the purchase of electric cars, motorbikes, vans, taxis and lorries, but not electrically-assisted pedal cycles – even though evidence shows that ‘e-bike’ subsidies are twice as cost-effective as electric car subsidies in reducing CO2 and pollutant emissions. Consequently, e-bikes account for a far lower proportion of total cycle sales in the UK than in other European countries, because of the much greater price differential.41]

 Will he ensure that his department allocates sufficient staff resource to cycling and walking policy and planning, recognising its central role in recovering from the coronavirus crisis in a way that better prepares us to deal with the pre-existing crises of congestion, air pollution, road danger, inactivity-related ill health and above all the climate crisis?

41 www.bicycleassociation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Case-for-a-UK-Incentive-for-E-bikes-FINAL.pdf June 2020