Skip to main content

UK investment to make it easier and safer to get on your bike

UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced the UK Government’s biggest single investment in cycling, which includes US$179 million to secure funding to support the Cycling Ambition Cities Programme for the next three years in Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Oxford accelerate their development of local cycling networks, increase protection for cyclists at junctions and traffic hot spots and help prevent accidents. US$157 million will also be invested over t
November 28, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced the UK Government’s biggest single investment in cycling, which includes US$179 million to secure funding to support the Cycling Ambition Cities Programme for the next three years in Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Oxford accelerate their development of local cycling networks, increase protection for cyclists at junctions and traffic hot spots and help prevent accidents.

US$157 million will also be invested over the next years to improve the conditions for cyclists and walkers travelling alongside and crossing Britain’s most important and busiest roads, or the Strategic Road Network.

This brings the total invested in cycling by the government to US$924 million.

Recent research commissioned by British Cycling found that if the UK became a cycling nation like the Netherlands or Denmark it could: save the NHS £17 billion within 20 years; reduce road deaths by three per cent; increase mobility of the nation’s poorest families by 25 per cent; and increase retail sales by a quarter.

The Deputy Prime Minister will also launch two new initiatives to help inspire a new generation of cyclists: a new scheme from Halfords, which will recondition and donate bikes and helmets to primary school children in disadvantaged areas of the 8 current cycling cities; and a new pilot scheme to enhance the Bikeability cycle training programme to provide extra training to schools and parents, each designed to address a specific barrier to cycling.

Related Content

  • Virtual traffic management centres, a new direction in traffic monitoring
    January 30, 2012
    David Crawford picks up a new direction trend in traffic monitoring The surprise winner in the Traffic Management Centre (TMC) category of the recently-announced 2011 OSMOSE (Open Source for MObile and SustainablE city) Awards for European innovations in urban transport, is the Danish city of Aalborg - which doesn't have a TMC. Alternatively, one might consider its 'virtual' TMC as a signpost for the future in medium-sized cities.
  • New roads targeted in updated Safer Junctions programme
    April 20, 2017
    London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman, has named the 73 junctions in the Capital with the worst safety records as he unveiled a new approach to delivering improvements for pedestrians and cyclists. Transport for London’s (TfL’s) new analysis uses the last three years of casualty figures on the TfL road network to identify the junctions with the poorest safety records so that they can be targeted for work. This analysis will now continue each year as part of a new approach that will see work
  • Cost benefit goes under the microscope
    August 21, 2017
    Conventional cost benefit analysis (CBA) of plans for urban smart mobility initiatives needs serious rethinking, according to a recently-completed European study. The three-year Evidence Project (the Project) emerged in response to concerns about the availability and quality of documented research – including CBA – required to prove that investment in sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs) can be economically beneficial. Covering 22 sectors ranging from electric vehicles to shared spaces, the Project clai
  • Cost benefit: just $25 boosts pedestrian safety in Florida
    April 29, 2019
    A relatively straightforward change to the way that pedestrians cross the street in a Florida city has made a significant safety improvement. And what’s more, it was cheap, finds David Crawford Installing a lead pedestrian interval (LPI) system at 25 central business district signalised intersections in the Florida city of Lakeland has cut numbers of incidents involving pedestrians by some 60% - at a cost of US$25 for 30 minutes' work, according to traffic operations manager Angelo Rao.