UK government publishes long-term plan to increase cycling and walking

The UK government has published its US$1.5 billion (£1.2 billion) long-term plan to make cycling and walking the natural choice for shorter journeys. The government wants cycling and walking to become the norm by 2040 and will target funding at innovative ways to encourage people onto a bike or to use their own two feet for shorter journeys. Plans include specific objectives to double cycling, reduce cycling accidents and increase the proportion of five to 10 year-olds walking to school to 55 per cent by 20
April 24, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
The UK government has published its US$1.5 billion (£1.2 billion) long-term plan to make cycling and walking the natural choice for shorter journeys.


The government wants cycling and walking to become the norm by 2040 and will target funding at innovative ways to encourage people onto a bike or to use their own two feet for shorter journeys.

Plans include specific objectives to double cycling, reduce cycling accidents and increase the proportion of five to 10 year-olds walking to school to 55 per cent by 2025.

The funding will be allocated to schemes to provide cycling proficiency training for a further 1.3 million children and improve cycling infrastructure and expand cycle routes between the city centres, local communities and key employment and retail sites. It will also go to improvements to 200 sections of roads for cyclists; safety and awareness training for cyclists, extra secure cycle storage, bike repair, maintenance courses and road safety measures. Local councils will receive funding to invest in walking and cycling schemes and local growth funding to support walking and cycling.

In addition, the government is investing extra funding to improve cycle facilities at railway stations, along with a Living Streets’ outreach programmes to encourage children to walk to school and Cycling UK’s ‘Big Bike Revival’ scheme which provides free bike maintenance and cycling classes.

Under the Infrastructure Act 2015, the government is required to set a cycling and walking investment strategy for England. This is the first of a series of shorter term, five year strategies to support the long-term ambition to make walking and cycling the natural choice for shorter journeys by 2040.

Urban Traffic Control

Related Content

  • Multi-modal’s long road into the transportation mainstream
    June 4, 2015
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at 20 years of multimodal transport in the Sun Belt and beyond and the key requirement for user engagement. Phoenix residents will head to the polls in August to decide whether to implement a three-tenths of a cent sales tax to fund the city’s new multimodal transportation plan. It will be the second transportation-related sales tax hike in the past 15 years yet city officials and advocates expect the resolution to easily pass—despite the strong anti-tax environment that has dom
    Read More
  • India to invest in transportation to boost urban economies
    November 13, 2012
    Grand plans have been announced for transport investment in India aimed at boosting city economies. India’s Government Secretary for Urban Development Sudhir Krishna explains all to Jason Barnes. There are many reasons for developed countries’ high levels of urbanisation, not least of which is that the types of employment to be found in towns and cities tend to generate relatively greater wealth and so make greater contributions to a country’s economy. That creates the imperative for developing nations to f
    Read More
  • AECOM awarded LRT contract by Metrolinx, Canada
    April 15, 2016
    Infrastructure firm AECOM has been selected to provide technical advisory services on the Hurontario light rail transit (LRT) projects in Mississauga and Brampton and the Hamilton LRT project in Hamilton, Canada, for Government of Ontario agency Metrolinx. The Hurontario and Hamilton LRT projects are part of the largest infrastructure investment in Ontario’s history and are expected to have a notable impact on regional transit by providing crucial links between many of the existing lines, as well as on t
    Read More
  • London needs just one road user charge, says report
    July 8, 2019
    London’s patchwork of road charging schemes should be replaced by a single, distance-based user charge, according to new research. Apart from anything else, it would be much fairer… The UK capital’s multiple road charging schemes require a radical overhaul, according to a new report by the Centre for London thinktank. The suggested solution is to replace existing levies on drivers with a single, distance-based user charge which would more fairly reflect how much, and at what time, people are using London
    Read More

Highlighted Content