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

  • Regulating rural road use
    June 20, 2016
    David Crawford looks at problems facing indigenous communities and those unfamiliar with driving in rural areas. While it is well known that the fatality rate for road crashes in rural areas is higher than in towns and cities, some groups suffer far more than others. For instance, the rates of death and serious injury from vehicle accidents is much higher for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI and AN) populations living in rural tribal lands than for any of the country’s other ethnic populations. Crashes
    Read More
  • Put ‘people, not cars' first in transport systems, says UN Environment chief
    October 21, 2016
    Lack of investment in safe walking and cycling infrastructure not only contributes to the deaths of millions of people in traffic accidents on unsafe roads and poorly designed roadways, but also overlooks a great opportunity to boost the fight against climate change, according to a new UN Environment report. In Global Outlook on Walking and Cycling, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) claims that greater investment in such infrastructure could help save millions of lives and reduce emissions of global w
    Read More
  • Siemens influences congestion reduction
    March 12, 2021
    When it comes to reducing congestion, even relatively small interventions can have significant and positive knock-on effects, suggests Steve O’Sullivan of Siemens Mobility
    Read More
  • UK traffic congestion getting worse says new report
    June 4, 2014
    Traffic congestion in cities across the UK has got significantly worse over the past year, according to a new report from TomTom. The fourth annual Traffic Index from TomTom shows average journeys in 2013 took 27 per cent longer than they would in free-flowing traffic – up from a 26 per cent delay in 2012.
    Read More

Highlighted Content