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Active travel to be “first choice for our daily journeys,” says minister

Department for Transport Minister Lucy Frazer reaffirms commitment to cycling and walking

A transport minister has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to active travel, including cycling and walking, in the first such announcement since Liz Truss won the Conservative Party leadership election and took over from Boris Johnson as Prime Minister.

In a written question, Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York and Shadow Minister at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, asked the Secretary for State for Transport whether “(s)he will introduce a funding pilot aimed at increasing the number of people who shift from using cars to public transport.”

In response, Lucy Frazer, Minister of State at the Department for Transport, said: “As set out in the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, we want public transport and walking and cycling to be the natural first choice for our daily journeys.

“This shift has the potential to save significant amounts of carbon, improve air quality, and reduce noise and congestion – improving health and wellbeing for all.

“We are undertaking pilot projects which will explore new ways for how we can use our cars differently and less often,” she continued.

“For example, we have provided £92 million to fund local authorities in Solent Transport, Nottingham and Derby, West Midlands, and the West of England to become Future Transport Zones and pilot a range of innovative mode shift efforts, such as mobility as a service apps, or paying ‘mobility credits’ to people in return for giving up their cars,” she added.

Frazer, the Conservative MP for South East Cambridgeshire, was appointed to her current ministerial position earlier this month Truss replaced Grant Shapps with Anne-Marie Trevelyan as Secretary of State for Transport.

Prior to her defeat of former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak in the leadership election, Truss’s supporters had said that she was “looking forward to working with the cycling community to improve access and promote their interests.”

> Liz Truss "looking forward to working with cycling community" and will build new infrastructure, supporters claim

Responding to a question from the Conservative Friends of Cycling group, a spokesperson said: “"We have seen the growth of cycling in our cities and towns — and cycling as a healthy method of transport should continue to be promoted.

“Liz is committed to levelling up in our transport sector, working to create an environment that promotes cycling and ensures it can continue to be a huge part of our society.

"I know Liz is looking forward to working with the cycling community to improve access to cycling and promote their interests."

Former Prime Minister Johnson and Shapps unveiled the Gear Change strategy in Summer 2020 which put cycling at the heart of the government’s strategy of encouraging active travel as part of the country’s emergence from the coronavirus pandemic.

Until now, however, it has been unclear which minister at the DfT would be responsible for active travel, with no mention of it in any of their biographies on the department’s website, although it now appears that Frazer – who has previously held posts at HM Treasury and the Ministry of Justice, as well as acting as Solicitor-General – has taken it on as part of her portfolio.

Johnson and Shapps backed their pledge with a promise of £2 billion in funding for cycling and walking during the scheduled five-year lifetime of the current Parliament, with the next general election due no later than November 2024.

Whether that planned funding will be affected by the financial crisis that has engulfed the UK following Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget last week remains to be seen.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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17 comments

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belugabob | 1 year ago
9 likes

Having completed my first 3 months of cycle commuting, it has occurred to me that there is a very low cost step that can be taken to promote active travel.
Simply take a look at the sequencing of lights at toucan crossings. The three that I have to negotiate, in my 4 mile cycle route give a pitifully low priority to pedestrians and cyclists - made worse by the fact that two of them are effectively double, due to having a central refuge, making it 5 sets of lights to cross three roads.
Further into my route, there is a shared use path which passes between the college and some houses, and it's a bit dingy, TBH. despite a new cycle path being installed along the front of the college, I'll be sticking to the dingy path, rather than adding another two road crossings (and the associated 4 sets of lights)
However, less experienced/confident cyclists would opt for the new route, and find themselves less than encouraged by the delays.

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Morgoth985 | 1 year ago
6 likes

Sounds great!  So the redirection of billions from private car travel towards active travel, so as to ensure that this is indeed your "first choice", is happening when?  

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Simon E replied to Morgoth985 | 1 year ago
3 likes

Morgoth985 wrote:

Sounds great!  So the redirection of billions from private car travel towards active travel, so as to ensure that this is indeed your "first choice", is happening when?  

Not in the lifetime of this government. Or any Tory government for that matter. It's crystal clear that they don't GAF about active travel, CO2 emissions or public health.

Meanwhile this (Houten train station, NL) is an example of how you get people out of their cars:

"Six out of ten rail passengers in the town of Houten arrive at the station by bike; taking advantage of 3,100 parking places below the platform and trains at eight minute headways.

Most own cars but opt not to use them, because the right choice is designed to be the easy choice."

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BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP replied to Simon E | 1 year ago
2 likes

'Not in the lifetime of this government'. Well, that's not going to be long is it? 
 

but otherwise you are correct. 

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Grahamd | 1 year ago
3 likes

The title filled me with false hope "first choice for our" led me to believe that the government were going to ditch their cares and set an example.

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chrisonabike replied to Grahamd | 1 year ago
8 likes

I think they are ditching their cares, just not their cars.

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eburtthebike replied to chrisonabike | 1 year ago
0 likes

chrisonatrike wrote:

I think they are ditching their cares, just not their cars.

I thought they were just ditching plebs?

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jaymack | 1 year ago
5 likes

As Mr Spock never quite said "it's active travel Jim but not as we know it".

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Awavey replied to jaymack | 1 year ago
5 likes

but he did say "Live long and prosper..." an apt phrase for active travel

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Bungle_52 | 1 year ago
11 likes

"Active travel to be “first choice for our daily journeys,” says minister"

Not quite. Actually said "WE WANT public transport and walking and cycling to be the natural first choice for our daily journeys". If you realy want to be picky it should read "The government SAYS that they want active travel etc." We all know that what the government says and what it does are often different. Here is a link to an example of actions being different to words in conservative Gloucestershire.

https://www.cyclecheltenham.org.uk/wp/gcc-raids-bishops-cleeve-cheltenha...

Basically the county took money from a cycle route project, which would have connected a suburb of Cheltenham to the main town, and used it to add new lanes for queueing traffic at a busy traffic light controlled junction. The reason for this : the cycle route coudn't possibly be built before a toucan crossing had been put in at the junction and this would be included in the scheme. The toucan crossing is now in place, going from nowhere to nowhere, and still no date for the cycle route. The only road connecting the two locations is a 60mph road which narrows past the racecourse. Every time I cycle it I get close passed and I've given up reporting them and getting no further action responses.

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eburtthebike | 1 year ago
6 likes

“We are undertaking pilot projects which will explore new ways for how we can use our cars differently and less often,”

We've had at least twenty years of pilot projects, which weren't needed because we already knew what works and what doesn't, and we don't need any more pilots or studies.  What we need is substantial, guaranteed, ring-fenced funding, at least 10% of the transport budget, going up every year by 5% until it reaches whatever proportion the Dutch spend on active travel.

Just heard Truss on a local radio show, and she was dismal.  Apparently odds on her not lasting to christmas are dropping rapidly. 

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/liz-truss-thought-shed-get-an...

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chrisonabike replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
2 likes

Yup, when it comes to cycling the UK governments are definitely "it's too early to tell".  So we keep having anniversaries where the government pops up to earnestly ask the same question they set out to answer decades ago:

https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/national-cycling-strategys-25th-anniversa...

Our leaders are happy to pose on Bromptons or Boris bikes though.

Fortunately after decades of work the UK is number 1 in "encouraging active travel" and producing excuses.   As usual David Hembrow provides a guide for the grumpy (note - from over a decade ago):

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses...

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marmotte27 replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
3 likes

"We've had at least twenty years of pilot projects, which weren't needed because we already knew what works and what doesn't"

Exactly!. Netherlands, now!

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Daveyraveygravey | 1 year ago
3 likes

Anyone holding their breath?

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hawkinspeter replied to Daveyraveygravey | 1 year ago
2 likes

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

Anyone holding their breath?

I often wish that I were with the state of air in Bristol. Maybe we'll get our Clean Air Zone implemented sometime soon, though it just keeps getting kicked down the road.

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Bmblbzzz replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
1 like

hawkinspeter wrote:

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

Anyone holding their breath?

I often wish that I were with the state of air in Bristol. Maybe we'll get our Clean Air Zone implemented sometime soon, though it just keeps getting kicked down the road.

Marvin might quote his fellow evangelical Paisley, "No surrender to the clean air fetishists for the poorhardworking cardriving families of Bristol"

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hawkinspeter replied to Bmblbzzz | 1 year ago
0 likes

Bmblbzzz wrote:

Marvin might quote his fellow evangelical Paisley, "No surrender to the clean air fetishists for the poorhardworking cardriving families of Bristol"

Marvin's a waste of space in my view. I'm certainly not a fan of moving the stadium to the north of the city where there's sod all public transport and would entice yet more traffic down Muller Road.

What really bugs me about the delays to the Clean Air Zone is that we're above legal limits for air pollutants and people are suffering from the extremely poor air quality. What's more important, breathable air or not pissing off the polluters?

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