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Adam Tranter appointed first West Midlands Cycling & Walking Commissioner

Cycling PR pro and campaigner will push forward plans for active travel in England’s largest city-region outside London

Adam Tranter has been appointed cycling and walking commissioner for the West Midlands by the region’s mayor, Andy Street, who is looking to move ahead with initiatives to increase active travel there.

Tranter, founder and CEO of cycling, running and endurance-focused sport communications agency Fusion Media, has become increasingly involved in campaigning for active travel in recent years, and last year brought brands, companies and organisations in the UK cycling industry together to launch the Bike Is Best campaign.

He has acted as volunteer Bicycle Mayor for Coventry – his home city, and once the largest producer of bikes in the world – since early 2020, the first holder of such a role in a British city, but will now step aside from that position.

In his new role he will work alongside Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), local authorities and the Department for Transport (DfT) in pushing forward the region’s active travel initiatives, including helping plan and support delivery of its Starley Network of safe cycling and walking routes.

The network is named after the family from Coventry that were early innovators in cycling during the Victorian era, including inventing the safety bicycle which can still be instantly recognised as the forerunner of most modern bikes.

Tranter said: “I want our region to achieve its active travel potential. We saw during lockdown that vast numbers of people will cycle given the right environment to do it in; our goal has to be giving these people a genuine alternative to using a car for short journeys. We can only do this by building high quality, direct and connected infrastructure.

“Congestion really drags down our region’s health and prosperity; cities that have embraced active travel have been rewarded with better air quality, less carbon emissions and happier citizens. I want the West Midlands to have these rewards too.”

Among his responsibilities in the role will be:

Working with stakeholders to plan and develop the business cases for at least 10 major safe cycle routes on the Starley Network.

Working with councils to agree a co-ordinated approach to cycling and walking infrastructure.

Building strong working relationships with the Department for Transport and securing fresh investment from the Government’s Gear Change fund.

He added: “I am also looking forward to meeting and working with communities across the region to give people genuine choice in the way they get around as we strive to make the West Midlands a national leader for cycling and walking.”

West Midlands Mayor Street said: “Adam has an excellent track record of campaigning and lobbying for cycling and walking in Coventry, and I now want to use that expertise to improve our offer across the whole region.

“We have put more funding than ever before into active travel, but we need to go further to make cycling and walking the natural choice for shorter journeys in the West Midlands.

“Not only is it good for the environment by cutting down on car use and therefore air pollution, but it is also a brilliant and fun way of improving people’s physical and mental health.

“The benefits of cycling and walking are clear, and I know Adam is the right person to help deliver on my promise to put active travel at the heart of our region’s transport plans.”

Tranter is the first West Midlands Cycling & Walking Commissioner and will split his time 50:50 between Fusion Media and his new role.

He joins other active travel commissioners in city regions in England with directly elected mayors including Will Norman in London, Chris Boardman in Greater Manchester, Dame Sarah Storey in Sheffield City Region and Simon O’Brien in Liverpool City Region.

Until the middle of last year, the former world champion BMX and track sprint cyclist Shanaze Reade held the title of West Midlands Cycling & Walking Ambassador, a role that included meetings with commissioners, visiting cycle infrastructure and media appearances, plus supporting the role through social media.

However, her contract was not renewed at the end of May last year, with the region saying at the time that it was carrying out a review of what was, at the time, a 10-days-a-year ambassadorial role and not comparable to the one Tranter has now taken on.

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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9 comments

Avatar
AlsoSomniloquism | 2 years ago
3 likes

Following on from my post on another page. 

So Adam, will you be able to liase with WMP Top Brass and ask why they decided to remove the RHRT which used to regulalry police bad driving from a cycling point of view and make the roads safer for Active Travel?

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HarrogateSpa | 2 years ago
1 like

Auto-play videos...down with this sort of thing.

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Bikingmum | 2 years ago
3 likes

Hopefully he will do something about bike lanes that just end abrubtly at junctions leaving no safe option for parents with young children. It's frustrating when an enjoyable ride suddenly stops as the bike lanes disappear.  

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Sriracha | 2 years ago
2 likes

Active travel routes are one thing, having somewhere safe and secure to park when you get there is another. I can cycle most places, but there's precious few where I'd risk leaving my bike - so I don't.

Decent cycling infrastructure (segregated routes, revised junctions, etc) must be very costly. But tweaking planning and other regulations to encourage businesses and Councils to properly cater for cycle parking costs very little.

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chrisonabike replied to Sriracha | 2 years ago
0 likes

Sriracha wrote:

Active travel routes are one thing, having somewhere safe and secure to park when you get there is another. I can cycle most places, but there's precious few where I'd risk leaving my bike - so I don't. Decent cycling infrastructure (segregated routes, revised junctions, etc) must be very costly. But tweaking planning and other regulations to encourage businesses and Councils to properly cater for cycle parking costs very little.

Agree - it shows up that thinking about active travel is still "give the crying child a candy" rather than "making the travel system work for journeys" (connected network).

Tweaking planning regs (and other impediments to better private and public realm design) are not costly in theory. It's certainly a major drama getting these changes made. Where I am there are "minimum parking requirements" for cars for new development. I believe there are now rules on cycle provision for residential development which is a start - albeit they need some work. (It's not always feasible to store your cycle in - or get it to - a flat.)

It is money - or rather the choice of where to spend it - at the end of the day. One expression of that seems to be getting / retaining staff. Although there may be a genuine lag / capacity factor here?  In Edinburgh active travel projects are repeatedly rescheduled because the few active travel posts keep emptying. Presumably the incumbents get frustrated or realise they can increase their salary by selling themselves as consultants - back to the councils! Not sure why the availability of said consultants doesn't allow things to move forward but there's likely not much headroom in small active travel budgets.

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wtjs | 2 years ago
1 like

It's all very well for Greater Manchester and Sheffield City cyclists, who have dynamic and impressive people looking after their interests, but many of the rest of us are at the mercy of hostile police forces and PCCs who will do just about nothing in their power to defend cyclists- a group they plainly consider to be nuisances at best.

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Secret_squirrel replied to wtjs | 2 years ago
1 like

And your point is?  Or did you just come to get it off your chest (again)?

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wtjs replied to Secret_squirrel | 2 years ago
0 likes

I see that you have failed to appreciate the purpose of message boards- people can write what they like within reason, not only what you decide they should write about.

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AlsoSomniloquism | 2 years ago
1 like

Well done Adam.

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