The active travel boom seen throughout the pandemic will continue to thrive thanks to a £338 million package to boost cycling and walking across the country. Infrastructure upgrades and new requirements to ensure that active travel schemes’ effects are properly assessed are among the raft of measures included in the recently published Summer of Cycling and Walking document. Schemes including school streets, pop-up cycle lanes, and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, which have been implemented under the government’s Emergency Active Travel Fund (EATF) and under statutory Network Management Duty (NMD) guidance will be among those set to continue.

In addition, it has also been announced that active travel schemes supported by government funding should be left in place long enough for their impacts to be properly monitored and assessed. Further details can be found here (external site).

The recent Community Rail Network report on encouraging and enabling modal shift highlights how community rail partnerships and groups are promoting active travel by working with partners to incorporate walking/cycling into multi-modal integrated journeys, emphasising the benefits in terms of physical and mental wellbeing, and creating materials to promote activities/provide information, e.g. on walking/cycling routes.