Changing Gear

Changing Gear

A little over a decade ago my daughter Aggie asked me a question that changed the path of my working life. She asked “can we ride to the park?” In fact it wasn’t her question that altered everything, it was my answer which was "No".

We live in a typical northern seaside town, and the park in question was - I know because I measured it later - 549m away, a distance that takes a little over one minute to ride. I, an ex-Olympic cyclist, didn’t feel I could keep my daughter safe on our roads for one minute. And that felt very wrong. It wasn’t what I wanted for her and it wasn’t the place I wanted to live. So I decided to do something about it.

It quickly became clear that advocating for cycling wasn’t hard. I could pick almost any topic in the news and more cycling made it better. Health, climate, cost of transport, levelling up the list goes on. Cycling was an easy cause to love.

It was a terrible irony then that, in 2016 whilst I was campaigning for safer cycling my mother Carol while out on a ride was killed by a car driver. The devastating experience galvanised my desire to ensure that anyone getting around on foot or by bike could be confident of doing so safely.

In 2017 a phone call from the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, gave me the opportunity to do just that and I became his Cycling and Walking Commissioner. He and the regions’ leaders had seen that active travel was the logical foundation for a sustainable, healthy transport system - as it is in many towns and cities across the world.

Over the course of the next four years, we planned a 1,800 mile network for the city region, not for ‘cyclists’ but to enable people, doing everyday things in normal clothes, to do so without cars if they chose.

Mark's story is exactly what this is all about, as it is for millions of people. He begins the day by bundling his two boys into the back of the car in Stretford and driving them less than a mile to the school. Typically it is a stressful 30 minute trip, crawling along at a snail’s pace with other stressed parents and then trying to find a parking space. Four car journeys every day. Twenty a week. Eight hundred a year. Two hundred hours of his and his son’s lives. Then, as part of a local active neighbourhood, his council put in some planters and he realised he could now get the kids’ to school on quiet streets via a local park and avoid the morning melee. Mark now walks to school with his kids, who ride or scoot, every day. The trip takes just ten minutes and it’s better than stress free, it’s actually enjoyable with a bit of daily exercise thrown in for good measure.

Seeing what making safe space could do was incredible so I was delighted when National Government produced its 'Gear Change Strategy', setting out a clear road map to give everyone in the country the same choice as Mark.

When the Transport Secretary asked me to help set up Active Travel England, the new executive agency that will be charged with delivering this vision, it was the most natural choice in the world to accept.

Active Travel England will ensure all cycling and walking infrastructure is of a high enough standard to give people the option to travel actively, to feel able to leave the car at home more often and let their kids get to school under their own steam. It will also be a statuary consultee for planning too so that all future developments accommodate those who want walk, wheel or ride.

We will give people the choice to enjoy rather than endure journeys and to kick off their day fresh and invigorated, not frustrated and irritated.

That’s the future Mark has now for himself and his two boys and it’s the one I want to help make for Aggie. I intend to make sure that when she has a family, she’ll be able to say “yes” when they ask if they can ride to the park.