The mystery solved (or at least partly)
On our visits to greenfield new housing in England, we are still seeing sustainable transport as an after-thought. Even so, there continues to be much talk of ‘active travel’ in the context of new developments. Active travel is enshrined in national and local planning and transport policies and is much vaunted in nearly every larger planning application. However, when we the big greenfield urban extensions that are now being built around many towns, in real life it’s rare to actually see walking or people cycling at all.
Let’s consider cycling. People remark ‘it’s a pity we’re not like the Netherlands’ (or like Denmark, Sweden or Germany), ‘but things are just different here’.
It’s interesting to see what the differences in cycle use between countries actually are and Cycling in Europe: Which countries and cities are the most and least bicycle-friendly? (2023) is informative. The differences are pretty extreme.
Further insight comes from the maps available from CycleStreets. The first thing you notice in England is that London is exceptional in terms of the concentration of dedicated cycle routes. There are some other local hotspots like Cambridge, but on the whole, the network is sparse. In the very places where we are building large new housing estates, there is usually almost no existing cycle network in place at all. It is no wonder that cycling from new homes to your destination takes you along busy roads and across daunting roundabouts.
But then you pan across to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark. Now you can see an amazing difference in the concentration of cycle infrastructure in these countries compared to England. This certainly matches our direct observation visiting new development these countries where we saw people of all ages cycling, whether to the supermarket, to parks, to college and for the school run. The important thing is that it’s safe. Equally motorists are not held up by bikes on roads because the two modes of travel are largely separated, with their own networks.
Cycling is so widespread in parts of Sweden that new developments can be designed with the right bike infrastructure from the start. But the reason why this works so well is because new development can be connected to an existing area-wide cycle network. As new residential streets are built, the cycle infrastructure – the clearly marked routes and crossings provided, can be connected with the existing town or city area for seamless travel.
The benefits of cycling in terms of planning are wider than just enabling people to get around and healthy lifestyles. Town and city centres designed around arrival by bike or on foot augmented by trams or frequent buses, are . The photo opposite is from Lund in South Sweden. But the question for us must be: what do we do in terms of planning to make it possible to cycle within and to and from the new large-scale housing that we plan to build new towns and urban extensions.
Perhaps the opportunity to be serious about cycling in terms of planned places could come with our new towns and urban extensions. The first step must surely be to decide that we are serious about cycling and that funds are available to build area-wide networks rather than small pieces of cycle lane that then end.