Slow travel took off in a big way at the height of the pandemic in 2020, with Britain’s National Cycle Network carrying almost 5 million users over 765m trips.
But Sustrans, the charity that manages the network, is aiming to go one better with fresh plans to link every major town and city with traffic-free walking and cycling routes. The announcement builds on its Paths for Everyone masterplan, launched in 2018, which set out a vision for a ‘traffic-free and accessible network for everyone’.
Accessibility has been a literal sticking point for some disabled users, who are frustrated by the thousands of barriers littering the network of paths.
Sustrans aims to make the 12,786-mile network barrier-free by 2040, while extending and improving its reach and ensuring paths are suitable for “a sensible 12-year-old travelling alone”. So far, it has removed just over 300 of some 16,000 barriers, and only a third of the network is traffic-free.
Xavier Brice, CEO at Sustrans, said the huge increase in the number of people relying on the network for exercise and travel has proved just how crucial these routes are in connecting people to places and to each other, and providing family-friendly spaces. “In times of public health crisis, the climate emergency and substantial rises in the cost of living, active travel has never been more important,” he added.
