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news
London cyclists at Hyde Park Corner (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).jpgGovernment statistics show no growth in cycling trips in England - though London bucks the trend
Growth in the number of trips being made by bicycle remains flat according to the Walking and Cycling Statistics, England: 2018 report released today by the Department for Transport – although cities in which investment has been made in cycling infrastructure, such as London, are bucking the trend.
The report, updated annually, shows that the average distance being cycled has continued to show an upward trend since 2002, increasing by 50 per cent since then.
However, during the same period, the number of trips being made has fallen by 5 per cent.
As we’ve pointed out before, we suspect that the reason for the disparity in the trends may partly be explained by people cycling greater distances for leisure, as witnessed by the explosion in the number of sportives in the past decade or so.
The data, based on the annual National Travel Survey and the Active Lives Survey, show that in 2018, on average across the population, 17 cycling trips for a total of 58 miles were made during the year.
But narrowing the sample size to just those who recorded at least one cycling trip in their National Travel Survey travel diary showed an average of 333 trips a year, with distance travelled of 1,104 miles – up 61 per cent on 2002.
On average, men made 25 trips by bike last year, covering 92 miles, and women made 10 trips, totalling 25 miles. Across both genders, people in the 40-49 age group were most likely to cycle.
The most commonly cited barriers to cycling among respondents to the National Travel Survey were "No interest in cycling" and "Road safety concerns," each cited by 25 per cent of respondents, followed by "Too much traffic/traffic too fast" at 16 per cent.
The report also highlighted findings from the National Travel Attitudes Survey which showed that 61 per cent of adults agreed that “it is too dangerous for me to cycle on the roads,” split 68 per cent to 54 per cent between men and women, and 50 per cent to 65 per cent between cyclists and non-cyclists.
Between 2002 and 2018, the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured on England’s roads rose by 29 per cent, which the DfT said may in part be due to an increase of 32 per cent in the average distance travelled by bike per person; in other words, the roads aren’t getting safer.
Cambridge at 57.5 per cent and Oxford at 39.2 per cent were the top two local authorities for cycling at least once a week, while Wellingborough, on 4.3 per cent and the London Borough of Havering, at 3.4 per cent, were the lowest.
The national figures showing that the number of trips remains flat, coming at a time when the government has admitted that it would not meet its target of doubling the number of journeys made by bike by 2025, give particular cause for concern.
With investment in infrastructure helping drive big growth in cycling in recent years in urban centres such as Bristol and Greater Manchester and above all London, the conclusion to be drawn in light of the static picture at national level is that in many other places, it must be falling.
London’s cycling and walking commissioner, Will Norman, commented: “The Mayor is determined to enable more cycling all across the capital, and I’m really pleased last year saw the biggest increase in the amount of cycling in London since records began.
“London is bucking the national trend because we’re delivering the high-quality routes that make such a big difference making cyclists feel safe.
“But we can’t be complacent, and serious investment in cycling and walking can’t be something unique to the capital,” he continued.
“It must be a genuinely national commitment led by central government, and we must all redouble our efforts to ensure that people of all ages and backgrounds feel that cycling is a safe and convenient option for them.”
Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed Andrew Gilligan – who had served during his term as Mayor of London as the city’s first cycling commissioner – as his transport advisor.
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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18 comments
In 2017 470 pedestrians were killed on our roads compared to 101 cyclists, but how can this be if cyclists spend more time on the roads?
Obvious; they aren't wearing helmets. And if they are wearing them, they aren't wearing them properly.
Or perhaps it's the fact that there are tens of thousands more of them?
I think we have to accept most people don't want to use a bicycle to get around and probably never will. Bicycles (and walking) involve a bit of effort from the user and, let's be blunt, people are lazy. My wife, for example, knows all the issues (climate crisis etc) but will still drive to our town centre, which is a ten-minute walk from our house, and the 5 miles to work. Indeed, no one in my town lives more than a 15 minute walk from the town centre yet most still choose to drive there. It's all about convenience. And the car is the ultimate convenience device.
The only way to change this attitude is to provide good transport alternatives and make driving really inconvenient, by taking space away from it, and eye-wateringly expensive. But such an approach would be deeply unpopular with joe public (war on the motorist, right-to-drive-and park etc) and most local and national politicians will see it as a vote-loser. Depressing, I know, but reality.
I don't think you can conclude that when we are living in a society that makes it very clear that if you don't choose to use a car you are a second-class citizen and lesser form of human being.
Just look at the stories on here right now demonstrating the atittude of the police, who clearly believe that cyclists don't really belong on the road at all. Heck the comments on here often show how many actual cyclists believe those in cars are necessarily more important than anyone else.
It's self-sustaining, I suppose - as long as society regards drivers as superior beings, then people will be inclined to choose to drive, which in turn increases the size of the lobby for privileging drivers.
I'm not sure I concluded anything, to be honest.
I don't disagree with anything you've said but we now have at least two generations that have grown up with the car being the number one choice of transport. They look at the bicycle - any non-car form of transport - as an oddity. In saying this, the tide is turning with many young people realising cars, in urban areas, are unnecessary and a money pit.
The DfT are full of shit, increases in deaths/injuries is a total unfounded guess by them!
When we look at recent history cycling fatalities have gone up whilst every other mode INCLUDING motorcycling has gone down!!
As for the cycling miles going up by 50% since 2002, so that's 4 billion miles right (it was 2.71 Bn) That takes us to about where we were in the 1980s but with different measuring methods AND the UK has increased its population by 20% since then so the figures are relatively overinflated by comparison.
There's nothing to celebrate in this whatsoever.
2001 to 2010 injuries stats19.xls
And just not to disappoint my many fans, cycling deaths have increased as helmet wearing has increased; discuss.
A link to UK cycling helmet wearing statistics covering the last decade would be appreciated.
AFAIK there are none and without them your claim is baseless.
Happy to be corrected if you can provide the stats.
Hook, line and sinker.
So that's a 'No' then.
Keep posting those lies Burt, it definitely makes your arguments more convincing...
indicates that cycle helmet wearing has been on the increase since the 90s but clearly jumped a lot when the UCI mandated helmets for riders at all competition levels and British cycling had to follow suit and thus the increase in wearing in clubs took off, to ignore that that actually happened is ignorant in extremis on your part https://trl.co.uk/reports/PPR420
Have a read of this from 2000, the negative effect of effects of helmet has worked in walking too https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119262/
I've already linked/shown that helmets in Ice hockey had a detrimental effect to head injuries from as early as the 1970s, this was backed up with a later study which reproduced the analysis that helmets had a negative effect on head injuries but with an increase in cuts to the head.
And you again ignore that same occurs in boxing, hence why the ABA chose to remove head gear from their fights due to the huge increase in concussions post mandatory headgear wearing. I presume you've seen the outcome from helmet wearing in Gridiron and how CTE is an absolutely massive problem in older males who used to play the sport? As an ex rugby player myself we talk a lot about safety protocols much more than BITD, but I know for a fact that because you don't have a helmet you don't go into a tackle anywhere near the same as you do when playing gridiron. Do head clashes occur, of course they do, do players make tackles around the head illegally, yes they do, but the results overall are massively less than that for helmeted contact sports, we know this, it is absolutely undisputable.
Skiing, no decreases in head injuries despite universal wearing, the list goes on but you continue to ignore what these activities/sports tell us from around the world.
But you don't get it do you, if the pedestrian rates of KSI have gone down massively over the same period this demonstrates that there is something else that is having a negative effect on casualties for people on bikes. You do understand that pedestrian and cyclist casualties are interlinked right, we don't need to explain this all againto you do we???
For someone who makes out they are informed you're not very clever at actually understanding the facts are you!
I asked for helmet use stats for the last decade. You gave me a report from 2008 then made a snide remark about intelligence.
From 1995 to 2008 helmet wearing increased and cyclist KSIs fell massively.
We have no helmet wearing stats for the last decade so any attempt to link the recent small rise in KSIs to helmet wearing rates is deliberately misleading.
While cyclist and pedestrian KSI rates have some similarities a quick look at the historical rates clearly shows that they are not identical and therefore must have their own individual risk factors.
Common sense tells us the same thing, cyclists are on roads far more than pedestrians and that is where the vast majority of collisions take place.
Just goes to show what a waste of time spending all those tens of pounds on cycling was. Let's build more roads instead, people use them. Sorry, drivers use them.
How fortunate that we aren't suffering any crises; well apart from the health, obesity, congestion, pollution, climate change ones, but we don't need to worry about them for years.
health , who’s unhealthy, you mean all the fat people looking at their phones at people doing real life things and ordering shit food every night , that’s called self harming . There’s always been road congestion, go on you tube and you can see traffic jams in London from the very early years of motor vehicles. It’s like the weather , when it’s hot people complain,when it’s cold people complain ,,,,climate change I give you this link to look at , https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-282-the-ipcc-exposed/
it will wake you up .
The worlds main danger is the technology. We already walking into a Orwellian nightmare. Get off your phones and do real things , my youngest son ( 12 y old ) does not even have a phone . He’s slim as fuck ,all his mates are tubsters and they all spend their time on fucking phones looking at shit , it’s a dummed down world alright .
You speculate that the increased distance despite a reduced number of trips could be explained by the surge in leisure cycling, such as sportives. The article then goes on to suggest the 29% increase in cyclist deaths/serious injuries is explained by the increased distance cycled. So all these sportives must be pretty dangerous, lots of deaths and serious injuries? Something does not add up.
the problem I think is the datasets are completely differently sourced so Im not sure how they dept for transport can claim its meaningful presenting the data like this, KSIs obviously are actuals recorded,but then these national travel stats are compiled from a sample size of roughly 14,000, from people willing to fill a diary in of their weekly activity (which in itself seems a self selecting activity), combined with an active lives survey,which measures engagement in sport, of roughly 180,000 and then those figures are mathed up to be representative of the nations trends in cycling and walking.
which all feels a bit like the results are likely over stating in many cases the real activity levels anyway, and under cut by the fact you cant compare the data properly, and thats why the KSIs suggest things like leisure miles are more dangerous.
but then why would anyone expect the numbers to have shifted at all since theres no money being spent on promoting walking or cycling in any meaningful ways outside of London, and maybe Manchester now.
and the DfT cant say but look weve allocated this much money and its been spent in 17 years and this is what it went on, probably because most of it hasnt been spent, or its been spent on stuff that looks great on a balance sheet, traffic free cycling routes..., but deliver no tangible benefit to anyone because its actually just a shared use pavement they paid to put up a new sign for
In my local area they recently went through a process of widening pavements to make them nicer for pedestrians, which I was very happy to see. However, in doing this they added parking spaces and completely got rid of the cycling lanes that had been there. Now you have to battle along single lane (in each direction) roads with double decker buses and a lot of traffic. As an experienced cyclist who has used these roads for a long time I can tell the difference, but for an inexperienced cyclist I'd imagine the new layouts are frightening. At one set of lights there is an advanced stop line for cyclists, but most of the time it is impossible to reach it unless you happen to be there when the light turns red because the road isn't wide enough to get past traffic to reach it.
I would have thought that more of an effect would be seen after all of the tens of billions invested into quality, protected and seperated infrastructure, all the extra protections given us in the law and the governments recent reviews into road safety. Oh, wait...