Big increase in cycling and walking numbers in West Midlands during lockdown
The coronavirus pandemic has seen a big increase in West Midlands residents walking and cycling to work and the shops, a survey has shown.
Cycling to work has increased seven-fold and cycling to the shops has doubled, while five times as many people are now walking to the shops and four times as many are walking to work.
The increases were shown in the results of a West Midlands Combined Authority survey, which was based on 6,000 responses. Findings were put to councillors on the combined authority’s transport delivery committee on July 20.
The survey showed one per cent of respondents primarily cycled to work pre-Covid-19, rising to seven per cent since the crisis. Some two per cent of customers cycled to shops before the pandemic, compared to four per cent since.
Walking to work was a route taken by five per cent of respondents before, compared to 20 per cent now. While eight per cent of survey participants walked to the shops before, 40 per cent take this route now.
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Hannah Dayan, cycling and walking development officer at Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), said during the meeting: “We conducted an online survey of travel behaviour which had 6,000 responses. There wasn’t the ability to do face-to-face so this was online, something that definitely needs to be improved upon.
“You can see cycling and walking to work and shops have improved a fair bit before and after lockdown.”
The region has been awarded a £3.85 million grant by the Department for Transport (DfT) for councils to provide fast-track measures to encourage cycling and walking during the crisis. Schemes proposed and already in place in council areas across the region include pop-up cycle lanes and “pavement widening” measures.
At the same time, the region has been allocated £23 million from the Transforming Cities Fund for cycling and walking and a further £14 million in emergency active travel fund grants.
TfWM is working on an action plan with the target of increasing levels of cycling from 1.7 per cent of all trips to five per cent by 2023.
A separate survey conducted with the walking and cycling charity Sustrans gives an indication of the demographic breakdown of cyclists in the region, including 14 per cent of men and five per cent of women cycle at least one time per week and 11 per cent of white people and six per cent of people from minority ethnic groups cycle one time per week.
A total of 164 new cycle parking spaces were created at key transport hubs across the region including Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton Bus Station in 2019/20.
