A National Audit Office (NAO) report released today, Wednesday, June 7, has revealed that the Government is not on track to meet its objectives to get more people cycling, wheeling and walking.
The report states that the Department for Transport’s (DfT) progress suggests it will not meet its targets of doubling urban cycling journeys to 1.6 billion stages by 2025.
The Government’s own target of 46% of urban journeys being walked, wheeled or cycled in the next two years is now impossible to reach, the report finds, despite this being a cornerstone of Boris Johnson’s Gear Change vision of 2020. Boris Johnson announced his Gear Change vision in 2020 Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street It also found that despite the targets to increase the numbers of people walking and cycling; and the percentage of children aged five to ten walking to school – all activity levels are now lower than when the objectives were set in 2017.
Campaign groups have also criticised the Government’s underfunding of active travel as “missing an easy win”, suggesting that commitments laid out in the current Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy are now void.
Xavier Brice, CEO at walking and cycling charity Sustrans , said: “This report reveals that active travel objectives are in tatters, and only serves to highlight that long-term and ring-fenced investment can transform lives, if done well.”
The report also said that the DfT does not yet know enough about what has been achieved by active travel schemes delivered by local […]
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