Promoting active travel in London – benefits and barriers

With London’s mayoral election coming up in May, Anika Heckwolf, Antonina Scheer and Peter Wyckoff outline why active travel deserves a more prominent role in conversations about climate change, what cities like London can do to remove barriers to walking and cycling, and why they are coordinating an open letter to the mayoral candidates.

The multi-strand case for active travel

Cycling and other forms of active travel rarely feature in high level discussions on climate change. COP26 in Glasgow was the first UN climate conference to explicitly mention active travel (and only after a last minute intervention by an EU official) – in a declaration on sustainable transport, signed by 30 countries. Yet active travel plays a crucial role in decarbonising transport and reducing pollution, while at the same time having a range of benefits for public health and the economy.

Walking and cycling are, as the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee once put it, “the ultimate low emissions options”. Not only is active travel quick, affordable and reliable, but a so-called ‘modal shift’ from driving cars, motorcycles and vans to cycling or walking reduces noise and air pollution plus carbon emissions. One study suggests that cyclists’ daily travel in cities produces 84% lower carbon emissions compared with non-cyclists. With emissions from transport rising faster than those in other sectors, and remaining stubbornly high even in countries where overall emissions have been falling, active travel presents a serious opportunity for decarbonisation, not least in the growing number of cities that have set net zero targets.   

Moreover, evidence shows that cycling and walking have major health benefits, being associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Countries with higher levels of active transport have lower obesity rates. Research has also shown that commuting by bicycle is causally linked to better mental health: a 15% reduction in prescriptions for antidepressants was estimated among commuters who cycled compared with those who used any other mode of transport. These mental and physical health benefits can reduce public sector medical costs. A study estimated that increased active travel in English and Welsh cities could save billions for the National Health Service.

The policy measures that promote cycling can also carry important economic co-benefits. Cycling infrastructure has been found to reduce traffic congestion and boost high street businesses and local economies, while neighbourhoods that are close to cycle paths have higher property values.

Perceived and real safety issues are a barrier to active travel

Despite its clear benefits, physical activity is declining worldwide. In the case of cycling, safety is considered one of the main barriers to further uptake, with disproportionate effects on marginalised groups. Children, women and ethnic minorities are especially discouraged by a lack of safe cycling infrastructure. A recent survey found that 90% of female respondents in London would start to cycle, or cycle more, if there were safer routes available to them. A systematic review of the barriers to cycling in OECD countries identified that the leading factor related to concerns with needing to use roads alongside motor vehicles.

Thanks to the expansion of cycling infrastructure in recent years, 22% of Londoners now live within 200 metres of a cycle route. With 1.26 million journeys cycled daily and casualty numbers declining, cycling in London is increasingly popular and safe. However, with more than 1,000 injuries and seven deaths recorded in 2022, more needs to be done to make cycling safer still.

How can cycling be made safer in London?

Local government has an important role to play in harnessing the benefits of active travel and addressing its safety and accessibility barriers. London has already made progress in this direction, not least to help achieve its 2030 net zero climate commitment. In 2018, Transport for London committed to “Vision Zero”, a target to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries on the capital’s transport system by 2041. Vision Zero targets have been adopted by cities around the world, in line with UN and OECD International Transport Forum encouragement to set ambitious road safety targets. However, London is not currently on track to meet its Vision Zero target, with progress on cycling safety stalling over the past decade.

Developing specialised urban infrastructure that protects cycle lanes using physical borders is one important solution. Kerb-separated cycle infrastructure and stepped tracks (a cycleway built higher than the carriageway but lower than the footway) have been found to reduce the odds of injury for cyclists by 40% and 65% respectively compared with the absence of any infrastructure, whereas so-called ‘advisory’ lanes, which vehicles are legally allowed to use, actually increase the chances of injury by 30%. In addition to reducing the odds of injury, connected, protected lanes across a city can improve wider cycle networks, and help increase the diversity of people who feel safe enough to cycle around their city, including for those who use bikes as mobility aids. Such measures can and often do go hand in hand with other initiatives that help cities mitigate and build resilience to climate change, such as shading and stormwater management.

London must also address safety issues at its road junctions, which is where the majority of serious and fatal collisions occur. Transport for London has developed a Safer Junctions programme to redesign these locations and has already successfully improved several junctions, but much work remains to be done.

Improving active travel infrastructure will also involve some ‘sticks’ as well as carrots, including stricter lorry vision standards and measures explicitly designed to discourage motorised traffic, such as low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs). Despite having recently been dragged into the ‘culture war’, studies have consistently shown that LTNs are popular interventions that reduce driving and encourage cycling and walking, generating significant economic benefits related to improving people’s health.

Any policies to improve cycling and walking infrastructure need to be developed without negatively impacting those that rely on public buses, particularly disabled people. Ultimately, local transport policy and infrastructure should prioritise public transport users alongside active travellers, as the two most physically vulnerable groups of urban transport users, taking the most environmentally friendly modes of travel.

Call to action: an open letter to the mayoral candidates

London’s universities have recently experienced the human cost of London’s unsafe streets. In 2023, two female staff members of the London School of Economics and Political Science died while cycling in or near London. One of these colleagues was killed on her bike by a speeding driver only a few streets away from where a postgraduate student at the London College of Contemporary Music had been killed also while cycling mere days before. In recent years, many other universities in the city have lost staff or students to collisions while cycling.

These deaths have been devastating for many of us. At LSE, not only have we lost two wonderful colleagues but we know they were killed doing what many of us do on a daily basis – cycling in London. We do this at least in part because as professionals working on climate change, we believe it is important to practise what we preach and live in ways that do not harm the planet further.

We have addressed a cross-university open letter to London’s mayoral candidates, asking them to pledge to:

• put a stop to cyclist and pedestrian deaths caused by motor vehicles in London by 2028, the end of the upcoming mayoral term; and
• bring forward the deadline from 2041 to 2032 for London’s Vision Zero.

The letter has been signed by the senior leadership of several London universities, by heads of academic departments, staff and student unions, and by hundreds of individuals that study and work at the city’s universities, including some of the world’s leading public health and urban design experts. Additional signatures from institutions and individuals can be added here.

The authors would like to thank Georgina Kyriacou for reviewing this commentary.