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No Funding For Paint: U.K. Government Warns Local Authorities To Be ‘Ambitious’ When Bidding For Cycling Cash

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The U.K. Department for Transport (DfT) has written to local authorities stressing that prospective cycling schemes will “need to include segregation” and that cycle lanes “"marked only with white paint will not be funded.”

The letter doubles down on the department’s ambitions set out last year aimed at those local authorities bidding for “Active Travel Fund” money. This funding is for cycling and walking schemes.

The latest bid invitation, sent out to local authorities this week, hammers home the importance of high design standards in securing funding. To have any chance of progressing bids must meet the new LTN 1/20 standard.

In May last year the DfT told English local authorities that the pandemic allowed work to “begin at pace on closing roads to through traffic, installing segregated cycle lanes and widening pavements.”

The letter sent to English local authorities in May 2020 said that “to receive any money under this or future tranches, you will need to show us that you have a swift and meaningful plan to reallocate road space to cyclists and pedestrians, including strategic corridors.”

The letter was signed by Rupert Furness, a deputy director of the Department for Transport in London.

In the latest letter, dated June 14, Furness reiterates that only “ambitious” schemes will be successful.

Furness, who works for the Active and Accessible Travel unit within the DfT, stressed:

“The Department only intends to fund schemes which comply with the Cycling Design Standards set out in local transport note LTN 1/20.”

These new standards are part of the government’s plan to boost bicycling and reap the associated health, air quality and congestion benefits.

“Anything that does not meaningfully alter the status quo on the road will not be funded,” stated Furness last year, using no-nonsense language that was a departure from Civil Service norms.

Boris Johnson

The new emphasis on cycling comes from the very top. Before he became Prime Minister Boris Johnson was an everyday bicycle commuter and when he swept into power he appointed journalist Andrew Gilligan as his transport advisor. Gilligan was cycling commissioner when Johnson was Mayor of London, and it was Gilligan, not Johnson, that was most responsible for pushing through London’s protected cycleway program.

Gilligan—London’s “cycling czar” from 2013 to 2016—works hand-in-glove with the civil servants on the Active and Accessible Travel team.

The latest letter invites bids for capital funding for the current financial year 2021/22 as part of the government’s £2 billion “Gear Change” program.

“All cycling schemes will need to include segregation or point closures to through traffic,”" says Furness.

“Advisory cycle lanes, and those marked only with white paint, will not be funded.”

All proposed schemes must include plans to consult local communities, says the letter.

“Consultation does not mean giving anyone a veto, requiring consensus on schemes, or prioritising the loudest voices,” adds Furness.

In a dig at those local authorities which ripped out emergency cycleways installed at the height of the pandemic, Furness says that all schemes “should be given sufficient time to bed in and for benefits to be realised before any changes are made.”

The DfT could “claw back funding where schemes ... are prematurely removed,” warns Furness.

Going Dutch

As part of the latest bidding process the government wants more local authorities to develop Netherlands-aspiring “Mini-Holland” schemes. Such a scheme in Walthamstow has proved transformational, with dramatic increases in walking and cycling, and decreases in air pollution and noise.

“Mini Hollands involve intensive spending on local roads and streetscapes to make them, over time, as cycle and pedestrian-friendly as their Dutch equivalents,” says the letter to local authorities which would be expected to install high quality separated cycleways on main roads, low-traffic neighborhoods and high streets, and greater roadspace allocation for people walking.

The DfT wants to draw up a shortlist of 12 or so local authorities to benefit from Mini Holland support, with the expectation that most will be outside of London as part of the government’s “levelling up” agenda.

“Candidate authorities must be places where there is serious political commitment to dramatic change,” says Furness, “not just for cyclists, but for everyone who lives and works there.”

Social prescribing

The DfT is also seeking four local authorities to take part in a pilot to provide cycling and walking interventions as part of a social prescribing offer via doctors’ surgeries, known as general practices, or GPs.

“Taking up cycling is amongst the most effective health interventions a person can make,” Furness stressed.

According to a recent Glasgow University study, cycling to work can contribute to a 45% lower risk of developing cancer, a 46% lower risk of heart disease and a 41% lower risk of premature death, compared to a nonactive commute.

The project will seek to deliver personalized care from health workers experienced in social prescribing. The programs will prescribe cycling or walking wherever appropriate, and make available cycles, as well as training, access to cycling groups and peer support.

Local authorities will also need to invest in infrastructure improvements for these patients such as separated cycleways, low-traffic neighborhoods and secure cycle parking, adds the DfT letter.

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