Sustrans’ and Arup’s new report, Cycling for Everyone, was published at a time when both the Black Lives Matter movement and the active travel movement are at the forefront of public discussion. Susan Claris is one of the report’s authors, and Global Active Travel Leader at Arup, and Daisy Narayanan is Sustrans’ Director of Urbanism.

Coincidentally launched the day Boris Johnson’s government announced its Gear Change document, setting out a path to cycling growth in England, Cycling for Everyone identifies through interviews, data and analysis who is cycling, but also crucially, who isn’t, why, and how greater diversity in cycling can be achieved.

Cycling in the UK is predominantly white and male: 85% of people aged over 65, as well as around three quarters of disabled people, women, people at risk of deprivation and people from ethnic minority groups, never cycle. Quantitative data can only tell us so much, however, and although different people face different barriers, many of the issues stopping us cycling more are similar, from safety fears, to access and affordability, to perceptions of competence.

As Susan Claris puts it, inclusion is more than making things step-free – it's about looking at the impact of infrastructure from the broadest possible perspective. This means where we design our cycling infrastructure, how, and with who in mind - and the report acknowledges we need to do better in our public spaces, and offers some pointers as to how we can do that.

Cycling for Everyone provides not only a call to action to level the field for more people to cycle, but a platform to achieve greater diversity in cycling at a time when we could be on the cusp of great leaps in active travel participation and, if we heed the report’s lessons, far greater diversity, too.

As Daisy Narayanan writes in her forward to the report: "Only by ensuring that voices of underrepresented groups are integrated in policy, planning, design and implementation, can we ensure that we create places that meet the needs of the diversity of people who want to use them."

You can read the Cycling for Everyone report here: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/media/7377/cycling_for_everyone-sustrans-arup.pdf

Transcript

Laura Laker 0:00   

Hi and welcome to the Active Travel podcast. Brought to you by the Active Travel Academy, which is part of the University of Westminster in London. I'm Laura Laker, an active travel journalist. Now we know cycling has benefits for physical and mental health as a low cost transport, for independent access to services, work and education, but there are people across society who can't access cycling. The most recent National Travel Attitudes Survey found two thirds of adults feel it's too dangerous to cycle and cycling is still predominantly something done by a small proportion of the population. In other words, it's not very diverse. According to a new report by Sustrans and Arup, Cycling for Everyone. 85% of people over 65, and around three quarters of disabled people, women, people at risk of deprivation and people from ethnic minority groups, never cycle. This report is what we're talking about today, what it tells us about why certain people don't cycle and what can be done to change that. So with me today, is one of the report's authors, Susan Claris, who is the global active travel leader at Arup. Hi, Susan. 

Susan Claris 1:07   

Hello,

Laura Laker 1:08   

and Daisy Narayanan, who is Sustrans' director of urbanism

Daisy Narayanan 1:13   

Hi Laura. 

Laura Laker 1:14   

Hi. So, yeah, thanks for coming on the podcast. It's great to have you both on; can you just tell our listeners a little bit about how the report came about, and who it's aimed at.

Susan Claris 1:26   

It's actually got quite an interesting story because I had to remind myself of this one it was it was actually from the Arup side, it was a colleague who joined us as a graduate back in 2015, and he'd done his dissertation on cycling, and older people. And shortly after joining us he sort of said, you know, there's not much guidance out there, wouldn't it be good if we could actually do something to look into this subject. And it took a bit of while to get it, get it all going but from that we had discussions with Sustrans. And the idea came about drawing on the Sustrans Bike Life data to actually produce his guide that would actually show how cycling can be made more inclusive and really can be made for everyone so that that was the background of it from the Arup side I don't know whether Daisy wants to talk about it from the Sustrans perspective.

Daisy Narayanan 2:12   

Yeah, I mean, just adding to what he said Susan from a Sustrans perspective, all Sustrans strategic priorities have 'for everyone' at its very heart. So, the whole concept of inclusive design has been something that me and Sustrans are really wanting to focus on, so it is so timely, this conversation with Arup, what bike life was saying to us as well. For the past year, you know, talking about diversity and inclusion and all set within the wider context of climate change, and the whole conversation around black lives matter and inclusion I think this is such a timely report, and you know it's been wonderful working with colleagues at Arup to bring this together.

Laura Laker 2:53   

It's really exciting isn't it because, as you say, inclusivity has become so much more prominent in public discussion as has the need for cycling infrastructure and active travel infrastructure in general, it feels like these agendas have really, risen just at the time that this report has come out. I know that you're working on it since 2019 and there's been a bunch of stages, including a literature review there was the bike life data, you've had focus groups where you've talked to people about why they don't cycle or why they do, and working out what you can do about that, you've had workshops with decision makers in the transport sector. And there's a database now of case studies of successful projects. And one of the things that Sustrans has found out through its Bike Life surveys, it's not that people don't want to cycle. 55% of people from ethnic minority groups, 38% of people at risk of deprivation 36% of women and 31% of disabled people who don't cycle would like to start. So that's a that's a huge amount. 

Susan Claris 3:54   

I think if those surveys were actually redone now those numbers would be even higher. So if you think those those surveys were pre COVID pre lockdown and we've seen what a huge upsurge there's been an interest in cycling, as I said those numbers I think would be so much higher now.

Daisy Narayanan 4:09   

Absolutely I couldn't agree more. You know, we've seen that in our own areas and over lockdown we've seen this massive increase in in cycling and all kinds of people cycling, not just the usual people that you expect to see on our road cycling and I think that's been, you know, it's not you can have surveys and reports and all of that out there and statistics, but for me what has been really really powerful about this process is getting stories from people you know just understanding, getting right into the depths of why what the barriers are. And I think that's been really powerful in the report but more than that, you know, as Susan was saying, during lockdown. That's being so visible now, all of us can see how that change is required and people want that change to happen. And that, to me forms, quite a strong foundation for for going forward into policymaking going forward.

Laura Laker 5:10   

And the report, sort of touches on issues affecting different groups of people as statistics from earlier older people as women as people from ethnic minorities, people with disabilities. And although there are different needs across different groups there is a commonality isn't there there are sort of common themes that come up, and you have to, you know, obviously the roads have been quieter and so a lot of people have been cycling so road safety is going to be one of them. Can you say a bit more about other sort of common themes that we saw across different groups in terms of what's stopping them from cycling what would help them to do so.

Susan Claris 5:46   

Yeah, I mean in terms of the report we've sort of grouped the actions into into three main areas, so better places is certainly one of those three themes which is about safety, road safety, but it's also about sort of personal safety and harassment. That sadly has come through quite strongly. It is about the importance of cycling infrastructure being fully inclusive. So there's a very strong focus on the places but that it that that's not enough so that's why we focus on the other two key areas which is to be more inclusive in terms of governance and planning and decision making. And then also this welcome and support for for people to cycle. It sort of, it's not just I think we've moved from, you know, a few years ago. Cycling was not much thought about at all then we will onto the wall stick in a cycle lane and tick the box and we've done that. We've moved to well let's count how many people use it. And now we're moving on to saying well actually, you know, who are those people and who aren't those people and I think it's understanding, broadening the understanding of what inclusion is all about. So I think, you know, f