ATW18 Beicio Bangor

Y Pwyllgor Cyfrifon Cyhoeddus a Gweinyddiaeth Gyhoeddus | Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee

Teithio Llesol yng Nghymru | Active Travel in Wales

Beicio Bangor Response

We write on the basis of fourteen years of interaction with both central and local active travel plans, in Gwynedd, Anglesey, and on the Caernarfon/Bontnewydd bypass.

The Active Travel Act followed years of ineffective encouragement to all concerned to make plans for active travel facilities, and to include active travel in all developments. This was addressed primarily to a transport establishment that had no interest in active travel and no idea how to make it happen; when stimulated, and with few and limited exceptions, the response was apathy at best, more often active dislike. The freedom to drive was often quoted. Minimal compliance, on paper only, was a general approach. There was no active programme of education for that establishment, either in local authorities or in the civil service, there was no cadre of informed and motivated people who could contact the Minister and were able to judge the quality of active travel schemes, and so there was no effective way for the Minister to implement the powers given to them by the ATA. Those powers, if effectively used, appear sufficient to transform our transport system within a few years. 

If the Minister wished to implement the ATA - I note that the Netherlands implemented an effective network of active travel facilities within some eight years of deciding to do so - they would be enabled to do so by such a cadre. These people would ensure that the excellent mechanisms of the ATA were effectively implemented, in accordance with best practice as demonstrated by several of the UK's neighbours, and having learned from the mistakes that have been made in the course of achieving best practice both here and abroad.

We have seen the virulent anger aroused by 20mph limits. This is continuous with opposition to active travel, or anything else seen as "anti-motorist". While there appears no way to avoid a furious minority of opposition, we suggest that pilot schemes in selected areas, that allow a effective, attractive, door-to-door active travel network, would be the best way to drive behaviour change in support of active travel. (Until all concerned can experience the benefits, there seems little purpose in publicizing schemes which, however admirable in themselves, do not allow safe complete active travel journeys for a large part of the population.) The battle cry of "Freedom" can then be used, thoroughly supported by Welsh data and by Welsh mass opinion, to support the freedom to use our streets for people, not only for the minority in a motor vehicle.

Beicio Bangor