17 November 2008
Call for Scottish Parliament to take action on active travel
Joint statement from Scottish walking & cycling NGOs
Scotland's walking and cycling NGOs have today (Monday 17th) pressed the Scottish Parliament's transport committee to recommend to the Scottish Government to switch funding from the trunk roads budget into supporting walking and cycling. [1]
The call has been submitted jointly by the directors of Cycling Scotland, Living Streets Scotland, Paths for All Partnership, Ramblers Scotland, Sustrans Scotland & Transform Scotland. [2] It comes in advance of tomorrow's (Tuesday 18th) finalisation of the report from the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee to the Scottish Government on its draft Scottish Budget.
Dave Morris, Director of Ramblers Scotland, said:
"The Government wants to encourage more people to walk and cycle for shorter journeys but this will only happen with proper investment in the kind of infrastructure and incentives that will enable people to choose to leave their cars at home. We need to see more paths that connect people with where they want to walk or cycle."It is only by treating active travel with the same importance given to motorised transport that we can achieve a real shift in the way people move around their communities."Colin Howden, Director of Transform Scotland [3] said:
"Investment in active travel will help deliver on the public health and climate change agendas but also makes sound economic sense. It is not sensible to continue to pump money into new roads when all that will happen is that other parts of the economy have to pick up the tab in terms of more road crashes, more deaths from air pollution and more congestion caused by yet more traffic."The high rates of cycling observed in comparator countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark did not occur by themselves: they came about because of sustained investment programmes over many years. So it's not acceptable that investment in walking and cycling remains at such pitifully low levels. The Government tells us that it wants to reduce climate emissions and tackle the obesity epidemic, but has instead brought forward huge increases in spending on new roads."The groups have called on the TICC Committee to recommend that the Scottish Government move towards meeting the recommendation of the Association of Directors of Public Health in their document 'Take Action on Active Travel' published earlier this year, which calls for at least 10% of all transport expenditure go into supporting active travel. [4]
ENDS
Notes to Editors
[1] The letter is available at <http://www.transformscotland.org.uk/GetFile.aspx?ItemId=101>.
[2] The groups involved are:
Cycling Scotland - <http://www.cyclingscotland.org/>
Living Streets Scotland - <http://www.livingstreetsscotland.org.uk/>
Paths for All Partnership - <http://www.pathsforall.org.uk/>
Ramblers Scotland - <http://www.ramblers.org.uk/scotland/>
Sustrans Scotland - <http://www.sustrans.org.uk>
Transform Scotland - <http://www.transformscotland.org.uk>
[3] Transform Scotland is the national sustainable transport alliance, bringing together rail, bus and shipping operators, local authorities, national environment and conservation groups, businesses and local transport groups.
[4] See <http://www.adph.org.uk/>.
END OF NEWS RELEASE