Boardman at Active Travel Café
England’s Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman appeared at Active Travel Café this week. Here are some of the things he said.
1) Capability Ratings
Boardman learned from his time in Manchester that political will is important.
One of the boroughs put forward an ambitious scheme, but it failed because of a lack of experience, lack of resources and lack of political backing.
That was the origin of Capability Ratings now used by Active Travel England (ATE).
ATE suggests that lower-level authorities deliver easier schemes such as crossings near schools. In the meantime, ATE offers training to build capability.
(This has not worked so far in North Yorkshire, where nothing has been delivered for 10 years).
2) Enthusiasm about the Prospects for Active Travel under the New Government
The last 3 years were difficult, with government attacks on Low Traffic Neigbourhoods, and cuts to ATE funding. Now with a new government, it is really exciting, and we can expect developments in the next few weeks.
A lot of people have spent years trying to effect change, and the moment has now come.
‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we could win at this’.
The new government has a mission-based approach.
Health is one of the biggest issues we face, and you can’t have economic growth without health. We are starting to identify the effects of inactivity.
The focus in the DfT very quickly came to active travel, integrated with wider transport.
Boardman had a meeting/bike ride with Secretary of State for Transport Louise Haigh, for a whole morning. Haigh’s response was often ‘yes that makes sense, go and do that’.
This has resulted in a whole new set of challenges.
‘We have a really receptive government, and its ours to get wrong as well as to get right. It’s keeping me up at night, but for all the right reasons’.
We are beyond money, and starting to talk about the wiring [the way transport schemes are appraised, and what is considered Value for Money]. There has been an examination of what has been happening in Wales.
Some of it just takes time, but there has been a lot of learning from Wales about what works and how to do things.
3) Appraisal of Transport Schemes
We appraise transport schemes against criteria that don’t actually get us anywhere near the things we said we wanted.
Boardman had a conversation about this at the DfT soon after ATE was formed, but that didn’t go anywhere; now it is being looked at again.
‘If we don’t value the things that align to the statements that we make, then they can’t happen’.
That has been a blockage in Wales.
The civil service is trained to make driving more efficient. We put an overriding value on journey time saved. The BCR figures that result are built on sand.
In the past we haven’t looked at the impact on health and decarbonisation. They are not in the books as to how we value schemes. This makes it difficult to create business cases for active travel.
Now we are going to make sure that strategy, policy and delivery capability are all aligned and funded properly. That has to happen nationally and regionally, otherwise we’ll always be tinkering around the edges.
Now population health and decarbonisation are going to be prioritised. That will change how road space is allocated. Difficult changes like this should happen in the first 18 months of this government.
4) Active Travel and Health
Boardman had been meeting with Chris Whitty that day. Whitty stressed that you get best bang for your buck when moving from doing no activity to some activity.
That has implications for active travel spending, and might mean more emphasis towards deprived areas, and greater use of behaviour change interventions.
5) Culture Wars
Rather than talking too much about facts and evidence, we need to talk about things that people care about.
Big figures and benefits to the economy don’t influence people all that much. Instead, transport independence for kids is a better way of reaching people.
Messages need to start with ‘what’s in it for me’, and be focused on emotional connections.
6) Local Authorities that are not Delivering
Local Councillors need to be given the tools to do the job, and the support from national government when pushing schemes through.
There need to be consequences for not delivering to a standard, and everyone in the country should be able to expect a level of service, regardless of where they are. That needs to come from the top.
Painted white line cycle lanes are more dangerous than nothing. LTN 1/20 standard infrastructure increases uptake by 20-60%, and halves the number of deaths.
The Active Travel Café participants felt that ATE is too much carrot and not enough stick for those authorities which are failing to deliver.
Boardman said that all this is voluntary, but failing councils are visible. (This is simply not working in North Yorkshire).
7) Side Road Zebras
There has been a long-standing wish to have zebras across side roads, as in much of Europe.
A trial in Tameside, Greater Manchester, worked. Boardman is hopeful that trials at scale can happen in the near future.
8) Pavement Parking
Pavement parking is being considered very carefully by the Secretary of State.
9) Danny Williams
Danny Williams is Chief Executive of ATE. He is good with people and good with data, as well as entrepreneurial and capable of getting things done.
He is going to head up an Integrated Transport Strategy Group at the DfT, to make all this stuff fit together properly.
He is going to take a step back as Chief Executive of ATE, and Chief Operating Officer of ATE Louise Wilson is going to replace him.