There is ‘much still to be done’ to better incentivise and change attitudes towards active travel in the city, according to Liverpool Council’s Cabinet member for Climate Change and Environment.
Cllr Dan Barrington said the city council has worked to ‘grasp’ the opportunity in terms of how people travel since the beginning of the pandemic, however he believes work still needs to be done to ‘change the dial’ on people’s behaviours and better understand what motivates them when it comes to active travel, reports the Liverpool Echo.
This will be approached in the form of a council led survey launched this year in the hope of learning the main barriers to local residents’ not partaking in active travel.
Cllr Barrington said: “Of course, the pandemic has had a huge impact on how we travel and how we think about travelling, and how we think about our physical and mental health and wellbeing as well as our environment. The city council has grasped that opportunity and we are ramping up investment in cycle lanes – temporary and permanent – to provide people with more opportunities and incentives to leave the car at home, be it to shop, to go to school or to work.
“There’s much still to be done to change the dial on people’s attitudes and behaviours but by understanding what motivates them, steadily creating the infrastructure and raising awareness of our cycle lanes and the wonderful walks to be had, we can start to make a difference.
“Along with other partners, we will be looking to promote active travel activities throughout 2022 to highlight just how easy it is to walk and cycle in Liverpool, and how much difference it can make to people’s quality of life and our city’s environment.”
Across the city region there have been a number of schemes that have sought to encourage more active travel since the pandemic began.
In the summer of 2020 £4m was spent on pop-up cycle lanes across Liverpool, some of which have now been made permanent in the Kingsley Road area while a consultation is aiming to find the best solution for a proposed cycle lane on West Derby Road.
Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram launched an active travel campaign in May 2021, stating “we need a revolution in how we live our lives and get about.”
The combined authority’s plans received a boost when the city region was awarded £710m of transport funding from central Government in November, a portion of which is earmarked for active travel.
