Cycling

Department for Transport written question – answered at on 6 November 2014.

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Photo of Alison McGovern Alison McGovern Shadow Minister (Education)

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of passenger journeys in the UK were made by bicycle in each of the last five years; and what share of his Department's spending related to cycling in that time period.

Photo of Robert Goodwill Robert Goodwill Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The table below shows the percentage of all trips made by bicycle between 2009 and 2013:

Average number of trips (trip rates) by main mode: England, to 2013
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Bicycle1615161714
All modes974961950950923
Cycling mode share % 1.7 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9

Soure: NTS, Last updated: 29 July 2014

During the five financial years 2010/11 to 2014/15, departmental spending on cycling is detailed in the table below:

Financial years 2010/11 - 2014/15 Direct funding £224 million
£million
Cycling Englad63.0
Cycling Cities & National Parks Fund94.0
Links to Schools & Linking Communities28.5
Cycle Safety Fund35.0
Cycle Rail14.5
Highways Agency4.8
Local Sustainable Transport Fund - Bikeability46.8
Local Sustainable Transport Fund - other cycling151.0
Total437.6

The £438 million on cycling spend represents 0.71% of the total departmental spend for those years.

Does this answer the above question?

Yes7 people think so

No1 person thinks not

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Annotations

Andrew Reeves-Hall
Posted on 27 Nov 2014 10:38 pm (Report this annotation)

£437.6m over 5 years for 64.1m people equals about £1.37 per person per year on average.

On 27 November, Nick Clegg, the deputy PM, announced a further £214m funding for cycling over the next 3 years.

The government press release said that that brings the total to £588m but I figure £437.6m + £214m = £651.6m!

Taking the higher value, and spreading it over its lifetime of 8 years for 64.1m people equals about £1.27 per person.


Funding per person is going down, without even taking into consideration an expanding population!


Compare that figure of £1.27 to:

- The Get Britain Cycling inquiry recommendation no.1 which asks for £10, rising to £20, per person per year; and,

- Campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists demand no.4 for sufficient funding to build infrastructure as it is now in The Netherlands, that is, £15bn over the next 5 years, or about £46.80 per person per year.

Andrew Reeves-Hall
Posted on 27 Nov 2014 10:55 pm (Report this annotation)

If £437.6m is 0.71% of the departmental budget over 5 years then the total budget was about £61,633m (that is £61.6bn).

Research by Lovelace and Woodcock says that the NHS would benefit from savings of £25 billion over the next three and a half decades as people cycle more, as the Get Britain Cycling recommended. [1][2]

Research by Aldred says that having Danish levels of cycling in the UK would save the NHS £17bn within 20 years.[3]

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[1]
http://robinlovelace.net/publications/health-benefits-cyclin...

[2]
http://getbritaincycling.org/the-recommendations/recommendat...

[3]
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/bc_files/campai...