Latest news - Scottish Parliament Active Travel Inquiry
Ramblers Scotland has submitted evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee Inquiry into Active Travel. This inquiry started in November 2009 and you can read other evidence and the official report here.
Read Ramblers Scotland's submission to the Inquiry here.
Ramblers Scotland also responded to the Scottish Government's Cycling Action Plan for Scotland (CAPS) in June 2009. The final report on this plan is being delayed to take account of further evidence heard at the TICC Committee's Inquiry.
Read the Ramblers Scotland response to CAPS here
It is a shocking state of affairs that a 28% of all driver journeys in Scotland are less than two kilometres.There is clearly much scope for people to leave the car at home and shift to healthier, more sustainable modes of transport for many journeys. Walking is the most sustainable form of transport there is, with cycling a close second. Walking not only has the potential to get the Scottish population fitter and healthier, but also to cut traffic levels and congestion and the related air and noise pollution.
The government aims to get 10% of the population cycling by 2020 and is currently consulting on its Cycling Action Plan for Scotland. Yet the government also stubbornly refuses to increase the transport budget allocation for walking and cycling beyond the miserable 1% where it now languishes.
No wonder there has been a 16% drop in those children in Scotland who walk to school in the past 20 years. In the absence of safe walking and cycling routes, more children will be driven to school.
Elsewhere in Europe governments are much more committed to delivering real active travel improvements. In Amsterdam 40% of all journeys are by walking or cycling, while Copenhagen spends 20% of its transport budget on cycling, with a third of all journeys being by bicycle. Scotland will continue to live in the Dark Ages with its transport agenda, if we do not learn from our European neighbours and spend real money on promoting walking and cycling.
The opportunities for safe, direct travel for walkers and cyclists between communities in Scotland are generally very poor. This is a reflection both of the road pattern in Scotland combined with the failure, over many decades, to protect the paths and tracks which formerly linked Scottish communities.
The Scottish access legislation, with its requirements for the development of core path networks, provides the basis for correcting these problems, through recognising that core path networks should include routes which connect communities. The development of such routes should be a key component in the development of a modern Scottish transport system based on sustainable development principles.
National Transport Strategy
In April 2006, the government published its draft National Transport Strategy (NTS). Our consultation response called for more support to be given to enabling people to choose sustainable transport options, particularly walking and cycling for short journeys such as the school run. We felt this should be a key element in the NTS and in the work of the Regional Transport Partnerships.
Read our response to the draft NTS here.
Community Links
In October 2005, Ramblers Scotland met the then Transport Minister, Tavish Scott MSP, along with CTC – the national cyclists’ organisation, the British Horse Society and sustainable transport organisation, Transform Scotland. We discussed a specific proposal, namely the development of “Community Links”, as a means of facilitating non-motorised transport throughout Scotland.
We asked for a commitment to the development of offroad routes, well separated from existing carriageways, which would provide for direct connections between communities for walkers, riders and cyclists, as well as other non-motorised users. Such Community Links should be established throughout Scotland, bringing benefit to all communities, and both residents and visitors. A programme of this sort would need to be recognised as a major transport initiative, led by the Scottish Government, delivered in part by the government as a component of its trunk roads programme, but also by local authorities wherever existing and projected traffic volumes indicate that Community Links for non-motorised users are needed. Every trunk road in Scotland would have a path in parallel, separated from the main carriageway, which may mean a specially-constructed multi use path, the use of parallel minor roads, or other infrastructure such as old railway lines, canals or former routes used by the roads before upgrading.
We were advised by the Minister to put forward this proposal during the consultation phase of the NTS. However, the published NTS did not take any of our ideas on board and the strategy does not even mention the Land Reform Act or core paths plans. It leaves the impression that the government's transport department and Transport Scotland are packed full of motor-mad officials who are not concerned about the 30% of Scottish households who do not have access to a car - or the many other people who would like to leave their car at home a bit more often.
Read the full text of our paper to the Transport Minister
Access and the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route – read our letter to the Transport Minister
