This summer is shaping up to be a Summer of Active Travel in Dumfries. The public consultations around work that the Council, SWestrans and DPAG have been doing with consultants, Systra, for the past year will start in the winter. The Council have been updating their traffic flow models and carrying out a parking review, the Local Develop Plan 3 and the Local Place Plan are well underway, the new Town Board has a “Travel and Connectivity” component and various institutions in the area are developing their own active travel strategies. So it seems like everyone is fully onboard.
Everyone is talking about it, but what is active travel?
A simple definition of active travel is that it’s any form of getting about under your own steam.
Walking, using a wheelchair, a bike or a trike are the most common forms of active travel, but even within those criteria there are many different kinds of people and reasons for using these forms of travel. For example, someone might walk to work most days, but drive on that one day when they have meetings out of town. Another person may drive to work, but use a bike to go shopping. When we factor in that 25% of people in the region don’t have access to a car we can see that it’s about ensuring options for everyone.
So we have a simple definition for what active travel is, but when it comes to the “why and the how” of active travel this really cuts across many policy areas. It’s a public health issue as keeping active and being able to move around independently brings many health benefits. It’s a public safety issue as being able to get to work, shops, school or medical appointments shouldn’t put people in harms way through a lack of appropriate infrastructure and it’s an issue of equality as our infrastructure shouldn’t present barriers to anyone who needs to get around town or their neighbourhood.
It’s not an all or nothing thing. People choose how they want to travel based on a number of factors; weather, task, mood and availability of options. Availability of options is where local policy makers can have the biggest impact, both through funding services and infrastructure, and through promotion of incentives.
The national planning framework (NPF4) has a target for local authorities to reduce kilometres driven by 20%. Active travel is one of the best tools local authorities have for achieving this goal.
What about public transport?
Buses, trains, trams etc fall under the category of sustainable transport, but they support active travel. More frequent (at least hourly to make planning simple) buses in particular would help support people who need to come into Dumfries from rural areas, increase local economic opportunities and enable more people to easily access health and education services.