For more information about the interim results from the first three years of Cycling Demonstration Towns, visit Cycling England
At its launch, Cycling England established six Cycling Demonstration Towns (CDTs) where innovative projects were implemented to make it more attractive for people to cycle, both to school and work, and in their leisure time. The towns we selected all had a strong commitment to increase cycling.
Prior to the start of the programme, each town had different levels of people cycling and different local circumstances. As such, Cycling England worked with each individual CDT to establish a tailor made programme to encourage cycling. Cycling England also established a consistent monitoring programme to measure progress across all six towns. For the past three years, Cycling England has been gathering extensive and robust quantitative data from the original six CDTs in order to measure progress and evaluate the impact of their cycling strategies.
The results are very positive, with all towns seeing an increase in cycling levels in the first three years. On average, across all towns, cycling has increased by 27%. This demonstrates a decisive break from the generally downward trend in cycling levels in the UK outside London over the last 30 years.
This is the result of good investment decisions – from significant infrastructure developments to training, marketing and promotional campaigns to encourage people to get on their bikes.
It takes time to create fantastic cycling towns. The most successful European towns and cities have been investing consistently in cycling for 30 years. But our evidence suggests that specific and targeted measures can have a significant impact in increasing cycling levels. The results give us confidence that the specific cycling strategies implemented by both the original six CDTs and the new wave of eleven Cycling Towns together with Greater Bristol as a Cycling City will – given time - make a real difference to the travel culture of the UK.