Sustrans, the UK's leading sustainable transport charity is to carry out monitoring of cycling levels for the Department for Transport and Cycling England in the eighteen recently announced Cycling City and Towns. During the three year monitoring programme the charity will record cycling activity using methods developed over 10 years of monitoring the 12,000 miles of National Cycle Network.
The study will include detailed work in schools taking part in Sustrans' Bike It programme. It will also include the collection of data on cycle flows using cycle counters. Different measures of cycling activity will be determined by the particular focal points of the towns and city.
Andy Cope, Director of Sustrans' Research and Monitoring Unit said: "We are delighted to have been awarded the monitoring contract, along with our partners at Bolton University and Cavill Associates. The information we supply will be central to monitoring how the Cycling Towns and City are working; they have set themselves some ambitious targets and objectives and it is crucial for them to know how they are progressing.
The Cycling Towns are: Blackpool, Cambridge, Chester, City of Stoke on Trent, Colchester, Leighton Linslade, Shrewsbury, Southend, Southport and Ainsdale, Woking, York and the Cycling City is Greater Bristol. Plus the existing towns of Aylesbury, Brighton and Hove, Derby, Darlington, Exeter, Lancaster and Morecambe.
Sustrans is the UK's leading sustainable transport charity. Its vision is a world in which people choose to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment. It is achieving this through innovative but practical solutions to the UK's transport challenges.
Sustrans' flagship project, the National Cycle Network, is now around 12,000 miles and runs within one mile of 55 per cent of the UK population. During 2007 over 354 million trips were made on the Network. There are around 2,500 rangers helping to look after the National Cycle Network.
Source: Sustrans
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Sustrans to count cycling in flagship cities and towns
