ON YOUR BIKE?

With £1.25m emergency funding to support ‘active travel’ post-lockdown in Herts, are we ready to embrace cycling,walking and scootering as our go-to transport?

- Richard Burton

There’s hardly been a corner of the county that hasn’t been walked on, jogged across or cycled over in the past few months as we locked down, avoided the trains and left our cars on the drive.

And there’s growing impetus behind attempts to ensure that continues, thanks to a £2bn government initiative driven – ifI can use the term – by Transport Secretary and keen cycle enthusiast, Welwyn Hatfield MP Grant Shapps.

The first £250m of funding which is currently being shared among councils nationwide is for ‘emergency active travel’ plans – among other things, pop-up bike lanes, wider pavements, safer junctions, some streets closed to traffic and a voucher scheme for cycle repairs to encourage people to stick to two wheels.

Government trials of e-scooter hire were also brought forward to see if they are a viable way for people to make short journeys in towns and cities. Reflecting on the rapid pace of events around the pandemic, legislation came into effect on July 4 allowing local

authorities to run or give licenses for e-scooter hire as part of the 12-month trials. The vehicles are banned on pavements, limited to 15.5mph and it is recommended riders wear helmets. Riders must also be 16 or over and need a provisional car, motorcycle, or moped license. The use of privately-owned e-scooters in public will remain banned.

Such announcements have been broadly welcomed by local cyclists and conservationists alike after months in which a combination of furlough and fine weather saw an unprecedented boom in riding and running.