Is COVID-19 a turning point for active travel in cities?

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ABSTRACT

The need for physical distancing in the midst of COVID-19 has laid bare the absurdities of transport in our public realm. With people confined to their homes the roads, which have dominated urban planning thinking, lie empty. Simultaneously the same people, allowed out of their homes to exercise, find that the space given to sidewalks, and near non-existent cycle ways, are not nearly enough to maintain physical distancing. In our piece we ask: Is COVID-19 a turning point for our urban transport systems and where the arguments made in favour of sustainable transport finally break through?

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© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

KEYWORDS:

• Cycling
• active travel
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander Nurse

Dr Alexander Nurse is a Lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Liverpool. His primary research interests relate to urban governance – specifically city and city-regional governance. He is the recent author of Rescaling Urban Governance (2020) which charts devolution reforms in the UK since 2010. His other research interests centre on urban cycling, and has a raft of research council funded activity in this area including the ESRC and Research England.

Richard Dunning

Dr Richard Dunning is a Lecturer in Housing and Planning at the University of Liverpool. Richard is an experienced housing and planning researcher, having led projects on housing and planning for MHCLG, the Greater London Authority, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, RICS, ESRC and Shelter Scotland. He is the Treasurer of the Housing Studies Association. Richard is currently leading an evaluation of temporary cycling infrastructure for DecarboN8.