SWBG blog

Women and active travel: lessons from our work with Sustrans

Our Training Lead, Heather Williams, discusses why the work we did with Sustrans is key to reducing inequalities in active travel.

Over the last few months, we’ve been working with Sustrans to look at how gender budgeting approaches can be used in the active travel field. Scotland has set out a vision for active travel to be ‘seen as the norm, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, or background’ [1]. While the Scottish Government has committed to spending 10% of the transport budget on active travel infrastructure, increased investment in active travel alone will not lead to the increased diversity needed to achieve their vision. 

There’s a theory that says we measure what we value. If we look at active travel policy from this perspective, what do we see?  

One of the strategic objectives in the Active Travel Framework [2] is ‘Reduced Inequalities’. Despite this, the outcomes and indicators focus on the need to improve the availability and safety of infrastructure for ‘all’ and on increasing the number of kilometres built.  

This tells us something about where the strategic focus is of those involved in designing the active travel strategy. It also highlights why the work we have carried out with Sustrans is essential.  

Our Women’s Survey [3] which looked at transport and active travel last year showed that: 

• Only 5% of those responding to our survey used cycling as a main mode of transport, this dropped to none for single parents. 

• 17% used walking/wheeling as the main mode of transport, this increased to 23% for single parents 

• 59% of respondents to the survey felt questions on access and safety of cycle routes was not applicable to them, 34% of respondents felt the same for walking and wheeling routes 

Those who completed our survey told us that the reason they didn’t walk, wheel or cycle for journeys is because routes didn't take them to where they needed to go, or they didn’t feel safe on the routes available. Our survey echoed what other research has found, that women are more likely to trip-chain engaging in multi-purpose and multi-stop trips related to caring and other household tasks. Those who completed our survey told us that current infrastructure does not allow them to undertake these journeys in the time available to them:

      ‘There are "nice" cycle routes but a lack of safe practical routes between shops, train stations & home etc.‘ 

      ‘No segregated cycle lanes anywhere I need to go. Nothing that connects me to even simple places like post office, shops, etc. Some cycle lane for leisure, but not far'. 

      ‘Kids go to school in next town to our home and I work in neighbouring local authority area so need to travel quite a bit to do school run and get to work'. 

To help ensure that as many people as possible benefit from spending on active travel, our work with Sustrans has highlighted it’s essential that: 

• We know our local communities and consider the journeys people take and how active travel can support them to do this. This means asking why people travel and where they need to get to and designing routes which support these journeys. 

• We design (and fund) community engagement processes to help hear from a diverse range of people.  

• We collect sex disaggregated data on those who take part in any community consultations or engagement exercises, so we know who we have heard from and who we haven’t.    

• We carry out Equality Impact Assessments in the early stages of any project to ensure that they are as accessible as possible. These should be reviewed and updated as the project progresses. 

• We ensure that active travel projects support people to undertake care related journeys. This means looking at investing in infrastructure to support people walking and wheeling as well as in cycling infrastructure. The design of these need to be based on providing people with as direct access as possible to the places they need to get to. 

• We consider women’s perceptions of safety in the design of active travel schemes using tools such as “safety audits and safety tours” as standard practice.  

• We invest in social infrastructure as well as physical infrastructure in order to grow the numbers from diverse groups who walk, wheel and cycle. Projects such as Women on Wheels are essential if we are to diversify those who benefit from active travel expenditure. We have to recognise that funding these types of programmes is as important as building the physical infrastructure.  

• We ensure there is space for people to stop and sit in the design of active travel infrastructure.  

As Transport Scotland take over some of the work which has been carried out by Sustrans, it is crucial that the learning from our work is taken forward and that those involved at all stages of delivering the active travel strategy are able to apply an intersectional gender perspective to address inequalities in active travel. If we continue to develop and design these projects as if they will benefit everyone without considering the need of specific groups, we will continue to embed inequality. 

References

[1] Transport and Travel in Scotland 2014 | Transport Scotland

[2] Key policy approaches to improving the uptake of walking and cycling in Scotland for travel | Transport Scotland

[3] Womens-Survey-2023-Transport-Report.pdf (swbg.org.uk)