Bike Life is thriving in the Welsh capital with the number of trips by bike increasing by over 25% in just one year according to a pioneering new report from sustainable transport charity Sustrans developed in partnership with City of Cardiff Council.
The report, part of one of the biggest surveys ever conducted on attitudes to cycling in the UK shows:
- 11.5 million trips are made by bike in Cardiff every year.
- nearly six in ten residents believe that the city is a good place to cycle.
- considerable support for increasing levels of cycling with around three quarters of those living in Cardiff (74%) believing that things would be better if people in general cycled more.
- two thirds (67%) think that more cycling would make their area a better place to live.
- strong support for higher levels of investment in cycling, with 78% of those questioned favouring increased spending – a statistic which was broadly replicated across the UK.
- there is potential for 55% of people in Cardiff to begin to ride a bike or ride their bike more.
The figures come from the groundbreaking Bike Life Survey, which tracks the travel habits and opinions of thousands of people across Cardiff and six other UK cities: Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Greater Manchester and Newcastle
In the biggest survey ever conducted on attitudes to cycling in the UK, three quarters (75%) of people want national governments to invest more in making cycling safer.
Independent research commissioned by charity Sustrans and seven leading cities across the UK reveals that the 11,000 people questioned wanted on average £26 per person to be spent on cycling annually, as part of the £300 per person currently spent on transport.
In Cardiff the typical person questioned thought £24 was right.
This would be a considerable leap from current levels of investment which include £4 per person in England to £12 per person in Scotland.
Even people who don’t ride a bike recognise the importance of building bike lanes and funding other projects to boost cycling: 71% of those who said that they never used a bike still backed an increase, rising to 87% among those frequently riding a bike.
Support was consistently high across all demographics, including older people aged over 75 who are the least likely to ride a bike, at 65%.