The UK’s public health is being directly harmed by anti-cycling coverage in parts of the media, Chris Boardman, who heads the government’s main active travel organisation, has told the Guardian.
Boardman, a former champion cyclist and businessman, leads Active Travel England (ATE) and is at the forefront of government efforts to help people switch from car trips to healthier and more sustainable travel.
Set up in 2020 by Boris Johnson to help councils to create well-designed schemes, ATE endured a difficult time as Rishi Sunak’s government battled against bus lanes and 20mph limits as well as low-traffic neighbourhoods.
While this culture war has abated since the election, Boardman says that pushing for better walking and cycling routes remained “very politically noisy”, which could particularly put off local politicians.
Boardman is openly angry about what he sees as misleading media coverage that presents cyclists as reckless and dangerous when, in a statistic he uses regularly, more Britons are killed by cows or lightning every year than by bikes.
“At the moment we have a very consistent, non-evidence-based, negative narrative to stop any change. It is stopping people wanting to put their heads up and do difficult things,” he said in an interview.
“It needs people with courage to stand up and say: ‘This is not in the public interest. I want my kids to be able to get to school under their own steam.’ Just 211 miles from here [in the Netherlands], 66% of kids do get around under their own steam, and our children are being denied that.”
Keir Starmer’s government has pledged to tackle the underlying causes of preventable ill-health, including inactive lifestyles and weight, and Boardman is clear that travel has to be part of this: “From a health point of view, active travel is how you reach a nation – you change the way people move around every day. That’s the only way you’re going to really help.”
Much of this is focused around integrating public transport with walking and cycling. In a former role as Greater Manchester’s transport commissioner under Andy Burnham, Boardman helped the region to develop its own unified scheme, the Bee Network, with other metro mayors now being given powers to do the same.
One way to avoid the culture wars about walking and cycling, Boardman said, was to frame them as: “This is your customer base for public transport.”
He said: “If your first step is a bit shit, it leads to the car door, and then it doesn’t matter what you do. Active travel is the foundation of a thriving public transport network, even if it’s just walking to the bus stop.”
Boardman’s current life spent lobbying ministers and officials is one he concedes would have been a surprise to his younger self, but it also echoes the lessons he learned from elite sport.
A pioneer in using data and aerodynamics to go faster on a bike, Boardman’s 1992 Olympic gold on a futuristic carbon fibre-framed bike launched years of subsequent UK cycling success, often based on technical innovation and other so-called marginal gains.
Two years later he took the yellow jersey in his first Tour de France with a meticulously planned performance in the opening time trial that was so dominant it is widely credited with starting a new era in the race.
Still more significant, Boardman said, was his post-racing move to lead research and development for the UK Olympic track cycling squad, heading what was unofficially known as the Secret Squirrel Club.
“I learned to look at the demands of the event rather than history of it,” he said. “When I work with councils now to build bike lanes, it’s the same philosophy as working in a wind tunnel with athletes – how do you get people to want to do things differently?”
This attention to detail meant the eponymous bike brand that Boardman co-founded also became a huge success, with Halfords buying the company in 2014 for more than £10m.
By this time he had begun another new chapter, as a public advocate for everyday cycling. This began more or less by accident, Boardman recalled, after he was invited to appear on Newsnight in 2012.
“I was ostensibly there to talk about the Olympics, but they started asking: ‘Don’t you think all these bikes should pay road tax?’ I started to get a bit pissed off. But I realised what a soap box I had,” he said.
This led to the role under Burnham, and then to ATE and his other role chairing Sport England. The two quangos are devoted to inspiring physical activity in various ways.
Will all this eventually improve the nation’s health, sceptical media coverage or not? Boardman does have Chris Whitty on his side. As well as being an adviser to ATE, as England’s chief medical officer Whitty has spent years briefing ministers to take action about preventable illness. “He’s a major supporter, because he gets it,” Boardman said.
The government is now also seemingly signed up – but these are early days: “All I can say for sure right now is that the right conversations are happening about doing the right things, and it’s in train. But it hasn’t happened yet.
“Yes, it needs money, but it needs consistency more than anything. After the period we’ve just had of massive change in people and policies, it’s harder than ever to get people to go, ‘OK, this is here to stay.’”
