"Given the huge economic, health and environmental benefits of cycling, the calls for a paradigm shift in transport policies which prioritise the introduction of incentives and measures to make cycling more attractive, have been steadily growing in recent years", stressed PES Group member Kevin Peel, member of the Manchester City Council (UK), at today's CoR plenary session.
He called for a new sustainable travel hierarchy and emphasised that "doubling cycling across the EU could create an additional 400 000 jobs in the cycling industry and through tourism and add over 200 billion euros in economic benefit across the EU through improved public health, less congestion, fuel savings, reduced CO2 emissions and reduced noise and air pollution. The EU must do more to promote cycling as green and efficient transport mode."
His draft opinion on an EU Roadmap for Cycling, which follows calls by Members of the European Parliament, non-governmental organisations, and the Luxembourg Declaration of EU Transport Ministers in autumn 2015 – which called on the European Commission to take steps to produce an EU-wide Roadmap for Cycling – received overwhelming support by the CoR members.
Underlining that "cities and regions are the principal players in shaping the conditions for tomorrow's urban and regional transport and mobility system ", his draft opinion puts forward a set of political recommendations to the European Commission, which is introducing a target to double cycling across the EU over the next 10 years (from currently approx. 7-8 % share of bicycle trips in the transport modal split to approx. 15); to establish minimum cycling infrastructure quality criteria for relevant projects co-funded with EU money; to develop national guidance documents, as well as a best practice database and knowledge exchange for the provision of cycling infrastructure; to include cycling in the EU Green Public Procurement criteria for transport; to better promote cycling as an option in multimodality solutions, to improve road safety regulations including the introduction of streets in urban areas with a default speed limit of 30 km/h (or 20 mph) and that take bicycles into account, as well as to call for Eurostat to develop a common data collection methodology and harmonised definitions for national data on bicycle use and the creation of a cycling focal point at the European Commission.
