13/06/2026
Cycling and active travel provides so many societal benefits and future savings…
This article is from Chris Boardman and its data relates to the UK.
Ours here 🇮🇪 would closely align though..
‘Imagine I told you there was a single intervention that could reduce annual sick days by 4.4 million, free up 1.7 million GP appointments, help millions of households save around £1,700 yearly, prevent 2,500 premature deaths and boost the economy by £115 billion.
In today's political climate, you'd be forgiven for assuming it would require a vast new programme, years of legislation and eye-watering levels of spending. But it requires something much simpler. It requires 5.3 million more people to be physically active.
Follow that thread a little further. What would those people need in order to become more active? Not gym memberships. Not fitness programmes. Not more willpower. They would need physical activity to become the easy option, built naturally into everyday life.
And what might that activity look like? It looks like children walking, scooting or cycling to school, perhaps independently. It looks like older people, or those less steady on their feet, being able to reach the local shop, bus stop or pharmacy safely. It looks like someone cycling a couple of miles to work or to a railway station instead of sitting in traffic.
These aren't niche activities. They are the journeys we make every day. One in four of them is less than a mile, seven in ten are under five miles. So the question isn't whether people would choose these options. The question is whether we provide them with a safe and practical way to do so. Excitingly, we already know what works because we can see it happening..’
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Imagine I told you there was a single intervention that could reduce annual sick days by 4.4 million, free up 1.
