People in England are walking record distances, official figures show – but charities have said more needs to be done to get individuals on their feet.
According to government data, the average walking journey increased in length last year, even as most other forms of day-to-day travel continued to lag behind pre-pandemic levels.
However, the figures show that the Covid-era cycling boom continued to fizzle away, while the private car remained by far the most popular means of transport – leading experts to warn of a “mobility divide” in society.
According to the Department for Transport’s national travel survey, which analyses trips within Great Britain by residents of England, the number of journeys across all modes of transport increased by 6% in 2023 compared with 2022.
But despite a significant recovery from the collapse in travel during the height of Covid restrictions in 2020-21, the average distance travelled continued to remain 8% below the level in 2019, before the global health emergency.
Experts said campaigns to promote active travel and walking to school may have had some success, with 5% more trips now than in 2019. While the average number of walking journeys fell marginally last year compared with 2022, the average distance travelled on foot was 225 miles per person – the highest since the DfT survey began in 2002.
Virtually all walks were less than five miles, while 60% of multimodal journeys – those using more than one form of transport – started with a walk. Almost 90% of secondary school children and 80% of primary pupils walked to school where the distance was less an a mile. Overall, women walked further than men, and those in their thirties made the most journeys on foot, at 327 trips each over the year.
However, people in England averaged just 47 miles by bike annually, a 17% drop on 2022, and just over half the distance recorded in 2020, when Covid restrictions created a cycling boom.
Catherine Woodhead, the chief executive of the campaign group Living Streets, said: “It’s clear there’s work needed to help get more of us walking and wheeling. The government needs to invest in making streets both safer and more welcoming for everyone, and that includes an end to pavement parking.”
Car or van trips for drivers increased by almost 8% year on year, and by 12% for passengers. The AA said it “underlined the importance of the car for personal mobility”, while the RAC said it was “abundantly clear that the private car remains the mode of choice for journeys over a mile in length”.
The centre-left IPPR thinktank said the survey revealed a massive social divide and that the trends were incompatible with the UK’s 2030 carbon reduction targets.
Ranked by income, people in the lowest 10% travelled on average 4,400 fewer miles – 170 fewer trips – than those in the highest 10%.
Stephen Frost, a principal research fellow at IPPR, said the government needed a long-term plan to tackle inequalities based on car dependency. He said the transport system was “stacked against the poorest in society and many have limited, or no, access to healthy, sustainable and affordable ways to travel”.
Michael Solomon Williams, from the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “It’s great to see more people embracing walking as transport, but the plateau of cycling figures suggests more needs to be done to improve our cycle network … improving health and reducing the burden on NHS.”
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We welcome the findings from both surveys and will consider all active travel data as we continue to shape our long-term vision for cycling and walking across the UK.”