Walking & Cycling

Walking is the only universal mode: everyone walks, regardless of their age, gender, and social status. Walking is also the absolute oldest way to travel from one place to another. It has been the first mode of transport for most of the history of mankind, up until the first half of the nineteenth century. Today, urged by the need to respond to the environmental and health threat related with excessive reliance on car use, local and regional authorities are slowly starting to re-address this forgotten transport mode by returning larger shares of public space to pedestrians and making walking in urban areas more comfortable and safer.

Similarly, cycling is associated with significant benefits in terms of health, decrease in local air pollution, reduction of the transport contribution to climate change and the contribution to a safer urban environment. By investing on cycling infrastructure and by promoting the bicycle as a sustainable, healthy and reliable mode of transport, local and regional authorities play an important role in increasing the cycling modal share.

POLIS supports the exchange on how best to achieve a higher modal share of walking and cycling while offering the highest levels of safety and maintaining a balance with other modes of transport. This is achieved thanks to the Working Group on Active Travel & Health.