Walk and Cycle

Izzy S: Hello and welcome to the Carbon Copy Podcast with me Isabelle Sparrow and today’s special guest host Izzy Romilly, from Possible. 

Izzy R: Thanks for having me. 

Izzy S: We’re back with another episode of our series, Do Something Bigger, the podcast to accompany our year-long campaign 25 Big Local Actions in 2025. Carbon Copy is a charity all about working together to take action for climate and nature and importantly doing so in a way that will make the biggest impact in the place where you live or work. Today’s episode is called Walk and Cycle, but if that topic doesn’t move you, yes the puns have already started, then do come back next time when we’ll be focusing on another big local action. 

Izzy, lovely to have you here. Please can you tell us a little bit about Possible and the work you’re doing around active transport? 

Izzy R: Sure, so we’re Possible, we’re a climate action charity and our vision is a zero carbon Britain that’s built by and for everyone and our work really focuses on things that communities and households and individuals will need to do to help the UK get to net zero but also focusing on the structural and the policy environment that’s going to make those things easier and more affordable for people. So that’s things like energy efficiency, taking the train instead of the plane, getting things repaired instead of buying new and of course walking and cycling and we have a really big focus on positivity and fairness and solutions. So when it comes to transport, transport is the biggest and the most stubborn chunk of the UK’s emissions at the moment and we really need to see really steep reductions in transport emissions to get us to net zero and despite all of the media circus and the culture wars this is actually really positive stuff so we’re talking about less traffic, safer streets, cleaner air, healthier lives, lower transport costs, what’s not to love and there’s massive massive public support for all of these things. Even people who drive want less traffic which is why walking and cycling is so important. 

Izzy S: Yeah absolutely, I mean you know I don’t think anyone loves traffic but people do definitely love cars and I guess that’s the kind of the big mind shift that we need everyone to make is you know you can’t have lots of lovely cars if you don’t have lots of lovely traffic so. 

Izzy R: Yeah definitely. 

Izzy S: I want to just share some stats about walking and cycling, to give our listeners a sense of how important this action is. First up, how much money do you think the NHS could save if we doubled the number of cycling journeys in the UK? 

Izzy R: I don’t know but I think it’s going to be quite a lot, definitely millions a year. 

Izzy S: Well it is millions but it’s more than that. It’s actually £8 billion over 20 years. 

Izzy R: Wow it’s so much money but at the same time I’m not really surprised to hear that. What’s really interesting about the economic side of this is that right now our reliance on driving means that we’re spending billions on propping up car dependency, we’re still investing in it for the future whether it’s road collisions, whether it’s air pollution, whether it’s sedentary lifestyles. We’re still thinking about spending billions on new road schemes like the Lower Thames Crossing or Hammersmith Bridge that only lead to more traffic in the long run. So I think it’s so important to highlight actually when we invest in walking and cycling we’re investing in the NHS and in the economy as well. 

Izzy S: So doubling cycling journeys in the UK would also save 1.7 million tonnes of emissions every year so that’s a really, really big action and something that you know would make a huge, huge difference. 

You’re involved with the London Cycling Campaign’s Women’s Network which is partly what we spoke to our first guest about. Can you give us a little bit of background about the network before we hear more from Mariam? 

Izzy R: Sure, so the London Cycling Campaign’s Women’s Network was set up a few years ago and London’s a really interesting one because on the one hand we’ve got well over 600 kilometres of cycle lanes in London now which is great progress even though it’s still nowhere near enough but across London as a whole more than two-thirds of those journeys by bike are still being taken by men and so we were really interested in finding out why and we know there’s obviously a much bigger picture of all of the different inequalities in transport. We know there’s gender inequalities but there’s also inequalities when it comes to ethnicity, disability, income and so we know that different groups have different unique needs and perspectives when it comes to walking and cycling and the Women’s Network was set up to help give women a platform to connect and to amplify some of those issues that the women face. 

Izzy S: So here’s Mariam talking about her role within the London Cycling Campaign and why she wanted to get involved. 

Mariam: Yeah I’m originally from the Netherlands and I moved to London in 2008 and obviously cycling was something I’ve always done but when I was here I kind of realised that it’s not the same everywhere and that it’s a whole different ballgame here in London specifically. I think it’s the perception of cycling which I found was very different where in the Netherlands and in other European countries it’s more of an active travel tool and people just use it to get around. Here, it’s really, or had at the time when I came here, still a lot of the sports kind of perception it was seen as a sport. That’s gotten a lot better over the years but it’s still kind of that people feel it’s more sport than an active travel tool in many ways. 

It is also in a way slightly borough dependent on where you live and where you cycle because it’s a bit different in different areas of London, but yeah generally it’s a safety thing and I think that’s where we really need to work on it it’s a lot infrastructure related as well because a lot of infrastructure is really, I wouldn’t say geared towards men, but geared towards commuting into the city where women often do a lot of different kinds of journeys like bringing their children to school or you know doing the groceries they often tend to work more locally as well and just do different types of journeys where the infrastructure we have is not necessarily useful. 

Izzy R: Yeah I think it’s really interesting how cycling has been and has been seen as a really exclusive thing and you know people have those worries about I’m going to need an expensive bike, I’m going to need fancy kit and all of this equipment and I’m going to be really unusual and people might think I’m a bit weird and I think it’s really nice that we’re seeing that culture start to change and I think also what Mariam was saying about being from the Netherlands is really interesting as well because I think it just shows that like culture does change and actually the Netherlands didn’t always have this reputation for being a cycling country but it’s because they invested in lots of different infrastructure and schemes and now they have that global reputation for being like the the global capital of cycling. So I think it just shows that when you invest in cycling actually the culture can change. 

Izzy S: This was also something that came up when we chatted to Katie and Rosie, two volunteer bike bus leaders from grassroots cycling organisation Bike Worcester. Here’s Katie with her thoughts: 

Katie: I started cycling in summer 2020. I was living in London and working during the pandemic in a school and the safest way for me to travel to school at that point because public transport didn’t feel like an option was to cycle and so I was dragged to my bike by my husband to be fair incredibly reluctantly and with an awful lot of fear and trepidation to be honest and embarrassingly it wasn’t actually a very long journey it was about seven kilometres I discovered once I started doing it and it helped that it was during the pandemic because there were much fewer you know many fewer cars and less traffic and some areas of where I was cycling in London had been closed to traffic at that point so I was cycling every day to get to work that felt like a safe thing to do, and then shortly after that we moved to Worcester and the infrastructure and the setup of the city Worcester is quite a small city it really is ideally suited for walking cycling and in theory public transport but those networks and those links just aren’t here we live about two miles out from the city centre and our choices of how to travel were so limited to essentially just the use of a car and I was frankly really cross about the fact that I was I was being denied of any other choices there weren’t buses running I didn’t feel at that point safe necessarily on a bike my children were young so I couldn’t walk even if I decided to walk a couple of miles into the city centre but that wasn’t an option at that point. 

Izzy R: Yeah I think it is so interesting what Katie’s saying about how travel behaviour shifted during the pandemic it just shows how quickly we can make a change when these kind of you know bad external circumstances have kind of forced us to do that but I think it just shows that we need to change the built environment we need fewer cars on the roads to kick start that kind of virtuous cycle of taking a little bit of public space away from private cars so that we can have safer space for walking and cycling. 

[Music, interlude] Izzy S: Do you know someone who loves a bit of cycling or walking? Perhaps they’d like to help get more people on from A to B, fossil free! Well, if so, why not share this episode of the pod with them, or send them to Carbon Copy’s website, where we’ve got loads of useful information and links to get the wheels in motion…. pun very much intended! 

[Cut music] 

Our next guest, Joe Durbidge, is some you connected us with, Izzy, and has been involved in a really important campaign you guys at Possible have been working on, called Hot Wheels. Just before we hear from Joe, do you want to give us a bit of a run-down (maybe that should be pedal down actually…) about the campaign? 

Izzy R: Sure so Hot Wheels is a research project and campaign that colleagues at Possible came up with and it’s basically all about better understanding the needs and experiences of couriers especially on-demand food delivery workers. So if you’re in pretty much any city in the UK a lot of the cyclists that you’re going to see out and about are people who are working for on-demand food delivery apps like Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber Eats etc. We worked with IWGB the union to basically better understand how couriers were experiencing the roads what their transport choices were what the issues they were facing on the roads were and going forward we want to use that to essentially advocate for safer streets. 

Izzy S: Great, so let’s hear a bit more from Joe now. 

Joe: I work at the IWGB which is a trade union that represents mostly kind of precarious workers people on the kind of edge of formal employment that includes a lot of gig economy workers so I used to be a courier myself in the gig economy, a bicycle courier for about four years full time and I did it part time but presently I work at the union doing research. One of the issues is what kind of obstacles are people that are working as delivery couriers people that are working on their bikes and mopeds in cities what obstacles do they face in transitioning to greener vehicles effectively. There are a number and mainly they’re financial which is that people are working in very low paid conditions in very sort of precarious conditions and the gig economy is an industry which relies on workers paying for their own vehicles that’s what it is by definition and so that is a huge obstacle to making a kind of climate transition because people can’t afford to make those decisions often and there are certain obstacles such as if they don’t have the right range and people are being forced to work extremely long hours which is very common in the gig economy they’re unable to make decisions that we might collectively and socially want to make and so it is kind of a report that sort of took on board those problems and kind of thought about some solutions that we might want to move towards. Presently the biggest problem is that the apps have been have been able to get away with building a monopoly in our cities whatever markets they work in and basically just taking rent from transactions that happen on their apps and not really investing in infrastructure at all that’s kind of the main basis for the gig economy really is just to pass on costs to workers and I think that’s the critical thing that needs to be challenged and I think a much broader group of people than those of us organising in the space can recognise that’s something that’s having an effect on us all because it’s reducing the ability for us to transition into more electric vehicles for instance whatever it may be. 

Izzy S: It’s really really frustrating hearing Joe talking about this and hearing about how these huge multinational companies are operating and the thing that really I guess is shocking but not that surprising is that you know big companies actually companies of all sizes legally need to be thinking about how they’re reducing their emissions how they’re reporting on their emissions how they’re addressing climate issues most companies now have policies around that have a plan around that and yet these huge huge companies that are employing or not employing these gig workers kind of seem to be avoiding any responsibility because of the way they operate and you know everything gets passed on to their workers. Do you have any sort of thoughts about how that is even allowed to happen? 

Izzy R: Yeah I think that that model of basically having lots and lots of flexible freelance contractors means that you’re kind of pushing away a lot of that responsibility around how people are around how your business model is really working you’re outsourcing a lot of those costs and those risks and the level of I think security and support that people will get in return is less than what they would have if they’re employees and these companies don’t want to have employees some of them have fought legal battles on that and I think there’s lots and lots of problems associated with that and just one of them is the fact that like Joe was saying wages are really low and actually for these food delivery apps if you think about the emissions associated with their deliveries that they’re essentially organising, one of the biggest ways that they could clean up their operations and cut their contributions to air pollution is by enabling a transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric mobility wherever they can. So that means opening up affordable accessible ways for people to transition from let’s say it’s a petrol or a diesel motorbike to a safe and legal e-bike but for a lot of people individually and this is what some people told us during the research it’s just not feasible right now and partly that’s because of the very long hours that some people are working to make a decent wage means you can’t really do that on a bike and then it’s also the cost if you don’t have the capital to invest in a legal e-bike which can set you back thousands then you’re kind of stuck there’s this twin problem of low wages and also not providing the finance for the green transition. There are examples of how companies can start addressing that as well so in New York there’s actually a trade-in scheme that we heard about recently where people can trade in a vehicle and get a legal e-bike which is great so there’s those kinds of I think initiatives are you know just starting to pop up and we’d love to see something like that in the UK as well. 

Izzy S: I think we should probably talk about what people can actually do locally either to build their own confidence in choosing active travel so choosing walking or choosing cycling or even better to boost the numbers of other people in their community making that choice. 

Izzy R: So as well as I work with the London Cycling Campaign Mariam also runs an amazing organisation called JoyRiders. Here she is explaining what it’s all about. 

Mariam: Our main aim is really getting people to take up cycling as part of the daily transport so that’s really the aim like the school run or you know going to work groceries whatever and we’re really working with the communities that are the least likely to cycle which are in a way women but specifically women from ethnic minority communities and I think overall within the cycle training community we have 90 to 95% female uptake and the rest is male to get the next generation cycling we got to reach the mums and we got to reach the communities who are not likely to cycle because they often see cyclists and they just don’t think it’s something they could do they come from communities where cycling just isn’t a thing or where often it isn’t a thing for women. Additionally, they have worries that they can’t cycle in the clothing they’re wearing or that they have to wear Lycra and you know all sorts of other fears amongst it but also it’s still seen as something very middle class which, I don’t think cycling is because cycling is really a wonderful low-cost way of getting around and often faster than public transport or the car. So we do a lot of outreach we do a lot of very specific sessions for specific small groups of people like certain communities who have language barriers whatever barriers are there we help them to overcome those so things like you know providing bikes making sure there’s enough bikes for people to use when they come, no limit to attendance if they walk in and didn’t sign up online then that’s also okay, so it’s very relaxed and very you know welcoming and friendly environment and that’s really important and we do learn to ride sessions and then we do also social bike rides where they can discover the infrastructure and can actually see that you know there are nice ways to cycle in London and you don’t have to take the main roads which you might would take in a bus or in a car and that’s part of it so really showcasing how easily you can get around in London by making it fun with you know having a couple of ride leaders on a ride and being with other women so you know kind of just having a good time we always have coffee and cake, very important!  

Izzy S: Yeah coffee and cake is super important, I feel like that should just be a fundamental part of every kind of initiative that there is. It’s that real focus isn’t it on repositioning cycling as a cheaper and easier choice and you know again rather than as a fitness thing but I think one thing that really stood out to me about what Mariam said was about the kind of infrastructure that exists in London. JoyRiders has branches in other places as well but you know it started in London and there are some really good safe routes around London there are cycle super highways there are off-road routes the infrastructure is pretty good. But it’s not like that everywhere in the UK and it’s definitely not the case in Worcester so here’s Katie and Rosie again speaking about how their initiative with the bike bus is helping. 

Katie and Rosie: How we do it and I think how lots of other people do it is you choose a day of the week and you just you’re just doing that every week you’re doing the same routes people know it’s there and we started just with my three children but there are bike buses in Worcester that are that are much much bigger that have like several routes that join together and they all end up at school together we call them a call on a bus like a bike bus because they often have several because we have a dedicated route the route is planned and it starts at one place and ends at the school and we have stops along the way often so that families can join at a place that is convenient to them and we’re really visible so we’ve got lots of pink high-vis that people wear we’ve got some big flags that go on the back of bikes so we and we make noise as we go like we often have music playing, so there’s you know you people can see that we’re there and it’s clear that it’s a bike bus. 

When we started the very first one it really was just um myself and Rob my husband said to said on our school have a WhatsApp group for each class and we said on the class WhatsApp group “we think it’d be a really great idea if the children could cycle together what a great way to start the day who’s in?” and I’m forever grateful to the three other families who to be honest I felt like were doing it to support us at that time more than anything else and they sort of thought yeah that’s novel that sounds fun my children would like that. And that very first bike bus the children were in reception or preschool so the very first one we ever did they were they were tiny little dots on their bikes um it was lovely and we did it once… and originally Rob and I had said we do this once a month and we did the first one and we thought “once a month is not enough! this is that was really fun that felt really good” like it’s such a buzz for the children to have that active start of the day they were really proud of themselves um it was really sociable uh we thought that’s not enough it’s got to be every week and we grew it from there from the idea that it was going to happen every week and as Rosie said we go every single week we always turn up for it doesn’t matter what the weather gets goes through winter it’s always there so we’re trying to really become a fixed part of the school community so that people can dip in and dip out as they as they want to. 

Izzy R: I really love the bike bus because I think it’s such a great example of people just taking it into their own hands like yes it should be so much safer to cycle you should not have to be worrying about whether or not it’s safe for your kids to cycle to school but at the same time in the meantime while we wait for the streets to be safer I love the idea that people can get together take up space get out in a group have that kind of feeling of like safety and numbers um just start the day like what Katie and Rosie were saying it sounds like a party like it just sounds like so much fun and you know kids to be able to have that time together and be active in the morning I think it just it just sounds like they’ve turned something very daunting and very scary into something really fun and enjoyable that you know lots of different families are benefiting from so it’s such a I think it’s such a like feel good story, the bike bus. 

Izzy S: I think one of the things that we kind of keep coming back to is around you know people’s motivations for taking action and we as a climate charity I think sometimes get a little bit bogged down with the idea that people are going to do things because they want to reduce carbon emissions or because they want to protect the environment, but actually people’s motivations are quite often more sort of about their specific needs than that so it might be that they are struggling with money it might be that they have health issues it might be that they are really really busy. I think a lot of it is about kind of understanding what is convenient what is easier for people and then how to show that the particular action that we want people to take is actually easier and more convenient for people. There’s also something to be said as with so many of these big local actions for the co-benefits of a walking or cycling initiative Katie and Rosie from Bike Worcester told us about this. 

Katie and Rosie: I hadn’t anticipated just how beautiful it was when children from different classes or different year groups were cycling together parents getting to know each other that wouldn’t have known each other anyway and I think the community aspect of it was the bit was the really beautiful byproduct that I don’t think we’d expected. 

Yeah and I think also in having those conversations at school about bike bus and trying to encourage people to come join, has thrown up like what are the barriers to some families for cycling so I’ve really found that at our school we have struggled to grow the bike bus we’ve got we’ve got about five families which I’m really proud of and they’re really dedicated and they’re there every week but we have lots of families that that don’t own bikes or the parents have never learned to ride or they don’t have space to store a bike um or that yeah or there’s just that that perception of the danger and so I think it’s really good that as the wider work of Bike Worcester is trying to tackle some of those issues as well for the bike recycling project which has I’m sure provided plenty of bikes to children that have been able to join bike buses um because yeah we’ve got a really good working bike for them or we’ve found a bike for their parents so I think it’s been really good in that way as well just like deepening connections in the schools and really get to the bottom of why people don’t feel that they can cycle and then try and address some of those challenges. 

Izzy S: It’s really interesting to hear about the different reasons preventing people from taking up cycling and it’s great to hear about how Bike Worcester are breaking some of those barriers down. Mariam had some great advice for people who wanted to build their confidence in cycling, and didn’t know where to start. 

Mariam: Regardless of where you live, look up your local authority and look up what what is available because often it’s on local authorities’ websites, not the first place you were to look. But there is usually someone within the council who is in charge of, it’s called active travel officer or something like that. They, they should actually know if there’s already something in the area or can support with setting up something. And if you, if you’re not confident enough to start cycling on your own, again, look up your local authority because many, many in and out of London, they offer free cycle training for residents. And I think that’s a really great offer. So it’s well worth looking that up. And it’s very little known about, we all know about Bikeability in schools, which is a great scheme. But there’s also cycle training for adults available. And again, and if you can already cycle, it’s not just for people who can’t cycle. It’s also for people who maybe want to start commuting and helping them to find a safe route to work or with route planning, cycling the route with them once or so. So there’s lots available. And it’s, it’s really, I think the active travel officer in most locations is probably the best, best way to start if you don’t know about any other organisations. 

Izzy R: There’s so many different campaigns and organisations who are working on this at a local level at a national level both on the kind of building confidence and building community and enabling people to use the infrastructure that is there but also campaigning for that infrastructure to be much safer more inclusive more widespread etc, so if you’re curious about walking or cycling definitely have a look what’s out there like what’s near you and if you can’t find an organisation or even just like a you know local community initiative that is right for you then maybe you could start one. 

Izzy S: There are some fantastic organisations out there including those we’ve been chatting to in this episode that can provide support let’s have a listen to Katie and Rosie about where they would advise people to start.  

Katie and Rosie: I just would encourage people if there isn’t a bike bus near you then get in touch if you want any advice there are loads of other communities out there that are running bike buses there probably will be one that’s not too far from you and it’s just for me it was just having that conversation with Katie at the beginning but what is a bike bus how would you get them started that helped me so I think just reach out have a conversation with someone and don’t let anyone put you off. 

And we have a motto the motto is I’ll give you the edit friendly version which is, “just get stuff done”. Like if you see something and you want it to happen just go out there and do it.  You can seek forgiveness not permission when it comes to those sorts of things because if you see something that you think needs to be being done like get out there and start doing it and that’s really very much the whole Bike Worcester philosophy because we see things that we think need changing so what can we do to try and to try and agitate that and try and navigate those things and make it possible. 

Izzy S: So there you have it, just get stuff done! To finish this episode, we’re going to summarise what we’ve learned. 

Izzy R: I think what I’m really taking away is just that the massive focus on all the positive sides of walking and cycling that aren’t even necessarily related to climate change so even if you’re just looking to enjoy your day-to-day journey a bit more switch up your commute spend a bit more time with your kids whatever it might be um walking or cycling could be could be one way of doing that and I think I also feel like there is again just so much potential we know there’s a lot of public support in a lot of places for more walking and cycling so I think we just need to see the political will to match that as well. 

Izzy S: Yeah definitely I think um there’s a lot of potential and I think also I guess I’ve learned a bit more about some of the barriers as well or maybe just thought about some of the barriers a bit harder and learned about some of the brilliant initiatives like bike buses and like JoyRiders that are helping to break those barriers down. 

Izzy R: Yeah everyone needs to have safe walking and cycling options right from their home everyone needs to be able to access a bike or an e-bike if that’s what’s right for them there’s so much to do at the moment it feels like it’s just a bit of a postcode lottery um some places it’s really good and some places is almost unthinkable that you could get on a bike or walk to walk to your local shops or whatever but we do have the solutions and there’s so much to gain whether it’s in the economy in the NHS in in terms of like well-being so yeah we just need to get on with it. 

Izzy S: Get stuff done. 

Izzy R: Get stuff done. 

Izzy S: As usual if you’d like any more information about anything we’ve talked about, or to get in touch with Carbon Copy with feedback or suggestions, please check out the show notes for all the links you need. 

Izzy, thanks so much for your time today, it’s been great having you here and hearing about the work that Possible is doing around sustainable transport. 

Izzy R: Thanks so much it’s been great to chat about my favorite topic thanks for having me. 

Izzy S: You’ve been listening to Do Something Bigger, from the Carbon Copy Podcast. Today’s episode was written by me Isabelle Sparrow, and presented by me and Izzy Romilly, from Possible. Our producer and editor is Bradley Ingham. Thanks so much to our guests: Mariam Draaijer from JoyRiders and the London Cycling Campaign, Katie Collier and Rosie Venner from Bike Worcester and Joe Durbidge from IWGB. Our next episode is called Protect Our Shores – be shore to subscribe to the pod so you don’t miss it. Until then, goodbye!