Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.
Lilian Greenwood, whose Department for Transport (DfT) role includes road safety and active travel, said seeking to divide road users into categories was pointless given most people used different transport methods at different times.
Speaking to the Guardian after the announcement of more than £600m for new cycling and walking schemes across England, Greenwood condemned the way Conservative governments had moved from boosting cycling under Boris Johnson to clamping down on active travel measures when Rishi Sunak was prime minister.
Sunak’s government explicitly sought to present its transport policy as prioritising drivers over the needs of cyclists and others, a shift in tone accompanied by an occasional embrace of conspiracy theories about supposed efforts to limit driving.
Such an approach was “infuriating”, Greenwood said, and had potential repercussions for safety.
She said: “There are issues on our roads. I obviously spend a lot of time thinking about this in relation to the work that we’re doing in developing the road safety strategy, and some of it is about trying to create that culture of mutual respect between everyone using our roads.
“And I think it’s really damaging to that. We want to create a system that works for everybody. It’s really frustrating to see and it speaks to the mixed messages from the previous government.”
Asked if Labour believed there was a war against the motorist, Greenwood replied: “I think the opposition want to create some sense of that. But people are not one thing or another. A lot of people who cycle, also drive; a lot of people who drive, also walk or sometimes take public transport.
“So that’s not how we want our roads to be thought of at all. We want to build a system that makes journeys safer, easier and affordable for everyone, and that should be our starting point.”
While the Labour government has promised “unprecedented” levels of funding for walking, wheeling and cycling, there has been some criticism about a perceived lack of ambition on the issue.
Earlier this week, more than 50 groups connected to transport and public health urged the DfT to set specific targets for levels of walking and cycling in the upcoming third cycling and walking investment strategy, saying the current plans were too vague.
Greenwood, while not saying whether the eventual plan would include targets, said the consultation taking place on the strategy was a genuine chance to listen, and that she welcomed the groups’ input. “What campaigners want is for us to take active travel really seriously. It’s about long-term funding certainty so you can properly plan,” she said.
Greenwood, who chaired the transport select committee from 2017 to 2020, said putting in place a proper strategy for improved safety on the roads was “probably top of my list” in terms of priorities.
“Last year, roughly 1,600 people were killed on our roads, and 29,500 seriously injured, and that has been flatlining pretty much for the last decade,” she said. “That is unacceptable.
“We in the department don’t talk about road traffic accidents. We talk about collisions or crashes because 90% of those feature someone making a bad decision or a wrong choice. They’re preventable, and it requires determination, leadership and action to make a big difference to that.
“It’s quite shameful that the last government did so little to tackle that and didn’t have a proper road safety strategy.”
