Covid 19 and Cycling - How you can help

There's no doubt we live in unprecedented times. We face a huge challenge to change the way we travel to school, work and the shops in order to keep ourselves and those we love save. This means huge and rapid changes to our roads to create safe space for cycling and walking so that people can get where they need to safely and confidently. People of all ages are returning to cycling or taking it up for the first time.

Everyone is facing at least one challenge of some sort at the moment (we're no different) and we're really heartened by how many people are getting in touch to offer to help make sure that people can safely walk and cycle and enjoy the benefits of improved air quality, better health and economic benefits for local shops and businesses that comes with that. So we've put together a list of ways that you can help. 

Response to “Merton’s Active & Healthy Travel Response to Covid-19” Plan

On 2nd May Merton Council published their Strategy to implement measures to repurpose roadspace to facilitate walking and cycling to accommodate the tenfold increase in cycling that is expected as a result of the travel challenges presented by Covid-19. We’re pleased Merton Council has recognized the consequences of worsening air quality, road danger and congestion that will be caused by increased motor if they fail to act swiftly at this time. However, their proposals need to go further, faster if we are to meet the challenges we face. We have submitted a response to Future Merton, and this is set out below. You can read Merton's proposals and suggest a location where the Council could take action, by emailing future.merton@merton.gov.uk.

We note and support Merton’s acknowledgement that these changes are necessary not only to meet the immediate Covid-19 imperatives, but also to meet longer-term goals on air quality, climate action and public health. We fully back Merton's stated intention to make permanent improvements to cycling infrastructure to support the required modal shift to active travel.

But we have a number of concerns with the Council's proposals, which don't go far enough, fast enough.