Almost twice as many boys as girls routinely cycle in the UK, a pioneering report on young people’s active travel has found.
The study, led by the charity Sustrans, also found strong support among children for measures to help them cycle and walk, such as dedicated bike lanes, slower traffic speeds and barring motor vehicles from outside schools.
In a UK-wide poll of children aged six to 15, 23% said they had cycled at least five times in the previous week. When this was broken down by gender, 28% were boys and 17% girls.
When children were asked if they were “someone who often cycles”, 17% of boys agreed, but just 8% of girls.
The figures come amid concern about activity levels in children, with recent studies finding more than half of children and young people in England failing to meet guidelines for physical exertion, a major risk for their long-term health. In this group, girls were less likely to be active than boys, especially as they become teenagers.
The new report, the Children’s Walking and Cycling Index, found a more positive picture for other types of active transport, with 86% of children having walked, wheeled or used a scooter in the previous week, 62% of them at least five times.
There was a much smaller gender gap for this, with 61% of girls walking, wheeling or riding a scooter at least five times, against 63% of boys, and little difference between primary and secondary age children.
The report nonetheless sounded the alarm over the discrepancy in cycling rates. While all active travel is good for long-term heath, long-term studies have shown these benefits are particularly marked when it comes to cycling, especially compared with walking.
Lily, a secondary school girl from Swansea, said she used to cycle around her neighbourhood but stopped because “it’s not really seen as cool, and we can be quite self-conscious about that”. A lot of cycling gear was “made for men instead of women”, she added.
However, a lot of the children surveyed supported the efforts to help them get on bikes, with 51% saying they would like to cycle more. Of those asked, 78% supported more separated bike lanes, 81% wanted more quiet paths for cycling, 70% backed slower traffic speeds, and 66% supported closing streets to motor traffic outside schools at pickup and drop-off times.
Rachel Toms of Sustrans, said: “Children want to cycle and expect our leaders to tackle the barriers stopping them. We’re asking local and national policymakers to act on children’s enthusiasm for cycling by making sure they invest in more traffic-free and quiet cycle paths so that more children feel safe to get on their bike and get all the lifestyle and health benefits cycling offers.”
At an event to launch the report, Chris Boardman, who heads the government’s new cycling and walking body for England, Active Travel England, told MPs and peers there was a need to act quickly.
“We are on track to be 35% less active by 2030 than we were in the 1960s,” he said. “There are just under 9bn more miles being driven around our homes than there were just 10 years ago. So we’re actually losing the space to give people a choice to do anything else.
“If we ask parents whether it’s OK to take parking from outside their house, a lot of time they will say no. But if we ask them. ‘Do you want your children to have transport independence, the freedom to stay at after school clubs?’ then they say yes.”
