Walk Ride GM
Words: Ian Pennington, RTPI Young Planners Vice Chair It’s been called the single most important thing that mayors can do to tackle climate change: prioritising the needs of pedestrians and cyclists over space for cars. In Greater Manchester, the active travel network – originally coined as the ‘Bee Network’, a moniker that has since also […]
Slowly but surely, steps are being taken across Greater Manchester to help make walking and cycling safer, easier and more attractive. And now, we’re aiming to support, champion, and encourage the best bits: Announcing… The Annual Walk Ride GM Awards Let’s celebrate the positive movement that’s happening en route to a connected network, highlight the […]
Many agree that the status quo is far from pedestrian-friendly in the Greater Manchester city-region. Often these are political choices about the allocation of our public realm to different modes of transport – large portions of this public space is given over to vehicles, with pedestrians kettled to one side. Walking 🚶is one of the […]
Walk Ride Blackley have prepared and submitted a petition for safer pedestrian access as part of an open letter to local councillors, along with community-led plans to highlight the issues that need attention. We’re asking Blackley and Charlestown councillors to improve pedestrians access between Old Market Street and Rochdale Road/Charlestown Road. You can add your […]
Walk Ride GM’s newest subgroup has already made strides towards safer streets in the Blackley area since forming in late 2021. Walk Ride Blackley was established by local residents in response to the car-centric status quo on the school run, to address antisocial driving and parking, and to generally be able to move more safely […]
Southeast Manchester community group Streets for People has published its response to the proposed permanent neighbourhood improvement scheme measures revealed by Manchester City Council (MCC) in December 2021. The group’s helpful guide assesses each subsection of the scheme boundary and offers considerations of what’s good, what needs to be tweaked, and what’s missing with the […]
The Heaton Chapel Active Neighbourhood is coming into the final weeks of its three-month trial period and the benefits of speed reduction, safer streets for walking and cycling, and greater accessibility have been experienced by many residents of the area. Outdated and illegal barriers such as kissing gates have been removed from access points to […]
Words by Jack Hunter (Walk Ride Whalley Range) Last week, Walk Ride Whalley Range supported two local primary schools to organise a school street for Clean Air Day. With permission from Manchester City Council (MCC), streets around each school were closed to traffic for drop-off and pick-up times (with exceptions made for residents, deliveries and […]
For March’s General Meeting, we invited more special guest speakers to provide updates on local campaigns, as well as tips and strategies from further afield. Opening up was Hannah Kettle, Zooming in from Leeds, where she is working for the charity Possible on the Car Free Leeds campaign. Initiatives as part this include parklets and […]
Words are important – particularly when trying to win hearts and minds. Many people regularly tell surveys they want healthier, safer movement through our streets, but sometimes encouraging those steps in reality requires the right choice of words that both demonstrate the universal benefits that can be possible and counter the bad faith arguments from […]
At our last General Meeting of 2020, Greater Manchester’s Cycling and Walking Commissioner Chris Boardman said that more than 30 Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs – also known as Active Neighbourhoods or Filtered Neighbourhoods) would be implemented across Greater Manchester during 2021. Here we have a look at the progress with some of those that are […]
To round off 2020, we hosted our second webinar-style General Meeting to provide everyone with a summary of progress with all things Walk Ride and invite guests from the active travel world whose campaigning and shared pursuit of healthier places has caught our eye. Mary Creagh (Chief Executive at Living Streets) Mary joined Living Streets […]