Accelerate the Bee Network
We continue to ask for better governance for and a faster pace of delivery of the Bee Network. You can find out more about our asks in our Bee Network Manifesto. Now that the decision to allow bikes on trams has been agreed, we will continue to push for the delivery on all 147 trams in 2026/2027 to support the ‘first mile’ approach. As the GM Transport Strategy for 2040 is being refreshed for 2027, we will be campaigning for more ambitious right mix targets and for those targets to be broken down more specifically by district council.
We will also be making sure that active travel goals are front and centre of any manifesto for candidates standing for elections in the May 2026 local elections. You can find out who your candidates are from the Who can I vote for website.
Home to school travel
Home to school travel also features high on our list. We support the proposed GM School Strategy. Now that 9 of the 10 councils in GM have the powers to enforce moving traffic offences, we will continue to lobby for them to use those powers for more permanent School Streets across Greater Manchester, enforced through ANPR cameras, rather than volunteers. We will also continue to campaign for more officer resource at a GM and local council level to support and co-ordinate School Streets and wider interventions that encourage walking, wheeling and cycling to school. We will also work to bring together and share examples of best practice across GM so that each local council and school is not ‘reinventing the wheel. We also want to see more safer routes for home to school travel and support the GM Safer Routes to School project.
Pedestrian Manifesto
Making it easier and safer for pedestrians also stays as one of our key campaign priorities. Too often roads space is disproportionately allocated to vehicles with little priority give to those walking and wheeling. We want to see less obstacles on pavements and footways such as barriers and street furniture, an end to pavement parking, shorter waiting times for pedestrian crossings and better uses of infrastructure such as size road zebras.
As the government starts to roll out its new devolved approach to restricting pavement parking, we will campaign to make sure each GM local authority uses their new powers to make pavements accessible and safe for all.
We will continue with our legal challenge for discriminatory barrier removal across GM. You can find out more in our Pedestrian Manifesto.
Vision Zero
We support the GM Vision Zero strategy and action plan.
We aim to support its ambition for Greater Manchester to have zero fatalities and life changing injuries on our roads by 2040 whilst increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.
Expanding our reach and support
In 2026, we plan to continue extending our reach and support across GM by collaborating with other aligned community groups and encouraging more people to set up their own local area Walk Ride groups, particularly in the north of the region.
We aim to ensure more voices are heard from a more diverse range of active travel campaigners. We will do this by telling their stories through our videos and blogs. We will also host events to bring people together to share knowledge and ideas.
We aim to more rapidly grow our influence both politically and across Greater Manchester’s communities – with more funding we could maximise the positive impact of Walk Ride GM on the region and beyond.
There are currently some overheads to sustain our voluntary activities, such as Cycling UK affiliation to ensure Public Liability Insurance at events, promotional materials and videos to spread the word, and other ongoing administration and technology running costs.
This year we will be using the funds we have received from our supporters to bring in extra resource to undertake a number of the day-to-day tasks that will expand our influence and support and engage our local groups.
If you are able to support us financially, you can donate via this link