Caring for

Illustration for smarter sustainable travel

Outcome 5: Sustainable travel and transport

Before Covid-19, over 85% of visitors arrived to the Lake District by private motor vehicle, and this proportion has increased further since ‘lockdown’ restrictions have eased. The challenge for the Lake District is to be a place where everyone, regardless of wealth or ability is able to access, via different modes of transport, the national park sustainably.

Low carbon travel needs to be the obvious and most attractive choice for essential and leisure travel. The nation’s mental and physical health benefits from active travel in an inspirational landscape need to be secured.

What are we trying to achieve?

We will increase the rate of decarbonisation in travel.
We will increase opportunities for and use of sustainable and active travel.
We will make use of new technology and digital connectivity to reduce the need to travel and to market and create new sustainable travel opportunities.

Key transformative actions to achieve our ambitions

Advocate and support initiatives for multi-modal ticketing and enhanced connectivity from the West Coast Mainline between Penrith and Keswick and from Oxenholme and Windermere Stations.
Lobbying and working with relevant bodies and organisations to support proposals for funding and delivery of following rail upgrades:
1. Doubling of capacity on the Lakes Line.
2. Cumbria Coast Line improvements.
3. West Coast Main Line service stopping and capacity improvements. Direct services to/from London, Scotland and Manchester Airport.
4. Improved number of trains stopping at Penrith and Oxenholme and connectivity with HS2 to meet the needs of Lake District.
5. Station accessibility improvements on all lines, and in particular improved accessibility at Ulverston and Staveley.
Develop marketing and ticketing initiatives for all sustainable and active transport modes. All Partners to promote sustainable travel through their own communications.
Work in partnership to secure the decarbonisation of transport including:
1. Rolling out EV charging.
2. Support carbon reduction technology on buses, trains and water transport.
3. Secure funding for and delivery of rail improvements on the Lakes Line to deliver passing loop, and electrification or other low carbon technologies.
Develop high quality active travel measures including:
1. Develop cycle corridors and spurs and set out in CTIP Cumbria Transport Improvement Plan and Borderlands See More Lake District Project.
2. Develop a network of e-bike charging points.
3. Targeted traffic management in suitable locations through community pilots.
Work with communities to pilot sustainable travel improvements.

A number of additional actions we aim to deliver are identified in the list showing how we will deliver the Sustainable Development Goals.

Background information is available for this key challenge.

Our measures of success include:

Reduction in visitors stating car as their main mode to travel around by 15% on 2018 baseline.
Reduction in carbon from visitor travel of at least 10% on 2018 baseline.
Increase in number of people arriving in the Lake by bus and rail by 15% on 2019 baseline.
25% increase in use of monitored active travel routes on 2019 baseline.

Research priorities

What makes a holistically sustainable rural community (including research covering housing, employment, services and transport)?
Comparing attitudes and behaviour for visitors and residents in terms of how they would like to move around the park.
A cost benefit analysis of changing away from car dependency for businesses in the Lake District to address congestion and net zero.
By 2025, inform our practise with awareness of global innovation and change in the transport and mobility sector, specifically in relation to behaviour change and implementation.

More information can be found in the research framework.