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Encouraging cycling in the West Midlands

We help to design cycling routes and promote cycling in the West Midlands. There are hundreds of miles of cycle routes in the region.

Our West Midlands Cycling Charter explains how we’ll:

  • promote cycling
  • build on cycling networks
  • increase funding for cycling

We want cycling to make up 5% of all trips in the region by 2023. Our Cycling Action Plan explains how we’ll make this happen. This will be an increase from 1% of all trips.

We are using major events to increase cycling levels. This includes things like HS2 and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022.

We’re talking to our partners and the stakeholders working on these projects. We want to make sure that cycling is part of their plans.

Promoting cycling and active travel

Active travel is cycling or walking. We want to encourage active travel in the West Midlands. We also want to make it easier for people to get cycling. We’re working with partners in transport and public health to do this.

We work with these organisations to encourage active travel:

We also want to reduce cycle crime. We’ll do this by:

  • holding bike security marking events
  • distributing bike locks 

West Midlands Cycle Hire

We have launched a new cycle hire scheme across the region. This is called West Midlands Cycle Hire. It will help increase cycling in the region. By August 2021 we’ll have 1,500 bikes and 170 docking stations. Some of the bikes (10%) will be e-bikes.

Serco is the operator of West Midlands Cycle Hire. The bikes have been made in Stratford-upon-Avon by Pashley Cycles.

The bike hire scheme is flexible. We can:

  • move docking stations for big events like the Commonwealth Games
  • geofence areas so people cannot ride hired bikes there (for example, if there is a festival)

We’re working to let people pay for cycle hire with Swift pay as you go and Swift Go. We are also integrating cycle hire into the Swift app.

We’ll monitor the scheme to see how we can improve it. For example, by adding cargo bikes or tricycles.

Find out about how to hire a bike from West Midlands Cycle Hire.

Building on cycling networks

We’ve got hundreds of miles of cycling networks in the region. We want to expand and improve them. Our Cycling and Walking Network plan explains how we’ll do this.

This includes the Starley Network. It’s named after the Starley family from Coventry, who were innovators of the modern cycle.

We’ve worked with local authorities to launch the network. It covers 500 miles of connected routes. We’ll keep extending it.

We’ve also improved the Birmingham and Wolverhampton canal towpath. We worked with the Black Country Consortium and Canal and River Trust to do this.

Consultations on cycling and walking projects and proposed infrastructure can be found at Commonplace. Our consultation plan is also available, to show how Transport for West Midlands and local councils plan to engage and consult with communities around the development of infrastructure.

The West Midlands Cycle Design Guidance sets out good practice in designing for cycling.