This episode Laura and Adam talk to two guests from PJA, who happen to be this week’s sponsors, about rural active travel. Phil Jones is chairman at PJA and Ben Coleman PJA's technical director.

Active travel is sometimes associated with busy urban bike lanes and bustling city pavements. But rural areas’ transport needs are as, if not more acute. With fewer buses or rail services, and longer distances to travel along fast-moving country roads, people in small towns and villages tend to have few alternatives to the car. Rural car-dependence is high, rural transport poverty is higher. And while inter-urban paths connecting nearby settlements could offer transport independence from youth to old age, funding and delivering such connections can be fiendishly hard.

Laura also spoke to Joaquim Muntane, Technical Lead (Movement and Place) at Oxfordshire County Council about their plans to deliver a network of greenways linking 60 settlements with the city of Oxford.

PJA’s vision is to create better places through great design. They bring together place-led transport planning, civil engineering and environmental solutions, partnering with developers, landowners and national and local government to enable good growth in urban and rural places. You can find out more: https://pja.co.uk/

Some issues we covered in this week's episode:

Lives will be lost without better routes, say MPs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1elnwn09vno; from a Parliamentary debate on rural cycling: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-12-10/debates/C12E8986-6FA2-4C57-98B8-2FC6F289C627/RuralCyclingInfrastructure

Faversham's town-wide 20mph: https://pja.co.uk/2020/07/01/pja_faversham_20mph/

English cycle route standards, LTN 1/20: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycle-infrastructure-design-ltn-120

The planning and Infrastructure Bill https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-planning-and-infrastructure-bill/guide-to-the-planning-and-infrastructure-bill

Oxfordshire's Greenways Plan https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/oxford-greenways

Cambridgeshire Greenways plan https://www.greatercambridge.org.uk/sustainable-transport-programme/active-travel-projects/greater-cambridge-greenways

The decade-long B4044 path campaign https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/24718917.cycle-lane-oxford-step-closer-10-year-campaign/

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