Jake Shepherd is a local teacher who sold his car, switched to cycling and surpassed 1000 commuter miles at the end of last year.
In this blog for Harlow & Gilston Garden Town, Jake discusses how switching to active travel modes can support young people who have demanded that Governments act on climate change and demonstrate environmental stewardship.
I won’t deny that the vast majority of sixth formers I teach have at some point told me of their desire to pass their driving test and own their own car.
It is the norm. In a car-centric society, with a hamstrung public transport system and for many good reasons besides – who can fault these ambitions?
When I think back (less than a decade ago) to when I was a sixth former, I still recall the fault lines of that in-between age.
I was ardently political but not yet old enough to vote at the ballot box.
I felt mature and independent, yet I lived at home during a stage of my teenage years where family disagreements weren’t uncommon.
In truth, I was shouldering some responsibilities as a young carer and dependent which were beyond my years.
This probably compounded my desire as a late teenager, shared by many of my friends at the time, for greater freedom, greater responsibility and a ‘space’ to call my own.
Framed like this, young peoples’ aspirations towards car-ownership are completely understandable.
For some, be they young carers, young parents or young disabled people – private transport is a touchstone of their mobility and independence.
If I were a young woman, and indeed listening to how some of my own students’ (and others across the UK via Everyone’s Invited) confront sexual harassment – private transport offers an element of personal safety and a safe space free from street harassment which too often public transport does not provide.
That said, the sixth formers I teach today are from the same year groups who participated in, or at the very least witnessed, the ‘School Strikes for Climate’ movement in 2019.
A seismic world-wide movement, led by then Swedish student Greta Thunberg.
This once-in-a-generation event has politically charged a whole section of our society to take and call for drastic action to mitigate climate change.
Therefore, to suggest that today’s young people simply wish to lock themselves in their own cars and ignore the world is to completely miss the point!
Not challenging the status-quo over car-dependency within our communities would mean us quitting when it comes to addressing young peoples’ concerns.
Young people voice to me their worries around safety and their fear of crime.
Students are acutely aware of how inaccessible our transport systems are for disabled young people and young carers.
Heartbreakingly, students fear harassment when it comes to using public transport.
For me, as a teacher, a resident and aspiring local representative — it would be wholly irresponsible to not follow in the footsteps of our young people who have boldly demanded we act on climate change and demonstrate environmental stewardship.
The challenges pushing our young people towards car-ownership are not solely within the gift of governments and policymakers to resolve – they are collective challenges which we must each contribute towards solving.
Amidst the debate about modal-shift and sustainable transport, this crucial point is often lost — active travel will never deprive those who rely on their car of their mobility, independence or sense of safety.
In fact, radically investing in our transport systems and ensuring that at least 50% of local journeys are by active travel will ease congestion and make our local highways network even more usable for the road-users and emergency services who need it most.
I want to celebrate the fact that students’ and young people will play a pivotal role in achieving both Harlow Gilston Garden Town (HGGT) and the Government’s (Active Travel England) ambitions for 50% (60% within the Garden Town communities) of journeys within England’s towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2030.
Empowering our students and young people is the key to unlocking active travel.
In 2021, Sustrans (the UK’s largest sustainable transport charity) commissioned a YouGov poll that surveyed 1,305 students aged six to 15 years old across the UK.
Almost three fifths (57%) of students described the environment around their school as having too many cars.
In Harlow, achieving modal shift can start with the school-run, and show our young people that the adults in their lives are serious about their concerns and their future.
Air pollution is damaging our environment and everybody’s health.
Up to 36,000 early deaths are attributable to air pollution each year in the UK and road transport is responsible for 80% of the pollution where legal limits are being broken.
Sustrans’ 2021 YouGov poll again found that half (49%) of UK school students were worried about air pollution near their school.
Using the Address Pollution postcode checker, a check of Harlow’s nine secondary schools found that on average they were in the 68th percentile across the UK and air quality breached three World Health Organisation limits on safe air quality.
Active travel is a tangible solution to air pollution, and will lengthen lives here in Harlow whilst cleaning our air.
You might be wondering why HGGT is the key component in unlocking Harlow’s potential to be the active travel nexus of our region.
Why can’t Harlow simply meet these active travel targets without the development and strategic growth of our town?
Sadly, at the start of this month the UK Government announced a £200m cut to the active travel budget in England.
For me, this sends the wrong signal to students and young people who are looking up to those in power to do the right thing.
In the future, the solution at a national level must be multi-year settlements to secure long-term investment into active travel.
Fortunately, the nature and vision of HGGT’s strategic growth for Harlow means that we are less reliant on the government for funding of active travel than other towns in England.
This is because the development of the Garden Villages and future Garden Communities will require developers to contribute to active travel investment through agreed contributions with the planning authorities representing the HGGT council partnership.
Together these tools will empower communities, and in future our students and young people, to secure from developers long-term investment into our local transport systems and unlock active travel for Harlow.
