With Harlow & Gilston Garden Town committed to active and sustainable travel across the local area in the future, HGGT has unveiled it’s Reimagining How We Can Travel Differently framework.
Working in partnership with Arup and designed to support HGGT’s award winning Transport Strategy, the framework sets out how the Garden Town’s modal transition objectives could be achieved through projects, schemes and interventions.
Writing in the framework’s foreword, Cllr Dan Swords, Chair of the HGGT Joint Committee, says: “We have already set modal shift targets for the Garden Town growth and now we must make those objectives a reality.
“Current data says 23% of people in Harlow use cycling, walking and buses as their primary mode of travel with HGGT looking to double that number across the town in the future, increasing to 60% for residents living in the new Garden Town communities.
“This framework gives us the starting point, recognises we have challenges, and aims to be genuinely pioneering in its approach.
“Prioritising active travel also comes with huge health benefits for the wider population.
“Not only will it reduce air pollution from vehicles but increases physical activity, helping combat obesity and all of the diseases associated with it, enabling our entire community to lead longer and healthier lives.
“The palette of possible interventions is vast; the transport sector is going through significant and rapid changes and demographically, attitudes are changing alongside working patterns.
“With this comes the opportunity to do something significantly different on the concept of active travel and provide alternatives for people.
“We will use this work to open conversations with both Government and developers and ask that they join with us to collate a catalogue of information that highlights how modal transition can happen in an urban/rural area.
“Our aim is to show the transformative effect of this approach, as a key enabler for the wider regeneration of the Garden Town, and a catalyst for sustainable economic growth.”
Click here to read the Reimagining How We Can Travel Differently framework in full.
