The future is bright; the future is active travel

The growing preference among commuters for active travel solutions has been slowly reshaping commercial real estate for several years. The combined influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and renewed appetites for meaningful climate action seem set to push it further up the agenda. Distributed working, the blend of home, office and on-the-move working, has become a widely accepted concept. It is now fully mainstream and resolutely here to stay. And various data show that active travel – particularly micro-mobility commuting – has surged during the pandemic, caused in part by widespread reluctance to use over-crowded public transport. The high street, already under pressure across much of the developed world, has also been heavily impacted over the past 18 months. We have yet to see how changing relationships with public transport might affect town and city centres as they emerge from lockdown. Both the means by which people travel into urban centres and what they do once there seem likely to fundamentally change. This is plate-tectonic stuff.

Remit Consulting’s ReTour series has taken us around the world, picking up on these themes. We started our journey thinking about the impact of cycling on the development of office facilities. We ended the series of webinars considering active travel and its role in real estate development more generally. The experience has reinforced the importance to cities, planners, developers and occupiers of targeted responses to this globally disruptive moment in personal mobility. So, what have we learned so far on our tour across the globe?

Well, as you would expect, appetites for active travel and responses to the climate emergency vary from country-to-country and city-to-city.

Japan is not far behind Northern Europe in terms of bicycles owned per capita. With 0.55 bikes per person (compared to the Netherlands’ 1.25), it ranks sixth in the league table of bicycle owning nations. Similarly, by bike journeys as a proportion of overall travel activity, Japan ranks third in the world, behind only the Netherlands and Denmark. Its great active travel culture means that parents are regularly seen cycling their “tanks” (sturdy electric bikes), often with children in tow, to and from offices, schools and shops.

Japan also has a more tolerant approach to active travellers: shared pedestrian and cycle paths are very common and are generally safe spaces for all users. That being said, there is an overall shortfall in active travel infrastructure when measured against demand. Furthermore, according to Chad Feyen of The Cycling Embassy of Japan, some employers do not provide insurance cover for bicycles and actively discourage their use among employees.

Australia, despite having a culture of outdoor activity, is not blessed with a significant number of commuting cyclists. As such, End of Trip (EOT) facilities are not as common as in the UK – though they tend to be of high-quality where found. Elsewhere, 6.3% of commuters in Portland, Oregon use bikes, making it the USA’s most enthusiastic cycling city.

We are also seeing a trend towards car-free cities. The London Mayor’s Transport Strategy sets out ambitious targets for reducing reliance on the private car. The aim is for 80% of trips to be made by public transport, walking and cycling by 2041, compared to 63% today. Some cities are going even further; Oslo, for instance, is targeting an almost total mode shift away from the private car.

Many currently regard Paris as the stand-out European city in this respect. There, Mayor Anne Hidalgo is aspiring to great things. Paris now has over 1,000 km of segregated cycling routes, having added 50km in recent months alone. Its cycle hire scheme has hit record numbers, and it is estimated that 15% of all trips in Paris are now made by bike.

All of the above developments have serious implications for real estate and infrastructure. ReTour has shown the myriad ways in which cities are including active travel in their climate adaptation plans. We must, though, factor in behavioural changes forced upon us by the pandemic. Yes, there are more people on bicycles now than ever before, but will this translate into more commuter cyclists after the lockdown is fully over? Observers in both Birmingham and Manchester, the UK’s second and third cities respectively, certainly think so. Studies there have shown a potential rise of between 20% and 50% in the number of cyclists on the roads. Should it transpire, this will present a number of challenges to real estate owners and managers. If commuters are really shifting from cars to bikes, the demand for EOT facilities will increase sharply. And further questions will be asked of city planners and highways agencies. On the evidence of our discussions, nobody has yet fully embraced this opportunity. Real estate professionals will certainly need to.