Strava Metro update gongs Manchester as UK’s per capita cycling capital
New data released by Strava’s commuter focused Metro platform has placed Manchester as the UK’s per capita leader on cycling in the UK.
Efforts to make cycling more friendly in the northern city have been spearheaded by Transport Commissioner and former Olympian Chris Boardman and arteries with safe infrastructure appeared frequently in datasets. Oxford Road, Manchester Road and the Bridgewater Canal were most used.
Chris Boardman said: “It’s fantastic to see Greater Manchester leading the way on the number of commuters who chose to travel by bike and that’s before we have wide scale provision of connected routes. It’s no coincidence that the current number one route is Oxford Road which is where we have quality, segregated lanes in place. The appetite is clearly there to ride when it feels safe.
“As we roll out the UK’s largest cycling and walking network, we’ll be enabling even more people to leave the car at home and get to schools, shops and workplaces under their own steam. I’m looking forward to seeing the numbers rocket.”
With its 400,000 recorded Strava Metro commutes, Manchester’s lead is narrowly ahead of Bristol, Newcastle, London and Cardiff as the most popular cycling cities per capita in 2021.
Nationwide, the picture presents some interesting data on emissions, a subject in focus off the back of the COP26 Climate Conference. This year alone, 13,000 carbon tons were saved by cycle commuters, which is a carbon offsetting equivalent to planting 650,000 trees, or to taking 6,500 cars off the road for a year. This is modelled on the US EPA estimate and is based on the assumption that each bike trip would have been a car commute previously.
In total, Brits have clocked almost 30 million miles (recorded on Strava) this year whilst active commuting – equivalent to going to the Moon and back 60 times. It is estimated 16,500 commutes per day are recorded in the UK via the service, or 4.5 million over the course of 2021.
In the nation’s capital, Londoners have recorded 11 million cycling commutes covering more than 80 million miles since 2019.
Since offering its service for free last year, Strava Metro is now working with 1,575 local authorities across the world, including the likes of Transport for London and Greater Manchester Authority in the UK.
Michael Horvath, Co-founder and CEO of Strava, said: “The rise of active travel seen during the pandemic is becoming the new norm in cities around the world. It is a great privilege to be able to share Strava Metro data free of charge with over 1,500 partner organizations and advocacy groups, to help increase social equity, inform planning, and improve infrastructure. When cities are empowered with data insights, we support the growth and popularity of active travel in the long-run.”
Strava Metro has GPS tracked more than 17 million cycle commutes in the UK since 2019, which is 120 million miles of travel. That makes the service’s anonymised dataset one of the most comprehensive studies of cycling commuting ever completed in the UK.
According to the firm, in early 2022 Metro data will be aligned to a new version of Open Street Map to reflect the recent active travel infrastructure changes across the world.
