This is what I was actually after from NTS, for use in the context of barriers to cycling and excuses for why cycling is impractical and mass cycling impossible. I couldn't find an existing graph to show what I wanted to show, so here is one. Consider it hereby licensed CC0; data NTS 2010. UWC discuss the issue in more detail… "36.1% of trips under 2 miles and 53.0% of journeys under 5 miles are undertaken by car".
An irritating (because she does this) neighbour of mine drives about 1 mile to the school where she works every day. She’s in her 40’s and in good health as far as I know. It’s not a fun drive, stuck in traffic, she’d be better off walking across a park & down the side streets.The family has 2 cars so she can do this. Alternatively, the family has to have 2 cars so she can do this.
The x scale is kind of exponential so it is difficult to tell, but it looks like in urban areas, half of all car journeys are below about 3 miles (I have heard that it is it about 50% below 5km, which amounts to much the same thing).There is a kind of emotional thing about 50%. The fulcrum point, mid way, half and half, so half of all urban car journeys are under 3 miles and if only half of those were cycled – an absolutely perfact distance for cycling as it would take an hour to walk but only 15-20m to cycle, compared with perhaps much the same in an urban context, especially once you take the hunt for a parking space into account.As for bramblejeam’s neighbour, I have the same issues. I cycle about 1.75 mile to the station in the morning, and back in the evening, and I watch neighbours who live within a mile (it is a rural area) drive. That must be costing them several hundred a year in fuel, plus almost ??1k in parking charges, for those who don’t selfishly park on the street outside someone else’s house near the station.But it gets worse – was it 10% of kids living within 500 yards of schools in London that are taken their by car???
Is graph show just number of trips for given distance? Ie says nothing about which trips use car? Hope you can clarify. Thanks.
Andrew – it is just trip distance, regardless of mode. There will be a breakdown of proportion of trips by mode, by distance, in the National Travel Survey, although you may have to hunt for it.
Pingback: Accessibility versus amenity – how the bicycle can solve the dilemma | As Easy As Riding A Bike