10 things the UK government needs to do to make car-free living a realistic choice for families
Helen Chandler and Thomas Ableman have two daughters and no car. "Thomas doesn't have a driving licence, and I haven't driven in the 22 years since I acquired mine," says Helen. Thomas has spent two decades working across the transport industry – most recently as director of strategy for Transport for London. Together they run the Carefree Car-Free blog – and have chosen The Independent exclusively to launch their Car-Free Family Travel Manifesto.
Our car-free lives are a conscious choice. At first it was because we both hated driving and felt we had better things to spend our money on. More recently it is because not driving is something we can do to limit our carbon footprint and reduce the amount of air pollution our children (and everyone else) are forced to breathe.
Despite the lack of a car, we function as fairly responsible adults, holding down jobs, owning a home and parenting two children (and two cats).
We thrive as a car-free family and don't believe our kids miss out on anything because of it. Probably the opposite, in fact: they are never short of exercise as we walk or cycle local journeys, and they haven't been subjected to school runs or longer journeys breathing in harmful emissions which are four times higher inside a car than out of it. But that doesn't mean it's always easy.
If the new government is serious about cutting carbon emissions, improving health, and cutting childhood obesity then getting families to ditch their cars is essential. Here's what needs to happen for car-free family living to become a mainstream choice.
But there's a catch: it costs £30 for a year, and you need to know you're going to use the trains a lot before you buy one. By making the card freely available, the rail industry will lose a few tens of millions in card fees – but surely benefit by many times more as families wake up to the value of rail travel .
2. Invest to give all major cities the same standard of public transport as London. One of the phrases we often hear when we say we don't drive is 'oh well, it's ok for you, you live in London'. Yes, we do live in London, and one reason is the high standard of public transport.
But there is no reason, other than decades of under-investment, why cities around the UK – Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast – shouldn't have top-notch public transport networks of their own.
The UK is most unusual in the way public transport collapses outside the capital. Transport in Utrecht is as good as in Amsterdam, Antwerp as good as Brussels, Milan as good as Rome, Lyon as good as Paris. Even LA is becoming better than Washington DC.
If the Austrians can integrate transport modes so smoothly, why shouldn't we? There's a defeatism that says it's hard. But if we start, it will become easier.
4. Family-friendly bike infrastructure . We are lucky enough to live in Waltham Forest where the council have created "Mini-Holland": a borough-wide network of traffic-calmed streets and safe cycle lanes where we have felt totally comfortable cycling with our young daughters. Let's make this the case everywhere.
6. Family waiting areas in stations. London King's Cross station recently introduced a fantastic family lounge with games, soft-play and a breastfeeding area – let this be an example for all mainline stations.
8. Family zones on trains. We Interrailed around Switzerland when our youngest was two months old and our eldest had just turned six. The six-year-old was so excited to discover that on many Swiss trains there is a play area with a slide and climbing frame. I was equally thrilled to find sofa-style seating where I could breastfeed my baby in comfort, and because this was a designated 'Family Zone', we were totally free of the tuts and eye-rolls that are sometimes encountered when travelling with lively toddlers or grouchy babies.
