AN alliance of healthy living groups have called for the creation of segregated cycle lanes on all roads in Scotland's cities in a bid to get the nation more active.
The group, which includes the main hiking and cycling charities, also wants to see speed limits dropped to 20 mph and the promotion of safe walking routes through urban areas.
They have released a series of recommendations which they hope will influence political parties in the run up to next year's Holyrood elections.
The alliance of groups comprises seven Scottish organisations who together champion walking, cycling and sustainable transport, including CTC Scotland, Cycling Scotland, Living Streets, Paths for All, Ramblers Scotland, Sustrans Scotland, and Transform Scotland.
Colin Howden, Director of Transform Scotland, said: "Our core aim is to see increased long term investment in active travel with a call for 10% of local and national transport budgets to be allocated to walking and cycling.
"While we recognise and welcome recent additional investment announcements by the Transport Minister, Derek Mackay, active travel investment remains at only 1-2% of the Scottish Government's transport budget."
Ian Findlay, Chief Officer of Paths for All, added: "Realising commitments to increase and enable everyday walking amongst the Scottish population will improve people's physical, mental and social health and decrease health inequalities - walking is physical activity which almost anyone can do for free from their front door.
"But too often it is taken for granted. Continued commitment and investment are required from all parties to ensure active choices are the first and easiest choices for people."
The group also call for the creation of a comprehensive network of walking and cycling routes in towns and cities across Scotland, measures to tackle pavement parking, and pursuing a 'Vision Zero' where no one is killed on Scotland's roads.
John Lauder, Director of Sustrans Scotland, said: "Enabling and promoting active travel needs to be put firmly on the party manifesto agenda for 2016.
"Now is the right time for the parties to commit to specific policies to increase levels of walking and cycling, as we believe this could be the game changer not only for Scotland's health but also for our economy and environment.
"We hope that the 2016 Scottish elections will be an exciting time for those of us who would like to see walking and cycling become the normal modes of transport for everyday shorter journeys."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article