Joined-up thinking

Connecting more rail stations to the NCN is long overdue

- Harry Tennant

There's something magical about a path. Done well, it can turn an out-of-bounds space into a portal. It can make the previously impossible possible. Even a simple journey into town on foot, or by bike or handcycle, can, in itself, mean so much more than that.

Recently, an indirect National Cycle Network route skirting the A41 near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, became a wellsurfaced parkland path with a new crossing over the River Thame. This opened up a wild space for residents, and completed a transport link, the Platinum Way, running 1.2km from Aylesbury town centre to Aylesbury Parkway station. It was undoubtedly a success usership increased by 97%, from 66,000 annual trips preintervention to 130,000. Cycling alone is up a whopping 344%, from 7,000 to 31,000 a year.

In cycling's first outing at last year's COP (UN Climate Change Conference) in Azerbaijan - where world leaders sought agreement to cut carbon emissions - England's Active Travel Commissioner, Chris Boardman CBE, underlined the power of such a path. During his time as Manchester's transport commissioner, a similar path enabled him to cycle 6km to the local station and take the train to Manchester. Boardman, understandably, didn't want to share the main road with bleary eyed drivers, so without the path he would have driven the entire journey.