Greater Manchester residents made over 700 million active travel trips in 2025

Greater Manchester residents made over 700 million trips by active travel methods in 2025 following investment into walking, cycling and wheeling infrastructure as part of the Bee Network.

The latest Active Travel Annual Report has been published by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), and highlights that where infrastructure has been completed, active travel rates have surged, demonstrating how transformational infrastructure is helping more people choose to walk or cycle. On Oxford Road on the approach to Manchester city centre, for example, there were 7,000 cyclists a day in October 2025 – up from 2,000 a day before there was a segregated cycleway.

The total number of active travel trips in Greater Manchester was over 700 million in 2025 and has increased each year between 2021 – when the total number of active travel trips stood at just over 510 million – and 2024. This has been supported in part by a post-pandemic recovery in overall travel demand, and population growth.

Active travel currently accounts for around one-third (33%) of trips by Greater Manchester residents, with an ambition for 50% of all journeys in Greater Manchester to be made by walking, cycling and public transport by 2050. This will mean one million more sustainable journeys every day contributing to a healthier, greener and more productive city-region. 

Future investment includes improvements to footpaths, junctions, crossings and cycle facilities that will eventually lead to around 2,700 km of Bee Network routes for walking, wheeling and cycling.

The report highlights that while people’s overall feeling of encouragement to walk or cycle has dipped slightly from last year’s peak, long term trends remain positive. From 2018 to 2021, the proportion who agreed Greater Manchester’s transport network encouraged walking and cycling rose steadily from 31% to 43%, peaking at 50% in 2024 before falling slightly to 47% in 2025. 

Active Travel Commissioner, Dame Sarah Storey, said: 

“It’s great to see the progress being reported in the 2025 Active Travel Annual report. The goal is to enable a greater choice for people in how they make their journeys, with walking and cycling being the glue that binds all the modes of the Bee Network together.

“This is demonstrated by the fact 90% of people are walking as part of their public transport journeys, but walking is also important to the Mayoral commitment on School Streets and progress has been made during 2025 on the ambition of having 100 permanent School Streets by 2028.

“As with every year, the report highlights specific areas of focus for the upcoming year and takes stock of whether plans from previous years need to be adjusted. There is still a great deal of work needed, especially on the perceptions of safety and satisfaction of journeys, but the underlying message is that where segregated infrastructure is built for cycling, and streets are designed around the needs of pedestrians, then the numbers of people choosing to travel actively increases.”

Future schemes will continue to focus on removing barriers to cycling, which include lack of segregated lanes (49%), fast or heavy traffic (43%), unsafe roads or junctions (38%), and lack of secure bike storage (28%). 

Residents are strongly behind safer streets, with 96% supporting lower speed limits in areas where people walk, cycle, or access local services. Greater Manchester’s preference for active travel for shorter journeys is already reflected in daily behaviours: over half (52%) of all trips in Greater Manchester are under 2 km, and of these, 58% are already made on foot or by bike. 

Richard Nickson, Active Travel Network Director at TfGM, said:

 “Providing high-quality active travel infrastructure has been at the core of our Bee Network vision from the beginning, and with strong increases in walking and cycling on completed Bee Network routes, the way forward for Greater Manchester is clear. 

“At TfGM we will continue to work closely with our Active Travel Commissioner, the Greater Manchester Mayor and the 10 local authorities to ensure we’re doing everything we can to enable people to travel actively as part of their day-to-day journeys.”