Connect2 will change your world
All across the country this month, people are celebrating how their Connect2 scheme will change their world by making walking and cycling the obvious choice for the local journeys we all make every day.
Crossings and bridges are being created over busy roads, railway lines and rivers, linking into new networks of local paths to get people where they want to go by foot or bike without having to go the long way round or compete with lots of traffic.
Hundreds of people are celebrating their local transport revolution with all kinds of community events including; wildflower walks deep in urban London, open-access to normally closed disused railway tunnels which will soon be at the heart of a new route, storytelling walks, bike breakfasts, bike rides and neighbourhood fetes.
This ambitious project to revitalise walking and cycling in 79 communities across the UK has only been made possible by the enormous popular support for Sustrans' Connect2 - funded by a £50million Big Lottery Fund grant after the UK public voted the scheme the winner of the People's Millions Lottery contest in December 2007.
Tim Temple, the project manager, for Sustrans' Connect2 says: "People's eagerness to vote back in December 2007, and to get involved with community events to make their local schemes a reality really sums up the community support which has been the driving force behind Connect2 since its inception. Now it's great that so many people are taking to their streets to celebrate what's been happening over the last year!"
Now Connect2 schemes across the country are working to transform local travel as work begins on a number of schemes including Leicester, Cardiff, Northwich and Dartford. Over the coming years (to 2013) the charity will open hundreds of new paths and refurbished bridges, walkways and tunnels linking into new networks of paths for pedestrians and cyclists. As a result, millions of people who live within a mile of a scheme will be able to get about under their own steam, benefiting both their health and the environment.