Holyrood 2026 elections: What active travel policies are the parties committing to in their manifestos?

Conservative Green Labour Lib Dem Reform SNP
  • “End[…] the war on drivers” by abolishing the current car reduction target.  
     
  • Create a National Pothole Action Fund and would “cut the active travel budget and redirect funding towards pavement and road maintenance.” 
     
  • Crack down on “e-scooters and illegally modified e-bikes”. 
     
  • “Make space for drivers and pedestrians by encouraging councils to ensure that new cycle paths are clearly segregated from existing roads and pavements.” 
  • Commit “even more of our transport budget to build more cycle paths and ensure our core path network is accessible to everyone. That means reducing speed limits on popular walking and cycling routes to keep everyone safe. And that means designing safe routes to school, with better lighting, crossing points and segregated paths” 
     
  • “Allocate at least 10% of the national transport budget to active travel, and provide multi-year funding grants to delivery organisations.”  
     
  • “Support reduction of national speed limits on single carriageway roads, including extending 40mph speed limits on roads popular with walkers and cyclists around villages and towns” and “support the full rollout of 20mph as the default speed limit in urban and built up areas”. 
     
  • “Deliver a national blueprint of walking, cycle and wheeling networks”, “expand and improve the National Cycle Network” and “establish a Scottish Paths Fund”. 
     
  • Create a “Safe school run package” including pledging that “every child leaving primary school has had the opportunity to learn to cycle  […] up to bikeability level 2 standard.” 
  • Create a “National Transport Connections Plan”, which will identify “priority transport projects and investments across Scotland which will help drive the economy and support growing businesses.” 
     
  • “Establish a £350m potholes and road maintenance fund so that local authorities can fix the state of Scotland’s roads for all road users, repairing almost 5 million potholes over the course of the Parliament and improving oversight and maintenance of road repairs.” Prior to manifesto publication Anas Sarwar announced he would repurpose some of the active and sustainable travel funding to create the pothole fund. 
     
  • Continue the electrification of the railways to reduce car traffic. 
  • “Make roads safer, fix dangerous potholes and help businesses get from A to B by: 
    • Create a new data-driven Dangerous Roads Programme to ensure that where there is a dangerous road - no matter where you live - the government will have to address the problem through a multi-agency approach, creating a nationwide coding system that is used to trigger interventions including the presence of road policing, cameras, adjustments to speed limits, resurfacing, better lighting, or even pave the way for bypasses or dualling.” 
    • Introduce speed awareness courses. 
       
  • “Make it easier for more people to choose walking, cycling and wheeling by: 
    • Invest in active travel for the first and last mile, cutting car use, boosting health and connecting communities. 
    • Every child will have done their bikeability training by the end of primary school, and every adult can undertake training if they want it. 
    • Formalise a national approach to e-scooters, e-cargo bikes and similar light electric vehicles to promote safety.”  
       
  • “Protect the environment and improve public health […] by encouraging walking and cycling”. 
  • End the “war on the motor car, fix pot-holes and abolish ULEZ”.  
     
  • “Support outdoor recreation especially walking, climbing, snow sports touring, cycling, paddling and horse-riding with accessible paths” 
  • The transport section is titled: “A sustainable Scotland supports sustainable travel”.
     
  • Establish a £2.5m bike repair scheme to provide people with £75 for bike repairs so that they can use their bike for transport. 
     
  • Support efforts to retain the Roseburn corridor as a route for cyclists and pedestrians, and efforts to bring the former Powderhall railway line into use as a walking and cycling route into the capital.
     
  • Work with partners such as Scottish Outdoor Recreation Fund to develop a Scottish Paths Fund.
     
  • Bring Transport Scotland back into Scottish Government.
     
  • “Establish the ‘Better Surfaces’ fund to support local government capital expenditure in fixing potholes”.