With less than a week to go until we pull up stumps to join family and friends for Christmas it is the right time to reflect on the highlights of 2024.

WeRide has had a huge year!

From the announcement by the Federal Government of a national fund for active transport, to the release of our nationally significant – and very successful – ride to school trial, RideScore, delivering more policy submissions in one year than we have ever attempted and leading the discourse nationally on cycling in Parliament and other key forums, it has not stopped.

Let’s start with the announcement by federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, of one hundred million dollars funding for active travel.

$100m National Active Transport Fund

Minister King’s announcement of $100m for a National Active Transport Fund (NATF) on 7th May was an early and welcome Budget announcement by the Albanese Government.

In meetings with the Minister and in our 2024-25 Pre-Budget Submission, we called on the Government to ‘establish dedicated funding for local walking and cycling networks to enable the choice to walk and cycle for local trips’ and we’re glad to see this first step announced by the Government to build the infrastructure needed for safe cycling.

Applications are now open for projects to build ‘safe and accessible active transport options, like walking and cycling, to help boost social connection, promote healthy choices and make our cities and regions more vibrant places to live’. More information:

Incentives and subsidies for e-bike purchases

The launch in the last year of both multi-million dollar and smaller Council incentive programs to help Australians buy an e-bike has shown the value of modelling we commissioned to show the positive return on investment.

Kicked off by the Tasmanian Government scheme, the Cities of Adelaide, Holdfast Bay and West Torrens in South Australia soon followed and then the Queensland Government’s incentive scheme was announced with $1m worth of incentives and doubled when the first million ran out within 2 weeks!

In all cases, WeRide had presented the economic modelling it commissioned in 2022 from the Institute for Sensible Transport using federal treasury figures that highlighted $7 financial return to the economy for every $1 invested. Our Report was incredibly useful in demonstrating the power of financial assistance to get people to buy an e-bike. We have spoken about all these initiatives in news items on our website,

Here are the key news items:

Cycling Luminaries Awards

We Ride Award event at Deakin Downtown.A highlight of our year is always the national Cycling Luminaries Awards, which have been going since 2002. The November 27 event hosted by Deakin University in Melbourne was another fantastic showcase for the amazing list of nominees and winners and the event was also used to launch the Evaluation Report by Deakin University for the hugely successful RideScore Active Schools trial run in partnership with the Sunshine Coast Council.

Winners were recognised for 1) setting up bike hire hubs in social housing for residents to boost affordable mobility in Melbourne under the bike culture category, 2) creating a data set of black spots for cycling nationally in the leadership Award and 3) creating safe streets in Toowoomba in the infrastructure category.

It was a great event that recognised all the champions for cycling who were nominated and you can see more information on the article here: https://www.weride.org.au/announcement/2024-cycling-awards-winners-announced/

RideScore Active Schools program

After successfully securing funding in partnership with the Sunshine Coast Council back in 2019 for a concept we believed would boost rates of cycling and scooting to school, and then battling the pandemic, floods and other delays to complete the trial, we were finally able to launch the RideScore Evaluation Report by Deakin University at the Awards event on 27 November in Melbourne.

Incredibly, the program exceeded even our expectations!! RideScore results:

  • 55% increase in cycling and scooting to school
  • 57,835 individual trips recorded
  • 58% of participants would otherwise have been driven
  • 201,400 kilometres travelled!

These are very significant outcomes for a ride to school program and it has attracted interest nationally from both state governments and Councils. We are now working with the Sunshine Coast Council and our partners to develop the plan that we hope will see it gain support so it can be adopted more broadly to boost the number of Aussie kids riding and scooting to school.

Above: Sunshine Coast Council Officer, Colleen Penny, tells the ‘origin story’ of the RideScore program prior to the launch of the RideScore Evaluation Report by Deakin University’s Prof. Neil Coffee.

Check out the RideScore page here: weride.org.au/ridescore/

WeRide national policy and advocacy work

2024 has seen WeRide draft and lodge six major policy and budget submissions to federal government consultations in collaboration with state and national bicycle organisations. We also contribute many more comments via hearings and meetings with key decision makers.

A major milestone for WeRide is that every major submission has had the support of every national and state/territory bicycle organisation in the country.

This is the first year WeRide has been able to engage collaboratively across the sector in this way, but we have long believed this was vital to ensure the voice of cycling was heard nationally.

The key submissions lodged include:

Call to the Government for targets for public and active transport

WeRide joined a significant national coalition of over 56 leading transport, environment, union, religious, health and social sector agencies to call on the Government to decarbonise the transport sector, set critical targets to cut pollution, shift to public, shared and active transport and accelerate the shift to energy efficient transport.

The joint statement was drafted and signed by all groups under the auspices of the Climate Action Network Australia, collectively representing over 2.3million Australians.

WeRide participated as part of the CANA Transport Working Group to develop, draft and disseminate this national effort which was sent to Transport Minister Catherine King in July.

More information here: weride.org.au/netzero/weride-joins-national-call-to-decarbonise-transport/

Parliamentary Friends of Cycling

The Parliamentary Friends of Cycling group continues to be a significant platform in Parliament which gives us direct access to MPs and Senators to present key issues for cycling in the events we organise.

This year we had Welsh MP and Transport Minister Lee Waters present on the globally recognised changes he made to the system for funding roads and implementing safe speeds nationally that has resulted in a dramatic improvement in road safety and a significant drop in casualties. Lee’s visit was made possible through our relationship with the Australian Institute of Transport Planning and Management and their partnership with PJA Australia who brought him out for a national speaking tour.

Details and video of the event can be found at: Transforming Welsh Transport | We Ride Australia

Above: L-R, Peter Bourke, Sara Stace – Better Streets, Kirsty Kelly – AITPM, Lee Waters MS, Hon. Andrew Wallace MP, Dr Helen Haines MP, Kate Chaney MP, Senator David Pocock, Stephen Hodge.

Australian Cycling Economy Report

Above L-R: Senator Janet Rice, Hon. Andrew Wallace MP, Dr Helen Haines MP, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones MP, WeRide Chair Pete Williams, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor MP & Zaneta Mascarenhas MP (in front)The second Australian Cycling Economy report was delivered late in 2023 and in 2024 we conducted a major program of presentations of the important outcomes to Local, state and federal government agencies.

One of the most significant pieces of research ever undertaken on cycling, the economic report is educating decision makers nationally on just how big the contribution of cycling is to our economy and regions through cycle tourism, and supporting policies and decisions for cycling across the country.

The full report can be found at:  2023 Australian Cycling and E-scooter Economy Report | We Ride Australia

WeRide is the leading voice for cycling nationally

During 2024, WeRide continued its role as the national voice for cycling, presenting, chairing and delivering sessions at key national conferences.

They include:

Our Members

Our work is made available through the ongoing support of our members and supporters.

The list of our members can be found at
Bicycle Industry Members | We Ride Australia
Business & Advocacy Members | We Ride Australia

Office Hours

The WeRide office will be closed from 12:00 midday on Friday 20 December 2024, reopening at 9:00am on Wednesday 8 January 2025.

Wishing you all a safe, peaceful, and happy holiday season filled with joy and time with those you love. May this time of year bring you well-deserved rest and renewal.