Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

London's six new cycle routes unlikely to be delivered until 2023

London Assembly member says mayor’s talk of tripling cycle infrastructure ‘rings hollow’

The six new cycle routes announced by Transport for London (TfL) and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan earlier this week are unlikely to be delivered before 2023. London Assembly members expressed disappointment upon hearing the news.

The press release announcing the schemes stated that the routes had been prioritised from a list of 25 drawn up by TfL in partnership with London boroughs as having the highest potential for encouraging more people to cycle.

Design work on routes between Lea Bridge to Dalston, Ilford to Barking Riverside, Hackney to the Isle of Dogs, Rotherhithe to Peckham, Tottenham Hale to Camden and Wembley to Willesden Junction has been given the go-ahead.

However, MayorWatch reports that at a meeting of the London Assembly’s transport committee on Thursday, officials said the proposed routes were unlikely to be delivered until 2023.

Speaking after the meeting, committee chair Keith Prince AM, said: “It is disappointing that the six new routes announced by the Mayor are unlikely to be built under this mayoralty. This is despite his pledge that he would triple the current provision of cycle superhighways.”

Prince also said that Khan’s claim of record funding for cycling schemes, “rings hollow when the Mayor is procrastinating over the building of new segregated cycling routes, despite popular public support for them.”

His words echo recent comments made by London’s former cycling commissioner, Andrew Gilligan, who last week declared Cycle Superhighway 11 “dead” in response to watered down plans which would see only two gates to Regent’s Park shut to motorists and only for shorter hours.

Writing on his blog, Gilligan said: “Throughout his time in office Sadiq Khan has constantly promised to ‘transform London’s streets for walking and cycling,’ to have an ‘unprecedented focus on walking and cycling,’ to make London a ‘byword for cycling,’ and so on.

“The easiest place imaginable to keep these promises is surely a park. But no. And if Khan cannot even manage it here – in a scheme with the support of 60% of the public, one of the two local councils, the Crown Estate Paving Commission (one of those which controls the roads in the park), and the Royal Parks themselves – it is very difficult to see him managing it anywhere.

“This act of defining weakness effectively ends any serious cycling and walking programme in this mayoralty.”

In response, Khan blamed the “unnecessarily confrontational approach” of Gilligan and Boris Johnson for many of the problems now faced by CS11.

London’s Deputy Mayor for Transport, Val Shawcross, has previously said that greater consultation was a means to end the “bikelash” which has hampered construction of some London cycle routes.

The angry response to several Cycle Superhighway projects perhaps also explains why that term is conspicuous by its absence in reference to the six new schemes.

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

Add new comment

11 comments

Avatar
matthewn5 | 6 years ago
0 likes

The real reason is the government policy of austerity. TfL has had its budget massively cut by the current government after Boris left:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-42975661

It's made delivery of any programs a real problem. TfL is having to run as hard as possible to stand still. It's not a conspiracy.

Maybe if Boris hadn't wasted so much money on the useless Dangleway and the dodgy Garden Bridge, and maybe if TfL's budget hadn't been slashed, the current Mayor could have got on with it faster.

But it's much easier to blame the Mayor, isn't it.

Avatar
jollygoodvelo | 6 years ago
1 like

The six new cycle routes announced by Transport for London (TfL) and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan earlier this week are unlikely to be delivered before 2023

 

Fixed that for you.

Avatar
emishi55 | 6 years ago
3 likes

(I'll attempt to be brief...but..)

 

In response, Khan blamed the “unnecessarily confrontational approach” of Gilligan and Boris Johnson for many of the problems now faced by CS11.

At risk of repeating the above comments, this is a complete pile; the only problem faced by CS11 has been caused by simply ignoring the fact that the consultation was passed overwhelmingly (60%).

London’s Deputy Mayor for Transport, Val Shawcross, has previously said that greater consultation was a means to end the “bikelash” which has hampered construction of some London cycle routes

Shawcross has been a total disappointment, but par for the course with a boss who chose Will Norman over the likes of Boardman, Gilligan and London campaigners and councillors with many years experience.

She has uttered perhaps a one sentence statement in her tenure that got expectations up at the LCC AGM two years ago. All promises of impending announcements of great stuff for cycling were pretty hollow, considering the urgency of the task.     

 

Meanwhile, in Camden this week, the council voted to become: 

              the first local authority in the UK to vote to to meet the WHO’s recommended limits on air pollution.  

Camden’s poisoned air: Town Hall declares war on car drivers | Camden New Journal

 

THE Town Hall is set to declare an unprecedented war on car drivers blamed for ­Camden’s poisoned air. Council chiefs were urged to embark on radical steps including closing off roads, slashing the number of parking bays, charging a levy on driving to work and banning traffic around school.

One of the targets of new measures will be parents accused of clogging up the streets during the school run. It was noted with dismay how some parents ignore Camden’s state schools on their doorsteps in Hampstead and Highgate to drive to private education further afield. As the debate went on, the practice of using cars for non-essential journeys was branded anti-social.

....Cllr Julian Fulbrook called for Camden to get tough: “As a borough we need to be much more aggressive about actually closing roads and need to stop this borough being used a public parking lot...

Only one councillor (a deselected Tory oddball who some years ago argued against Camden's introduction of borough-wide 20mph speed limits), but apart from him....

.....Everybody else in the council chamber on Monday night was on board with the notion, as they agreed to try to hit the WHO’s limits – tougher than the European Union’s recommended safe level, on levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter in the air by 2030.

 

(ok...so I'll save the brevity for next time...)

 

Avatar
frogg | 6 years ago
1 like

But rest assured,  the infrastructure for driverless cars will be delivered pronto, and well before 2023 !!

"Fully driverless cars" on UK roads by 2021 says Philip Hammond

http://road.cc/content/news/232521-fully-driverless-cars-uk-roads-2021-s...

Avatar
Bluebug replied to frogg | 6 years ago
0 likes

frogg wrote:

But rest assured,  the infrastructure for driverless cars will be delivered pronto, and well before 2023 !!

"Fully driverless cars" on UK roads by 2021 says Philip Hammond

http://road.cc/content/news/232521-fully-driverless-cars-uk-roads-2021-s...

Central government has more money and more power than a Mayor.

They are the ones who can ultimately take councils to task legally - the Mayor can do SFA legally if a council isn't interested in any of his schemes.

The reason why Livingstone and Johnson got things done is they had the right people on their teams who knew how to get around difficult councils even though both as individuals have a reputation of being complete a-holes. 

Avatar
Bikebikebike | 6 years ago
6 likes

“Unnecessarily confrontational”, or “doing something”. 

As others have said, how much of a cunt do you have to be to be worse than Boris?

Avatar
P3t3 | 6 years ago
5 likes

I really think its time for a new approach.  You could trial a lot of these schemes with concrete sparators/ bollards, paint and some fiddling with traffic lights and implement them overnight.  Forget modelling and all the intricate design work that is effectively procrastination.  On first implementation you sweeten it with it being"a temporary trial, completely reversible, then when it comes to upgrade to full implementation you rfurther sweeten it because you are removing the "ugly concrete non permanent structures".  

 

But of course I am missing the point, the point is Kahns "do nothing whilst celebrating progress" approach.  

 

Avatar
rct | 6 years ago
7 likes

Quelle surprise.

Despite hopes he would expand on Johnson's efforts, Khan constantly manages to dissapoint through inaction.  What a political eptitaph, to be considered a failure compared to BoJo!

Avatar
Accessibility f... | 6 years ago
9 likes

> "unnecessarily confrontational approach"

Sorry, but that's how you have to be when dealing with people who see any removal of road space from motorists as lunacy.  You have to confront their stupidity with simple facts.

Avatar
emishi55 replied to Accessibility for all | 6 years ago
1 like

Peowpeowpeowlasers wrote:

> "unnecessarily confrontational approach"

Sorry, but that's how you have to be when dealing with people who see any removal of road space from motorists as lunacy.  You have to confront their stupidity with simple facts.

 

Agreed.

 

In essence, the confrontation that exists is between Khan and the former administration.

I've said it before; he managed to put aside political differences to appear on a platform with former PM Cameron, but for some reason can not, has not, will not (TMK), invite to discuss, cycling infrastructure issues with Andrew Gilligan !

Avoiding confrontation for Khan and co (whilst some of us wait for what? another five years or more for action?) means of course that the real confrontation - the physical kind - continues on the streets and roads.

CS6 is oversubscribed now. Imagine how many people would want to use it if there were actual reasonable and safe routes to get to it by bike!

Hundreds of redundant back street rat runs could and should be closed at a stroke, to enable people to get to where they need by bike.

 

Bike lanes could be immediately trialled on major routes across London using temporary plastic bollards.

Have we forgotten the reverence motor users gave to the Olympic Lanes (for a 'good cause'?) 

But Will Norman and TfL busy themselves with data gathering and...

....I think there's probably been enough data gathered now. 

 

 

 

 

 

Avatar
ChrisB200SX replied to emishi55 | 6 years ago
1 like

emishi55 wrote:

Bike lanes could be immediately trialled on major routes across London using temporary plastic bollards.

Have we forgotten the reverence motor users gave to the Olympic Lanes (for a 'good cause'?) 

I seem to recall lots of concrete bollards were put up rather sharprish on someone's whim. Plastic bollards shoud be far easier and quicker to deploy... and would probably save more lives  1

"Siddiq Khan't" or won't?

Latest Comments