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London cyclist in traffic (picture copyright Simon MacMichael).PNGCabbies cause gridlock by blocking London Bridge for fourth night running in protest at TfL pro-cycling, bus and pedestrian plans – but cyclists breeze through
Black cab drivers have this evening blocked London Bridge for the fourth time this week in protest at plans to stop them using bus lanes on Tooley Street. The protest has caused bus routes to be diverted and gridlock on both sides of the river – but happily, cyclists are breezing through the blockade.
Writing on the London Cycling public group on Facebook yesterday, John Coupe said: “I walked past the cabbie protest last night at about 6:15. If I hadn't known it was a protest I wouldn't have known.
“It didn't take many of them to block Tooley Street and it looked like people on bikes were passing freely. It really demonstrated how much better the environment can be when traffic is removed via a modal filter.”
The proposals for Tooley Street are subject to a consultation being held by transport for London (TfL) which runs until 9 January.
TfL’s director of strategy and network development, Ben Plowden, commented: “A consultation is currently underway on changes to Tooley Street to improve conditions for people walking and cycling, or travelling by public transport.
“The best way for people to let us know what they think about these proposals is to respond to the consultation, so this type of protest is unnecessary.
“All feedback on our proposals will be thoroughly assessed and taken into account.”
The cab drivers’ protest comes in a week in which a rather opaque pressure group called Unblock the Embankment, whose backers are known to include representatives of the black cab trade, claimed that the East-West Cycle Superhighway was costing east London businesses £5.3 million a year, as reported by BBC News.
The group says that the route causes congestion and pollution – both claims that have been comprehensively debunked – and London’s cycling and walking commissioner, Will Norman, insisted that the cycle route is here to stay.
He told BBC News: “We know that having walking and cycling facilities encourage footfall to our high street shops, but we also know it's absolutely critical to the continued investment and retention of big business to our city because the workforce want to walk and cycle more."
Should you head to the website unblocktheembankment.org.uk, you’ll find a rather different attitude towards cycle lanes than that on their Twitter feed – explained by the fact that they didn’t register the domain, so cycling author Carlton Reid did so instead. Oops.
Transport for London (TfL), meanwhile, has responded to a Freedom of Information request by Mark Treasure, chair of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, asking for details of a meeting between TfL and Unblock the Embankment. You can find TfL’s response here.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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36 comments
Q. Why are most London cabs black?
A. Because cockroaches only come in one colour.
?
caf4eeb98e9a32a35d3875477cf560cf--roaches-beautiful-bugs.jpg
I'm calling fancy dress on that one... as, er, Kick-Ass.
How about this fella from Guyana?
9637a98fd9b779bbaf42d3594be416cd--guyana-roaches.jpg
Unfortunately I couldn't find this article the other day - a very good explanation of space usage by bicycles vs cars/taxis etc in London:
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/a-waste-of-space/
I would suggest that blocking the road is likely to be illegal given point one in this leaflet
https://friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/cyw_59_protes...
although great fun could be had by people like me who find things like this fun, in arguing whether the road was actually blocked as cyclists could still use the road.
I guess.... and that's all it is... is that the Police decided that it was not worth the effort of arresting the cab drivers and then having to remove their cabs. That would have taken far longer than the street was blocked for IMHO.
Interestingly however, see the difference in how the police treated this demonstration also held last week
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/extinction-rebellion-swarming-pro...
One rule etc etc.
You'll need to clarify that for me as not only is it not clear, it doesn't say that blocking the road is illegal. It says that you do not need permission from plod in order to demonstrate and if you don't have permission you must not block the road as it's illegal. What is the position if the police give permission? Is it legal then?
The second ovious point is that this road was not blocked as cyclists were getting through.
Anyway BTBS has gone quiet on this one.
Bonus points for getting BTBS to go quiet
It is legal to 'block the road' providing you have permission from the transport authority (in this case London Council) and someone has presented them with a traffic managment plan and made appropriate preparations (eg cones, signs etc for a sportive). There may be other laws at play(freedom of speech and freedom of access) when it comes to 'political' protest
The police response seems to be the same.
What I find interesting is the comments. One commenter is all for black cabs “protecting their livelihood” and blocking roads but god forbid people protesting pollution and blocking the roads!
It was blocked. Cabs were parked in the road in a long line to the right of London Bridge station and then across the road outside the newer entrance on Tooley Street.
Didn't stop the cyclists though.
I reckon the LTDA should be encouraged to alienate themselves from other motorists and whilst doing so nicely showcase the traffic porous advantages that cyclists enjoy.
why aren't plod doing them for obstruction, oh wait, they're too busy chasing after kids on "extremely dangerous" electric scooters ...
Probably because we have a right to protest, even if we disagree with the objective of the protest. As long as it's a legal protest, which I guess it is because plod aren't doing them for obstruction, they're free to block the road.
Democracies can be shit at times.
I
There's protest and then there's blocking other people's lawful right to travel. Whilst people on bikes can get past blocking the highway in this manner, especially considering it's 4 nights on the trot is unlawful.
no it isn't. The police were controlling traffic access and re-routing it away from the streets where the protest was being held. This is no different to when people march in protest, such as the anti-Brexit demo a few weeks ago, and demos which take place most weeks in London, which close large parts of the West End to motor traffic.
and indeed, probably no different to something like Critical Mass or the Bikes Up Knives Down mass rides that young kids do, with police support, even though they may not be organised demos.
They might also argue that taxi drivers, like cyclists on Critical Mass (what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander) are allowed to use those streets. If, coincidentally, they all turn up at the same place at the same time, well, these things happen. But it does seem to have been a legally organised protest.
What is definitely not legal is close-passing me while they're at it.
Well you should relay the facts to the writers of this article who are stating that the road was blocked.
I'm not disputing whether it was blocked or not, I'm disputing your statement that it was illegal.
Opinion or fact? Support fact with evidence, please?
And every anti CSH comment is from a Cabby. Just check it on Twitter. They're very vocal.
Not very smart but very vocal indeed.
The Grauniad has an article about the Embankment issues today - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2018/nov/30/whos-behind-the-bid-to-get-londons-flagship-bike-lane-ripped-up
Good luck holding back the tsunami of alternative modes of transport to cars. Gas lights are not in use anymore for a good reason.
I cycled through the demo east-west earlier this evening. It was a very impressive number of taxis, I don't think I've ever seen so many at the same time. But it did leave Tooley Street and surrounds nice and clear for me. On the way there the same black cab close-passed me twice, quite deliberately in my opinion, perhaps thinking it was a valid form of protest.
i'm generally quite sympathetic towards black cabbies, what with the Knowledge, and tradition and so on, and usually they're ok, but really they need to see that the writing is on the wall, and do something about getting themselves a different job.
The knowledge is an exam in who knows the best rat run. Whilst it might be impressive, it creates traffic in residential streets and, to be brutally honest, isn't needed in 21st century.
Many cabbies are bullies. They've bullied me off the road before. They've bullied me off social media, triggering an episode of anxiety and they try and bully authorities in to decisions by closing roads.
I support someone's right to withdraw their labour and strike. This isn't striking however. And it's a terrible way to make friends and influence people.
Wait until the internet finally breaks and the oil runs out...
Dinosaurs educated at the Clarkson school of road ownership. Their possible extinction - or at least that of their big, toxic vehicles - will benefit the vast majority of people who live and work in the city as well as the millions who visit.
It's a 10 year old stat but apparently taxis carry just 2.9% of commuters on the roads in the morning peak and just 0.6% of all commuters in central London.
http://london4bikes.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-are-taxis-given-such-priori...
The 'knowledge' is surely akin to cycle & motorbike couriers' understanding of the city so it surely doesn't require a black cab to acquire and use.
It’s not even that complicated any more. Google maps and a decent mobile internet package will do it. Although Then cabbies can’t take you “a much fast route. The traffic on the high street is a nightmare at 11pm. Total carnage since the council started messing with the traffic lights”.
I’ve had lots of issues with Black Cab drivers over the years. Everything from being sent across their bonnets when they’ve pulled a Uee without looking, to being given a load of mouth, and forced into kerbs for daring to not use an unsuitable bit of cycle lane. It’s about time they realised that cyclists aren’t going away anytime soon, and accept it.
Why on earth do cabbies (in London and other cities) have so much voice and power. They are just about the worst form of transport for everything. They block up roads with people getting in and out in random places, they are the most expensive way to get around and for every journey they have to go further than someone would driving themselves. All that whilst being some of the worst drivers on the roads and spouting garbage. Why they are listened to I don’t know. And lord knows why they are allowed to use bus lanes.
If it was down to me I would ban all taxis from cities with two exceptions:
Late at night when busses don’t run/run reliably.
When carrying someone eligible for a blue badge, higher rate mobility allowance or similar.
With the problem we have with pollution and congestion in the UK they have no place.
They serve the top people in the media and politicians (not to mention TfL staff) - the people who have voice and power, respectively, by definition. They also, I guess, offer a relatively safe form of transport for women on their own at night (though that record is no longer spotless). Also I think there's some sentimentality about them, with all their idiosyncratic London ways.
I'm pretty sure black cabbies were among the radio callers I heard moaning about the (admittedly, unfocussed and weirdly random) 'climate change' protest that blocked bridges recently, insisting that protesting your cause doesn't give you the right to inconvenience people just getting to work.
Clearly, it doesn't give you that right unless you are a black cab driver. But then, as far as I can gather (only going to that there London about every ten years), black cab drivers seem to think that they are an exception to many standards and rules...
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