CYCLE LANE MADNESS
Dina Golub, 34, a physiotherapist from Gunnersbury, said: “I think it’s great for families, you feel safer with kids but it’s caused huge jams. The road is full of buses and cars now.”
Darren Field, who works on a fruit and veg stand on Chiswick High Road, said: “I’ve been working here for 30 years and I am a cyclist and this cycle lane is a terrible idea. I ride my bike from Twickenham five days a week. But I don’t use this lane. It’s badly laid out and a complete waste of money. There are already cycle lanes on the A316 and A4, the council would have been better off using the money to resur- face those before building this thing which no one uses.”
Ghazal Farhadi, 37, said: “If you’re cycling it’s good because it’s safe but I drove in today and it’s causing a huge amount of traffic. I can see why businesses might be annoyed by it. It seems like a waste of money.”
Rahele Mohseniah, 38, said: “You have to wait a huge amount of time in traffic. The cycle lane was a nice idea but there has to be a balance for everyone using the road. The money could have been spent better.”
TfL has committed to spending £75m on “green” transport schemes as part of its second Government bail-out, and has also received £20m from the Government’s active travel fund to reallocate to councils. Pop-up schemes introduced under experimental traffic orders have to be removed within 18 months unless local backing is shown in a consultation.
It is understood that the £95m will be used to make permanent the temporary schemes that secure support, and build more complex safety schemes, such as the remodelling of Mile End junction, that cannot be done using plastic barriers.
TfL says the number of people cycling in London since the first lockdown has soared, with weekend figures after the start of the second lockdown almost double to those a year ago, and increases of 20 to 50 per cent during the week.
A statistic from Taxi Leaks: Just ONE new biker is attracted for every £5,000 spent on empty bikeways that are causing gridlock and chaos across the country.
It also concluded that if current Government spending on schemes to encourage more people to get on bikes continues for the next ten years, there would be an increase of no more than one per cent in the number of people using a bike.
The cost for inner London boroughs would come to £6,153 for every extra bike user, while the amount for outlying areas would be £4,174, the report in the respected Economics and Human Biology journal said. The study states that if the current Government investment in cycling – £400 million per year – was sustained until 2030, the number of commuter cyclists would increase by between half and one per cent.
106 DECEMBER 2020
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE E-SCOOTER SCENE…
No doubt PHTM readers will be aware that the Electric Scooter Trials and Traffic Signs (Coronavirus) Regulations and General Directions 2020 are currently going through Parliament. In a Lords debate session last month, Conservative Lord Moylan posed a series of questions on the matter:-
“To ask Her Majesty’s Government – • Which firms have been selected to run electric scooter trials in areas where trials are being undertaken.
• What steps they have taken to ensure that electric scooter trials test a range of (1) models, (2) providers, and (3) local circumstances.
• What assessment they have made of the number of firms that would need to be involved in electric scooter trials for an evidence based policy decision to be made.
• What steps they have taken to ensure that firms providing electric scooters under the current trials can meet their undertakings; and what requirements must local and combined authorities operating such trials meet.
• Whether any firms that were successful in bidding to run an electric scooter trial are, as part of the contractual arrange- ment, providing additional infrastructure or other benefits.”
Baroness Vere of Norbiton Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport) responded:
• “11 different companies are operating across the live trial areas. These are: Ginger, Spin, Lime, Beryl, Tier, Zwings, Voi, Bird, Neuron, Zipp, and Wind.
• Many of these companies have their own model of scooter which meets the minimum requirements set by the Depart- ment. Trials include both short- and long-term rental. The range of trial areas provide a diverse range of local environments in which to assess e-scooter use.
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