CYCLE LANE MADNESS MR JOHNSON AND MR SHAPPS SAY:
In the continuing saga of life after lockdown, PHTM this month will saunter down one of the hundreds of newly created cycle lanes and widened pavements brought about under the guise of Covid distancing measures and keep-fit intentions… and take a look at the reality of the situation, especially through the eyes of members of our industry.
In our July edition we brought you the rather eye-watering financial breakdown of just how much Government funding was allocated to the various other forms of transport – buses, trams and trains, etc - and how our industry got nowt, zero, zilch, nada. That still hasn’t changed.
What has changed, however, is the makeup of traffic on our roads since lockdown was relaxed. And that change is not all down to just people getting back to work; a helluva lot of is as a result of the Prime Minister’s widely publicised £2 billion “Cycling and Walking Plan”.
We all know Boris Johnson is a keen cyclist; when he was Mayor of London, the image of “Boris Bikes” all over town was the product of his first cycling initiative – which incidentally has always run at a financial loss. Well, a decade later the scheme is still running, now sponsored by Santander; over two million cycle hirings have taken place in the capital since lock- down.
No doubt this helped provide the PM with the motive and enthusiasm to spread the cycling bug a bit further afield. So several months ago his national plan was announced with a view to getting the British public fit by cycling or walking to work following lockdown – particularly as they were still encouraged to avoid public transport.
Let’s take a look at the individual aspects of this highly financed grand plan:-
• Space is being created for extra cycle lanes on 1,500 roads in London. Do you mean, such as Park Lane? (see photo opposite) A survey conducted by the Mail Online stated that on 9 September a total of 400 vehicles passed through a particular point on Park Lane over 15 minutes during the morning rush hour, with only 21 cyclists using the cycle lane at that locality over the same quarter-hour period. We’ll come back to London in a bit.
• Cycle training will be made available for every child and adult who wants it, accessible through schools, local authorities or direct from cycle training schemes. A laud- able part of the scheme… but difficult to oversee, particularly if left in the hands of local authorities.
58 Park Lane
• More cycle racks will be installed at transport hubs, town and city centres and public buildings. That includes some 1,180 cycle bays at railway stations. Some £2.5million has been allocated for this part of the scheme. Question is: How many taxi rank spaces will be sacrificed at those stations to make way for the cycle bays? Hackney drivers have already lost hundreds of rank spaces in cities and towns across the country due to pavement widening and pop-up cycle lanes.
• Funding will go towards new bike hangars and on-street storage for people who don’t have space to keep a bike at home. Hang on: nobody we know of has ever had funding to provide ‘storage’ for those who don’t have space to keep a car at home…! But never mind – the Department for Trans- port announced that councils can apply for a £250million emergency fund made available for the installation of road restrictions to promote cycling and walking, as part of the efforts to reduce pressure of public transport and encourage social distancing during the pandemic. And of course they are doing just that, without consulting the general public or the taxi/PHV industry, and without the slightest forethought as to the consequences… that’s what this article is about.
• Making streets safer by consulting to strengthen the Highway Code to better protect pedestrians and cyclists. The last time the Highway Code was modified was in 2015, to strengthen the wording on driving under the influence of drugs. Still, at least they’re talking about consulting this time… which is more than can be said about all the ‘emer- gency’ and ‘temporary’ road modifications being brought in by local authorities under the Covid legislation.
• Supporting local authorities by empowering them to crack down on traffic offences. That’s all we need: more meter maids and Jobsworths to make our licence holders’ jobs even more difficult… especially if Grant Shapps’ proposed
OCTOBER 2020
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