CYCLE LANE MADNESS “ON YER BIKE!” WE SAY, AT WHAT COST??!
£70 fine for pavement parking is brought in as well. The vast majority of this country’s roads would be impassable by even one lane of traffic if it was not possible for parked cars to park with two wheels on the pavement.
• Improving air quality and reducing traffic by creating more Low Traffic Neighbourhoods; intensive funding of 12 new areas to become more cycle friendly, known as “mini- Hollands”; and creating at least one zero-emission trans- port city centre. They’re onto an immediate loser here. It has been researched, stated and proven that air quality in so many cities and towns, with London top of the list – which had improved vastly during lockdown – has gone worse than before lockdown due to vast queues of traffic at a standstill not being able to move because of the reduced road sizes and lane blockages.
Wandsworth Council suspended its low traffic neighbour- hood (LTN) plans last month, following “a high level review” that identified concerns with emergency access and traffic flows. (see more about London below)
• Release of £50 bike repair vouchers to encourage thou- sands of people to get back into cycling.Well, that scheme got off to a flying start: the programme crashed within hours of the first 50,000 vouchers being made available, meaning that hundreds of applicants were disappointed. Looks as though hundreds more still are disappointed, as the next tranche of vouchers is yet to appear. Some £25million was allocated for this purpose… where’s that gone?
• Increasing access to e-bikes by setting up a new national e-bike programme, to help those who are older, or have to travel long distances, or are less fit to take up cycling. Do they know how much e-bikes cost??? You’re looking at some- thing like £6,199. It wasn’t so very long ago that you could get a really decent second hand car for that. Putting aside the cost, is it at all realistic to believe that “those who are older” would be any safer whizzing around on an e-bike??
• Piloting a new approach in selected places with poor health rates to encourage GPs to prescribe cycling, with patients able to access bikes through their local surgery. Doctor to Patient A: “You’re having to get across London to work. You’d better have a Brompton foldaway bike; you can get one of those for £1,555.” Doctor to Patient B: “You’ve quite a distance to get to work in your town. Here’s a prescription for a Vitus ZX1 CRS road bike (cost £2,499).” Doctor to Patient C: “Hey, you’re pre-diabetic; you need some serious exercise. Take these tablets and go get a Santa Cruz Tallboy Carbon mountain bike (£4,199).” Doctor to Patient D (down on his uppers): “Go immediately onto Ebay and buy a sec- ond hand bike for 50 quid.” Oh, please….!!!
OCTOBER 2020 Tooting High Street
The new cycle lanes form part of Transport for London’s gov- ernment funded Street Space scheme, which is designed to encourage people to cycle or walk to work and school. How- ever, new research released last month shows congestion levels in London are now higher than they were before lock- down – and had risen by 25 per cent in just one week in September.
Also last month, footage emerged of a fire engine stuck in a roadblock caused by construction of the so-called Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) in Ferndale. Commuters slammed the city’s transport system, what with roadworks and bridges closed and heavily restricted – on top of the newly created cycle lanes.
Further, the new cycle lanes are making it difficult for wheelchair users to hail taxis in the capital, according to campaigners. The pop-up ‘temporary’ (for low long?) cycle lanes mean that taxis are often unable to pull up to the pavement.
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Back on Planet Earth for a moment, the reality of this Cycling and Walking Plan is starting to hit home big style, all over the country. And who better to reflect on the situation than our licensed drivers.
LET’S GO VISITING… STARTING IN THE SMOKE
Back at the capital, London Mayor Sadiq Khan looked as though he might be lynched by a mob of furious taxi drivers outside City Hall last month, where he was heckled and chased by the black cab drivers to shouts of “Destroyer of London” and worse. Protesters had marched across London Bridge towards Bishopsgate holding banners, and a crowd gathered outside the London Mayor’s office where a spokesman implored cab drivers and residents to protest Mr Khan’s £225million plan to carve cycle lanes out of major roads.
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