The Conservative social gathering candidate for the London mayor’s workplace has promised to axe what she described as “havoc inflicting” cycle lanes if she is elected into energy later this yr.
In an interview with The Night Customary, Susan Corridor claimed that cycle lanes stop emergency companies from attending to incidents rapidly and insisted that motorists must be prioritised by way of infrastructure.
“I’m professional any type of transport, however we should bear in mind there’s solely 2-3 % of the inhabitants which might be cyclists,” she mentioned. “We should have a look at a few of these cycle lanes which have been put in.
“I am going to provide the instance of Park Lane. It’s rattling ridiculous fairly frankly. It was advantage signalling by this mayor [Sadiq Khan] as a result of there is a cycle lane that goes by the park proper subsequent door.
“The visitors then will get gridlocked. Fumes all over.”
Corridor additionally mentioned she would cease what she described as a “struggle on motorists” if she is elected and replaces the present mayor, Labour’s Sadiq Khan.
“A profitable metropolis is a transferring metropolis,” she added. “Once you’ve put a few of these cycle lanes in that trigger nothing however havoc, once you put cycle lanes in since you’re advantage signalling that’s unacceptable.
“The opposite factor that no one appears to carry up, which is so essential when now we have gridlock streets, is how can we anticipate our emergency companies to get by?
“It is rather essential that ambulances, fireplace engines, and police can get by the streets as rapidly as doable, in addition to the remainder of us.
“So, I’m professional biking, however equally we should have a look at everyone else that makes use of the streets. And this struggle on the motorists should cease.”
Regardless of Corridor’s claims concerning the low share of cyclists in Britain, information launched by Transport for London final yr exhibits that over 70,000 extra journeys have been made every day within the capital in 2023 than the earlier yr. This represented a rise of 20% since earlier than the worldwide pandemic.
On the time the figures have been printed, Will Norman, London’s strolling and biking commissioner, mentioned that he and Khan are dedicated to “boosting this additional”.
“I’m delighted to see the rise in biking and strolling journeys in London proceed for yet one more yr,” Norman mentioned. “The Mayor and I are dedicated to boosting this additional. We are going to proceed to increase the community of cycleways and make extra junctions and crossings safer.
“We’re decided to construct a cleaner, greener and extra affluent London for everybody, and investing in sustainable transport choices is an important a part of that.”
Simon Munk, from the London Biking Marketing campaign, added: “The most recent information makes it clearer than ever that London loves biking. Round 1 / 4 of Londoners cycle, round one other quarter wish to.
“These figures present that the variety of biking journeys on any day is a few third of all Tube journeys or 1 / 4 of all bus journeys – it is a mainstream mode of transport utilized by a wider and wider vary of Londoners.”
