Sadiq Khan is committed to being the most cycling-friendly mayor that the capital has ever had – and is already delivering real results. However, there have recently been a number of inaccurate reports about his plans and I’d like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
Making cycling safer and easier will be a significantly higher priority for Sadiq than it was for the previous administration.
Sadiq committed to increasing the amount spent on cycling in his election manifesto and that is exactly what we intend to do. A new business plan will be published over the coming weeks that will fulfil this promise. After all, money talks – and we need to invest to create the new infrastructure we need to make cycling safer. This is a major victory for cyclists in London that despite good intentions, the previous administration was never able to achieve.
Over the coming weeks, we will also be appointing a new walking and cycling commissioner for London. Unlike previous appointments to this role, we’ve run an open and competitive process. We’ve had over 150 brilliant applicants and I’m confident we’ll end up with the right person for the job.
The role is to be an advocate for active travel in London – raising the profile of both cycling and walking as fantastic ways of travelling around the city and working with TfL to create healthier streets – and to make cycling safer and easier.
Contrary to what some have said, the terms of the appointment are almost identical to those of the previous cycling commissioner, reporting into the deputy mayor of transport and having real access to the mayor.
We have quickly got on with the job of delivering the cycle superhighway projects that were left under way by Boris Johnson. Construction work is being planned to minimise disruption and congestion on the roads, with more work being undertaken at night. This was not a priority for the previous administration, which led to increasing resentment against cyclists and cycle superhighways. This has not helped the cyclists’ cause.
Sadiq has already given his endorsement to the next two superhighway routes – CS11 and the north-south route. We will be consulting on two more routes next year – CS4 and CS9. And we remain absolutely committed to delivering a new east-west route, although this was left in an unsatisfactory condition, requiring more work to do by the previous administration.
Work on the east-west superhighway has been ongoing since we arrived at city hall. The section in Hyde Park on West Carriage Drive was recently finished and is now open. Construction is underway at South Carriage Drive, Lancaster Gate and Constitution Hill, while the St James’s Park area will follow in the New Year.
I have visited Lancaster Gate, and it is clear the area will benefit significantly from improved cycling provision as well as pedestrian crossings. All of this is in line with our new approach to improve our streets for everyone; residents, pedestrians and cyclists.
However, we have had to undertake additional work to finalise the route of CS11 through Regent’s Park, as the consultation which was published on the last possible day before the mayoral election, left the council and community feeling their concerns had not been listened to or tackled.
We’re pushing on with bold improvements to safety at historically troublesome junctions across the capital. Work continues at pace at Stockwell and Archway, while work will start next year at Old Street, where improvements for cyclists were delayed under the previous mayor and his cycling commissioner’s watch.
We’ve also announced significant improvements for walkers and cyclists that will be introduced at Hammersmith gyratory and Highbury Corner.
We haven’t waited for the new walking and cycling commissioner to take post before getting on with implementing our bold new ideas to make cycling safer.
Our groundbreaking new direct vision standard, for example, is a much bolder proposal that anything planned by the last administration. We will ban the most unsafe HGVs from London completely, removing thousands of dangerous off-road vehicles from London’s streets.
And by setting out our plans now, we expect many lorries will have been upgraded well before that ban comes into place.
More than that, the mayor and I have spent time changing Transport for London (TfL) itself – refreshing its policy to cover pedestrians, cyclists and improvements to the local environment.
We’ve streamlined some of its cumbersome internal processes that slowed up schemes without solving issues, such as the impact on bus routes, improving its ability to communicate and consult with the community, and finally ensuring the new commissioner will have a sound budget to work from.
The previous mayor’s model on promoting cycling led to a commissioner fighting a war with TfL. Our model is about making both cycling and walking a mainstream function. TfL should be the mayor’s agent to design and deliver these schemes in the best possible way, and our new commissioner will benefit from a better functioning machine behind them.
Making cycling safer is a very serious issue. It affects thousands of Londoners, and tragically too many people are still dying and getting injured on our roads every year.
Cyclists deserve a mayor on their side – which is what they have with Sadiq Khan – and they also deserve the truth about the work being done by city hall to make cycling in London safer and easier.
- Val Shawcross is London’s deputy mayor for transport
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