The Conservative celebration 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 when it comes to infrastructure.
“I’m professional any type of transport, however we should keep in mind there’s solely 2-3 p.c of the inhabitants which might be cyclists,” she mentioned. “We should have a look at a few of these cycle lanes which were put in.
“I will 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 everywhere.”
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 shifting metropolis,” she added. “Whenever you’ve put a few of these cycle lanes in that trigger nothing however havoc, while you put cycle lanes in since you’re advantage signalling that’s unacceptable.
“The opposite factor that no person appears to carry up, which is so essential when we now have gridlock streets, is how will we count on our emergency companies to get by?
“It is extremely essential that ambulances, fireplace engines, and police can get by the streets as rapidly as potential, in addition to the remainder of us.
“So, I’m professional biking, however equally we should have a look at all people else that makes use of the streets. And this struggle on the motorists should cease.”
Regardless of Corridor’s claims relating to the low share of cyclists in Britain, knowledge launched by Transport for London final yr reveals that over 70,000 extra journeys had been made each 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 had been revealed, 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 newest knowledge 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 couple of 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.”
