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Cycle Superhighways plans - Victoria embankmentChris Boardman comes out swinging for London's planned 'Crossrail for bikes'
British Cycling policy advisor and former Tour de France yellow jersey wearer Chris Boardman has landed a series of piledriver punches on opponents of London's planned east-west and north-south cycle superhighways, nicknamed 'Crossrail for bikes'.
Writing today in the Guardian, Boardman hit out at the organisations that have been anonymously briefing against the new cycleways, the Canary Wharf Group, and by the City of London Corporation.
Boardman writes: "A PR company employed by the [Canary Wharf Group] has distributed a briefing which the scheme’s supporters say contains numerous misrepresentations and errors of fact. Another business lobbyist funded by Canary Wharf has toured the party conferences claiming, wrongly, that the superhighways will delay traffic in London by 6%."
These claims have been reported by journalists for The Evening Standard, politics.co.uk and the Guardian itself. In all cases those opposing the plans have been allowed to remain anonymous, a protection traditionally afforded to those whose life or livelihood is would be threatened if their identity were revealed, clearly not the case here.
Boardman believes there's a very simple reason why those opposing the new cycleways won't identify themselves.
"These opponents … know that the majority even of business opinion is not with them and they stand little chance of winning any debate held in the open. They know that they will be seen as old men in limos. … They are trying to poison the project in secret without leaving any fingerprints."
Turning to the Square Mile, Boardman writes: "The Corporation attacks the scheme as “heavily biased towards cycling”.
"That feels a little like opposing Crossrail on the grounds that it is heavily biased towards trains – but it’s wrong anyway. It is not just cyclists who will benefit from the new routes.
"The superhighway will be able to carry 3,000 people an hour. That is the equivalent of putting 10 extra trains an hour on the District and Circle Tube lines running beneath the route, at a fraction of the cost in capital works and disruption. It is the equivalent of running 41 extra buses an hour, at a fraction of the cost in roadspace and emissions."
That's a staggering capacity, and shows just how much cycling can improve the carrying capacity of Britain's streets. Giving over more space to cycling and taking it away from cars has been demonstrated to improve quality of life, increase turnover for local businesses and even speed up car traffic.
As Boardman writes: "Everywhere else this has been tried – London is way behind many other world cities – it has made the streets more pleasant for everyone, and more profitable places to do business. Cycling is a catalyst to change our country for the better."
Boardman saves his final punch for the way opponents of the proposed cycleways believe they can still run things from the shadows.
He writes: "The limo-users’ view of how London is governed, like their view of how London travels around, feels out of date. Deals behind the scenes were how it was done when the city was run by Whitehall. But under an elected mayor, the public should decide and the debates should be held in public."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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14 comments
This debate isn't about London, it's about trying to normalize cycling and creating an infrastructure so that it becomes the default means of urban transport in the UK.
Exercise is now listed as a treatment in 39 UK national health guidelines- even small amounts of regular exercise dramatically reduce the risk of cardiovascular death. This doesn't have to mean driving to the gym- cycling is the perfect way to do this, plus it makes us interact with the environment and is fun. We all know this argument, it's a no-brainer, but how many of us can honestly say we'd be happy to let our kids cycle from home into the town centre, or to school, or their friend's houses with what we have at the moment?
Hats off to CB for this- it's so refreshing to have a high-profile, high-cred and highly informed ambassador for cycling who has a vision and is prepared to be vocal.
I must say it's been great to see CB really back cycling as a whole over the last few years, now that he has got a sizable retirement fund.
Good for him.
Large, leading capital schemes are important, they set a precedent and then other people do them. So the slow improvement begins. Of course it's never going to be perfect, that's pretty much impossible (organisation theory tells us that) but it all can be much better and I am just beginning to believe that it just might (CS horror not withstandng!)
For it to even have a chance of working you need at CB to call out the vested interests, stand up and be counted.
C'mon Chris...
Pie in the sky thinking. UK is a crap country to cycle in . Always has been always will be. A country full of cycle haters. Once you accept this you can move on. It will never change. Why all this focus on London?
London is one of the cities leading the change. The one you say isn't happening.
"Once you accept this, you can move on"... to what?
What is there to move on to after you've given up on the idea of making anything remotely better? Surely that sort of defeatism marks the end of the road in terms of 'moving on', not the beginning.
Do ignore him, he really enjoys partaking in road use conflicts and moaning about it later... revelling in misery you might say.
It's that sort of attitude that makes you wonder about Airzound and why he's on this site. If you don't like cycling in this country then don't cycle in this country. Easy as. It hasn't always been a "crap country" to cycle in. 50 to 100 years ago most people cycled everywhere as they couldn't afford cars. What we're seeing is a resurgence in cycling due to increased fuel prices and cramped public transport.
I've only been road cycling seriously for a year and have seen a marked improvement in the attitude of drivers towards cyclists. Namely, being more courteous and giving us more room. You'll always get some idiots. As to the London proposals, at least they're trying to improve things.
God you're negative aren't you? Imagine if everyone had your defeatist attitude, we'd all be sat round in caves going "well it's shit but what can we do about it..."
It's not a country full of cycle haters, it's a country with a HUGE latent desire to ride bikes - look at Sky Ride and that FreeCycle thing that was part of the Prudential RideLondon weekend. Give people a road that's safe and traffic free and they LOVE it.
Focus on London because it's one of the most polluted, most expensive, most congested cities in the world. Yes, the UK is very London-centric but what happens there filters out to the regions in time. Make it better there, let it show the world the positives and soon everyone wants a slice of the pie.
Look at what New York did - turned the city around in a very short space of time to become a cycling hub. It's still in it's transformative state but now everyone realises that it's a good thing.
Spot on Quince and CB.
It was great to see Boardman get his teeth sunk into an entire article. It's quite a tour de force.
This isn't just about improving the safety of the of London's current bunch cyclists, but a blueprint in reshaping the environments we live in to be pleasant, accessible, clean, efficient and safe for EVERYONE. These plans aren't just a gift to the city's current two-wheelers; they are an invitation to anybody who has ever wanted to climb aboard a bicycle, but has been too intimidated by the idea of having to race a herd of metaphorical rhinos in order to use the streets.
If proper cycling intrastructure is to ever spread through England's towns and cities, it (very probably) has to start in London. If this project succeeds, it could be a major turning point in how Britain approaches travel, and the shape of our streets altogether. I feel it's at least more than a mere 'vanity project'.
I'm sure you've heard it a million times before, but at moment 'cyclist' has been almost synonymous with the fit, fast, sports-gear-clad enthusiasts. In other words, people a lot like... me, and probably everyone else on this site. Cycling shouldn't solely be about us. It shouldn't necessarily be elitist, or competitive, or about glory, pain or suffering. It should potentially just be a simple way of getting about, wearing anything, without fear of death. It should really be as easy as riding a bike.
*Round of applause*
Well said Quince.
"swept up" of course being todays way of attempting to trivialise many years of campaigning for such projects.
I expected no less of Boardman, he really has a way of cutting through the BS. I'm sure at some point he might even have a few words for the minority of mamils who see these proposals as a threat.
It's a shame how people get swept up in big vanity projects. The money this will cost could be spent on so many other areas that would improve the safety of cyclists in London.
Expected more from someone as intelligent as Boardman.
You mean a relatively modest cycling project to Dutch/German/Danish standards, which costs a pittance compared to the overall roads budget? And has been years in the making?
How about you get involved with some cycling activism in London, maybe you can see how little cost this is, and how much progress it represents.
Or maybe you'd like to have more paint instead?