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London cyclists at traffic lights (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).jpgDaily Mail stages race to highlight “cycle lane lunacy” – and proves bikes are quicker than cars in cities
The Daily Mail’s latest assault on what it terms “the lunacy” of cycling infrastructure sees it staging commuter races between cyclists and motorists as it attempts to prove how development of dedicated infrastructure for cyclists is causing increased congestion for those who drive.
But it’s a race that cyclists have been winning for years, even before the introduction of separated infrastructure designed to increase the safety of people on two wheels – perhaps most famously in an episode of Top Gear in which Richard Hammond showed that the quickest way across London is by bike.
In its report, the Mail staged races between a cyclist and motorist in three cities – London, Manchester and Bristol – each comprising two stages, the first during morning rush hour, the return along the same route later in the morning, to see how the different modes of transport would fare when there is less traffic.
The outward leg of the race in the capital was staged between the Tower of London to Tate Britain at morning peak, a journey of 4.25 miles. Setting off at 8.13am, Harry Wallop – who penned the Mail Online report – cycled the distance in 26 minutes, while driver Katherine Clementine took 20 minutes longer.
The disparity was greater on the return leg, which began at 11.03am, Wallop completing the trip in 24 minutes, Clementine taking a little more than twice as long, at 49 minutes.
The Embankment, however, has been notorious for daytime traffic jams well before the dedicated infrastructure was announced, and across the capital the rise of private hire cars due to Uber, as well as ever-increasing deliveries of goods ordered online and increased construction traffic, have all adding to congestion.
In both Bristol, the cyclist won the first leg of the journey, but the driver was quickest on the return leg.
The 5.6-mile rush hour journey from the Clifton Suspension Bridge to Filton took Megan King 29 minutes on a bike, beating driver Beki Elmer by seven minutes.
The return trip, at 12.20pm, saw the driver win by a margin of five minutes – although the cyclist did have the handicap of having to ride the initial section uphill.
Meanwhile in Manchester, cyclist Stewart Whittingham beat motorist Andrew Chamberlain by four minutes in a 3.4-mile trip from Fallowfield to the Town Hall, Albert Square.
That was despite the slowest part of the rider’s journey being due to cycle lanes near the university being closed as new infrastructure is put in place.
In the return contest at 11.30am, again the cyclist was quickest – this time by a margin of just one minute.
In 2014, the Bristol Post ran a commuter race from the Trooper pub to its offices in Temple Way that pitched five modes of transport against each other – in the order they finished, those were riding a scooter, cycling, driving a car, running and taking the bus.
The cyclist completed the journey in 12 minutes 33 seconds, nearly eight minutes ahead of the car driver – and that includes the time he took to get changed before arriving at his desk.
Two years earlier, the Manchester Evening News held one in July 2012 that again saw a bike rider beat a motorist, in a race from Oldham Town Hall to Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens.
The most famous car vs bike challenge, however, is perhaps one staged for the cameras of BBC’s Top Gear in 2008 that pitched former presenters Richard Hammond, on a bike, Jeremy Clarkson, in a speedboat, and James May, driving a Mercedes – oh, and the Stig, on public transport – in a race across the capital from Kew to London City Airport.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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26 comments
Living in Bristol, driving would take me an hour and half by car.
It was 15 mins by bike.
I used to commute from Esher to St John's Wood which was 20 miles. Bike was 1:15, Train 1:35, Car 1:45. It cost 35 quid a week less too
Side note... took my life in my hands on a daily basis....
Daily Fail win you mean. They've exactly proved their point.
It's slower by car than bike - proves that cycle infrastructure is lunacy because cars are now slower. "We" need to get rid of the bike lanes and get "our" road space back.
That episode of top gear is from 2007 not 2008
(You know, you shouldn't admit to knowing that...
)
I remember being told as a kid never to speak to the press as your average journalist is so bent that he cannot lie straight in bed!
I am sure that that was never wholly true, but given how reluctant people are to pay for their news we should not be surprised that the five W's have been replaced by click bait online and regurgitated press releases in the free sheets.
Ah traffic. As a convert over to bike commuting this year (the whole reason I switched jobs in fact) theres not much I enjoy more than my bit of Schadenfreude as I pass the 5km or so of stationary queueing traffic along the main road through our town each morning.
You don't have to look far to see why some people just don't 'get it'. One of the local moaner Facebook groups has a consistent ring of "why can't the bus lanes be used in rush hour, they're empty most of the time". If you have to explain the stupidity of that statement, you know that it's not actually worth the effort.
The daily fail trying to out-bullshit themselves...
The"journalist" needs a good sharp kick in the plums.
If they had any #plums they wouldn't be working for the DM...would they?
The free local rag in Lancaster (where I used to live) had a long-standing campaign / complaint about traffic in Lancaster's notoriously poor one-way system although they seemed happy enough to just moan about it rather than do anything constructive.
Not sure who it was but someone organised a bike vs train vs car race from Morecambe Town Hall to Lancaster Town Hall in the morning and and then the return journey in the afternoon.
Train is a 5-10 minute walk from the station at each end and a 12 minute journey.
Bike won both trips convincingly, train second, car third.
The paper's angle on this was that a new bypass was urgently needed to ensure faster travel times. Rather than telling people to use train or bike.
Well, I think we should send the Mail a letter of thanks from us collectively as cyclists, for proving that cycling is not only cheaper, healthier and non-polluting, but quicker too. Unfortunately, I think the point may be lost on the average reader of the Mail.
Browsing the comments section of the DM it would appear that they have shot their own fox with this particular article.
I also enjoy the irony that a major purpose of the article was to hilight the underuse of the cycle lanes outside of rush hour and in each case it would appear that the car used in the 'race' did so with at least 3 empty seats or 25% utilisation.
It does not matter which is faster. The story is that car journeys are being delayed due to the infrastructure space given over to cycles. Never mind that more people use those cycleways than the adjacent road, or that whilst doing so they produce effectively no pollution and have a positive net gain benefit to the NHS. No no no, the point is that the cycle lane menace is perpetuating a horrible injustice on the poor motorist and causing those poor innocents to create more pollution than than they really wanted to which affects everyone else. It is a passing of blame that D Trump himself would be proud of.
"between the Tower of London to Tate Modern at morning peak, a journey of 4.25 miles"
Eh? That's not much more than a mile. It's to Tate Britain, which is further upriver.
But having looked at the Mail's article, I love that cyclists have crowded out the usual hate crew in the comments section
Tower of London to Tate Britain is 3.3 miles along the route they took (according to google maps).
The Mail can't even get the distance right.
I did like that the journalist cycling said 'The only difficulty was negotiating the complex lights', they are just normal Red/Amber/Green traffic lights. If they struggle with that, I hope he doesn't drive.
Sadly, comments now closed on the article. Upside is that I don't have to sign up to the DF website.
And consequently "this article is no longer accepting comments"
We periodically do commuter challenges here in Oxford. Often over quite long distances - eg from Witney.
Bikes nearly always win in the rush hour.
In some closer in challenges, with only a couple of miles distance, we have used people with no vehicles at all, and they too beat the car.
If you look at the stupid article, you can see that these arent even fast cyclists, I assumed they raced against people bombing it through, nope, these are ordinary people!
Worse still, the London biker was obviously a cabbie, Tower of London to Tate Modern in 4.25 miles? Via Windsor, perhaps. It's no more than 1, 1.5 miles. Even Tate Britain is only 3.5 miles (and according to my old Stravas takes about 13 mins at moderate pace).
In short, it's all bullshit. From the Mail. Who knew?
Driving through cities is completely pointless for the majority of people who do it. The state of our city designs and popular attitude is summed up by people viewing not only being able to do it, but do it quicker than non-motorised plebs, as their right.
In a densely packed urban area the car will be slower, once you get to small cities or large towns the the differences are minimal and in the countryside the car is quicker.
With all the public transport in London, surely they can start banning cars except for blue badge holders? More road space for bikes and buses.
True. My commute is from my village along country-ish A roads, then down into the nearby city's centre. I get passed by every single motor vehicle until I get into the city, and then suddenly I'm passing stationery motor vehicles...
i find that there's nothing more satisfying than filtering past some numpty in a car that's just raced to overtake you to join the end of a 2 mile queue
Apart from the coutryside between Farnham and Guildford which regularly takes an hour in the car for 9 miles, or 35 mins for the bike on the back roads (12 miles)
#smugcommuter
High Wycombe, not even sure it would qualify as large town, 3.5 mile commute - takes me 12 minutes by bike and 25+ in the car. I shower when i get to work, but its only the shower I would have had before leaving home, so no difference there.
I can't understand why anyone would choose to make the journey in the car.
The numbers that need to be posted every time the daily mail or others make this argument is - what is the width of the car lane - how many people per hour pass through and what is the width of the cycle lane and how many people per hour pass through. The cycle lane will almost certainly carry more people per hour and in less space, and so is removing congestion from the roads.