Senior MP asks whether 'loss of tarmac' for cycle lanes is causing London's congestion problems as Government launches urban congestion inquiry

Smart phones.  Smart phones contribute to congestion.   Those people who when momentarily stopped in queing traffic and have to look at their phones, only stop looking when the vehicle in front is already moving (I'm not saying they put it down).   They are invariably staring at their groin, so they have to look up, remember they are meant to be driving and then set off.  It can add 3-5 seconds onto the person behinds time waiting.  For every one of these it's one or two cars less through the lights, and you can have 2 or 3 of these scroflaws in a small queue.  Smart phones contribute to congestion.

Most of my commute takes place on residential roads, lined on both sides by parked cars.

Remove those cars and the amount of road space would nearly double. Imagine the upset if you suggested banning on-street parking though!

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, as I think he might have a point - at least when applied outside somewhere like London, where density of cyclists is much lower.

For example, a couple of years ago my local council installed painted cycles lanes all along one of the main roads as part of their re-surfacing and improvement works, despite the pavements on both sides being generally wider than average and already designated as shared use.

The road is quite wide enough to take them for the most part, but they fizzle out in many places where there are pedestrian islands and other junctions, meaning you have to either jump onto the pavement or re-join the main traffic to get to the next section.

One side effect of them is that the traffic is pushed out towards the centre of the road, which has basically wiped out the filtering gap I used on the motorbike for much of the average commute. Another side effect is that if someone in front of you is turning right, they are now blocking the road, as there is no room to get around them without crossing the solid white line and going into the cycle lane.

Given the amount of people I actually see using them, they seem to be a bit pointless. Most of the school kids are still in packs on the pavements, quite a few other adults are, for whatever reason, still using the shared pavement and the people that are using them would probably be perfectly happy on the road without them.

“The roads are going to stay crowded and we need to find ways of sharing them more effectively.  The same thing is true of cycling. Of course it’s a good thing to get people onto bikes in terms of health and environment. Currently there’s a row going on between bike users who say they’re making things better, and road groups who believe cycle paths are crowding other vehicles out. I want to know if anyone’s done any credible research on the subject so we can get to the truth rather than constantly slinging mud. It’s in everyone’s interests to know what’s really happening.” 

The classic "sharing" of the roads, meaning get out of the way of my car. 

Fuck Rob Flello's and Fuck the useless Labour Party. 

Not that the right honerable gentleman is the brightest button in the box, but I was wondering if he had noticed the increase in the size of the average car, most private cars are pretty much useless in the middle of London, but those massive SUVs take up a great deal of space.

Where to start? I know we live in a post-fact world, but if Flello had spent 30 seconds on the internet he could have avoided such inane conjecture and obvious bias. Eg: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil...

and: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil...

A few more facts: 42,000 Uber drivers in London in 2016 up from nil in 2011; 35.6 million vehicles on UK roads compared to 26 million 20 years ago - they've got to be parked somewhere for the 95% of the time they're not being used; 310 billion vehicle miles driven in 2014 up nearly 20% in 20 years; fewer HGV trips but big increases in light van traffic. And as for those efficient load carriers: "Vans are relatively poorly-utilised – 39 per cent are less than one-quarter full with an average payload of just 300 kg" TFL Roads Task Force – Technical Note 5.    My tandem is more efficient on a road space per kg basis!

London office space construction is also undergoing a relative boom at present https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/real-estate/articles/crane-survey.... meaning more road disruption and more construction traffic.

Cycling and  motorcycling down from 14% of traffic in 1952 to 1% now. But, bloody cycle lanes! That's got to be the problem innit?

A few points (from a Londoner):

1. The majority of car drivers in central London do not live in London (possibly same for cab drivers)...yet they believe they have a god given right to worse the environment there (would they like the same problems in the village or town they come from?)

2. Delivery vans (not just Amazon) - there's been a massive increase, an increase that'd be a lot less if say, they was a single outfit co ordinating deliveries and ensuring the vans are full and delivering in an efficient manner. I don't know, some kind of post office?

3. Uber drivers. Big increase in numbers again.

"Currently there’s a row going on between bike users who say they’re making things better, and road groups who believe cycle paths are crowding other vehicles out"

Do any intelligent road users actually believe this? Even amongst the minority of car drivers that dont like the idea of cyclists the main sentiment seems to be that its an irritation rather than something intrinsically slowing down motorists.

I live in Greater London and only use the roads at the weekend so cant comment on commuting to central, but for me over the past 20 years every single indicator points to there being more cars on the road from more being parked in the street, to more per front drive, more front drives converted for parking in general, taking longer to find a parking space, the same journey taking longer now than a few years ago, the list goes on...  I can say without a doubt that the handful of cyclists on these suburban roads at the weekend has no effect  as like me they probably avoid these roads like the plague and head out to the country hills!

Why don't they dig up the tube and turn it into underground roads? There must 250 miles of road that cyclist will not want to use. The stations could be turned into parking areas and people could just pop up do what they need to do and pop back down and go in their way. 

Job done

Oh sorry I forgot MP's use the tube incase someone runs over them whilst cycling.

No need for an inquiry, a picture should do it...

To look on a bright side, if the report says that the cycle routes are not contributing to congestion, and in fact are having an effect on reducing it, then that would be a fine arguement to the spittle filled rant of the LTDA and the NIMBYs.

the roads are carring more people per hour - yey, but metal boxes are mOving slower. O well that's unacceptable metal boxes are more important than people.

Middle-aged cyclist asks whether 'loss of clues' for MPs is causing the country's problems as Government launches yet another pointless inquiry to pretend they give a sh*t.

When I read comments such as this, and when they come from folk with, one assumes, a degree of education and in a role of some responsibility, I really am lost for words.

That graph really does show how insignificant car users are in London, compared to their percieved hardship.

12 miles.

12miles of cycle superhighway in the whole of Londons massive road network.

Labour need to get themselves sorted out.

Mileage per adult may have fallen, but adults per mile has shot up because so many idiots are doing shorter and shorter journeys by car.

The only way to reduce congestion is to reduce the number of vehicles. It boils my piss that people honestly think that creating more space for vehicles will ease congestion. Er no - you'll just have more vehicles on the road.

And all this with daily pollution numbers going from scary to plain dangerous. Bonkers.