Olympic news: Wrong bank hire bike issue, Jon Snow praises unexpected benefit of Games Lanes

My commute into the City from Clapham has been better this week than normal.

The school holidays will have helped, but people seem to have actually taken the advice not to drive into central London. Now if people can rememeber this instead of going back to old habits, London will be so much nicer.

The bets part of the effect of the Zil lanes has been that the Embankment doesn't have parking on it for coaches. So nice without them (and space for wide segregated lanes).

There are substantial temporary cycle parks - in Central London - TfL website has map & list.

If major tidal flows Boris system fails as vans cannot collect and redistribute fast enough.

Still a few Bromptons available with SWT at Waterloo & Richmond (manual hire) and automated unit now operating at Ealing Broadway.

I'm surprised no major uptake from Parkatmyhouse websites fro local 'legacy' benefit. Might also find local residents offering secure bike parking perhaps?

On a related note TFL are CLOSING 30 BBikes docking stations near venues for the duration of the games.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/18088.aspx

I mean, seriously...

I couldn't believe how quiet the roads were on my way in this morning.

Apart from a couple of hotspots around King's Cross (soooo many taxies), and Gower Street (due to the diversions around Russel Square probably), things were eerily quiet.

Still, yesterday some woman in a Chrysler Voyager ran me into the curb as she squeezed past me in a bus lane (before the 7pm restriction was lifted). She even had the gall to stop, get out and confront me for slapping the side of her car, and then tell me she "always looks out for cyclists".

So it's not keeping all the wankers off the road.

So the future of inner city living peace is less motorised traffic on the roads. Thank the Lord for the £40bn we spent on the Olympics then. No one had ever had that idea.

The reality is how would it be done for more than 4 weeks?

Any news on the move to allow cyclists in the games lanes? Seem to remember that some MPs were putting forward a motion on it but I haven't seen a result of it anywhere.

Mr Snow. You're a capable television presenter but would you consider running for mayor? Please do, Boris is buffoon.

traffic evaporation ... something neither the Mayor nor Transport for London seems to have any faith in ... is happening across the whole city

countless unnecessary journeys aren't being driven, leaving bags of space on the road

now to make this permanent

It's ironic that the population accepts and adapts to a reallocation of road space to the elite and privileged for the Olympics yet vocally opposes allocating more road space to cyclists, the most egalitarian form of independent transport ever invented.

I hope the Olympic experiment is being measured and gets analysed credibly to show what may be possible. Too many people are addicted to car use for stupidly short (and often unnecessary) journeys and it will take a big shift to break those habits.

The Olympics is an example of a large intervention that changes behaviour at the population level. Imagine what might happen if Government allocated £10 bn to shift the nation's habit towards walking and cycling more.

Why on earth doesn't Boris put his brain in gear before engaging his mouth?

Apart from which, he's done bugger-all to make cycling towards the Olympic Park safer (and indeed allowed one off-road route to be closed for no good reason).

All mouth and floppy hair.

If only they would make the games lanes in to cycle lanes once the Olympics are over...

It certainly proves that it's possible to reduce traffic in London. The issue is really whether it is sustainable - people are prepared to put up with a change in how they travel for a short, fixed period but if it were made indefinite wouldn't there be political uproar? It's one thing when people cycle to work on a lovely sunny day like today, knowing they can get back in the car in a couple of weeks. Another thing entirely to persuade them to stay on the bike through the winter.

Would love to see them try it though - it would make a huge difference to the atmosphere of the city as well as to safety.

Yes, but Jon Snow has been commuting in London for probably a couple of decades so I'm sure he's aware of the effects of school holidays… He certainly doesn't seem to be in a minority in saying that the Games Lanes have improved condidtions for cyclists.

Seems to me it's a mixed picture on some of the faster Games lanes roads, like the Embankment cycling is probably more fraught because faster moving vehicles are being squeezed in to a narrower space and are terrified of going in to the Games Lane so instead are encroaching cycle lanes, but motorists simply aren't venturing in to other parts of what are usually the most clogged parts of central London after the jams of the first day the lanes went in to operation last week - that would seem to acccount for the large numbers of happy cyclists on Twitter asking for the Games lanes to be made permanent.

Joined up thinking anyone.. ?

What is with Transport Planners in this country, did they not complete their education?

Euston Road was almost empty yesterday morning. Please make these Games Lanes permanent.