Things have changed in the capital. Since 2000, cycling has increased by 91%, a pretty big figure and despite it starting from a very small base, it shouldn’t be dismissed, as some critics may, as an increase of 91% of nothing remaining, effectively, nothing.
I’ve just spent the best part of an hour London watching. While having breakfast in a small café at around 7.45am, I was disappointed by the number of cyclists. ‘Get there early,’ I was told, ‘because they all disappear come 9am.’ Well, here I am, wondering if he meant 8am, not 9. Then, at 8.04am precisely, a small train of cyclists come past; all different bikes, clothing and gender. Brill! It’s started. And so it continued until about 8.35am, with the height of activity at around 8.20am.
So I watched, in amazement really, as hundreds of cyclists made their way through the capital. I have to admit, I was a little nostalgic for a moment; I was a cycle courier here in 1992, my origins in the bike trade. Reality soon kicked in though as I began to appreciate two inalienable truths-
1. Cyclists who jump red lights are the same people who would decry such actions were they in a car.
2. Most car drivers have no idea of the impact of their driving on other road users.
To explain:
I fully expected a number of cyclists to jump the lights; to my shame, I did the same when I was a courier and that was in a time when there was a greater chance of ending up under the wheels of a car or van, when cycle awareness was non-existant. What I didn’t expect were the type of people, (and yes, this is a generalisation), that jumped lights. Courier wanabees? Check. Respectable looking businessmen in suits? Um, check. Middle aged women? Eer, check, again. So, there is no one group more guilty of this than any other. Cyclists jump red lights, but only a minority and they earn the scorn of other cyclists.
Pedestrians, however, are without doubt far more guilty of jumping lights and as it is such common practise, there is no pressure on them to change their ways. In fact, one cyclist who, on a green light, continued to cycle through a crowd of pedestrians crossing against their red light, received a torrent of abuse even though he was going slowly, was obviously a competent cyclist and was pinging his bell from a few yards out. Come on pedestrians, play fair.
Point 2, above, is a simple one. Car drivers are under the assumption it would seem, that their back wheels follow the same course as the front. Wrong! The number of cyclists that had to avoid being hit by cars, as they pulled out from Torrington Place and onto Tottenham Court Road, was astonishing. As the back end of the car drew closer to the barriers as the car turned, the cyclists were forced to slow or even stop in order to avoid being hurt. And, it must be said, not one of these cyclists hurled abuse at the car driver. Nice.
So, what do I take away from all this? That there is more work to be done in London than merely increasing cycle facilities. Transport in the Capital has to be a holistic solution, encompassing all modes, for any transport policy to work. Boris, if you’re listening, I’m here to help, as are so many other cycling bodies and user groups. It just takes a little trip around the streets to see where things could so easily improve.
