| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:The end of CS9 ? | |
| Posted by: | Charlotte Kasner | |
| Date/Time: | 30/05/18 12:50:00 |
| "Mike Brown admitted the scheme has caused huge congestion in the capital and issued an apology for the way it was brought in". Evening Standard citation, not likely to be published if incorrect. Taking road space away from drivers means that traffic will still continue to use the route but will be subject to much more congestion. Congestion means that there is no through-flow of traffic and that engines will idle and traffic will not be moving at a speed which optimises fuel use. Thus, there will be more pollution. TfL seems to have quietly dropped is aim of getting 10% of people cycling by the mid 2020s and is now saying that it "...aims to increase the number of journeys taken by bike in the capital from 2% to 5% by 2026". In spite of disproportionate amounts of investment and marketing, cycling has only increased it share by 1% in more than eighteen years. There is nothing to suggest therefore that the next 8 years will be significantly different. TfL (and others) have focused on just one aspect of behaviour and suggested that fear of road traffic is the only significant reason for not cycling. This is not borne out by their own studies or any others. Whilst TfL have denigrated opposition to cycle superhighways by designated it as a coming from a "vocal minority", they ignore the fact that, buy their own admission, 70% of "frequent" cyclists (those that only have to cycle once a week to be counted) are men as are 59% of "infrequent" cyclists (those who cycle at least once a year). I'm not stats expert, but ths seems a very bizarre designation of frequency. However, the main point is that this small number of mostly men are surely the "vocal minority", not least because they have been allowed a vastly disproprtionate and privileged input into the "consultation" process. Equally, London's pollution is caused by a variety of other factors in addition to road vehicles, so removing even 3% of vehicles from the road, assuming that everyone in them decided to cycle instead, would make no difference whatsoever. |