Mayor of London Unveils Major Walking and Cycling Programs; City to Spend Almost US$1B on Cycling Over Next Decade

11 February 2008

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, announced a major package of five programs to create a new network of quick, simple, and safe routes for cyclists and pedestrians that represents the largest investment in walking and cycling in the city’s history. The plan also makes cycling a fully-funded part of the public transport network for the first time.

The city of London is implementing these measures with the aim of having one in ten round trips in London each day made by bike, and saving some 1.6 million tonnes of CO₂ per year as Londoners increasingly walk or cycle for short trips instead of taking their cars.

The aim of this programme is nothing short of a cycling and walking transformation in London. We will spend something like £500 million (US$975 million) over the next decade on cycling—the biggest investment in cycling in London’s history, which will mean that thousands more Londoners can cycle in confidence, on routes that take them quickly and safely to where they want to go.

The cycle hire scheme in Paris has proved a huge success, and I have now instructed Transport for London to work with the London boroughs and interested parties to develop and implement a bike hire scheme in central London, accessible to all Londoners. By ensuring that Londoners have easy access to bikes in the centre of the capital, as well as making our city a safer and more enjoyable place to cycle, we will build upon London’s leading position as the only major world city to have achieved a switch from private car use to public transport, cycling and walking.

The expansion of cycling and walking will help reduce our impact on climate change and reduce traffic congestion. Around 20% of the carbon emissions savings we’ve calculated we can make from transport by 2025 will come from changing the way we travel. We know Londoners want the opportunity to walk and cycle more. One in two people say that they want to walk for short journeys where they currently use their car. Forty per cent of Londoners have access to a bike, but currently only one in eight use it regularly.

—Ken Livingstone

The five new programs are:

• A Central London bike rental scheme, similar to the recently launched Paris scheme, with up to 6,000 bikes located across docking stations every 300m so Londoners and visitors have quick and easy access to a bike. This will be supported by a series of easily navigable routes so that people can enjoy London’s sights by bike.

  The rental scheme will phase in, with earliest delivery date of summer 2010. Approximately £75 million will be invested over ten years.

• Around a dozen radial Cycling Corridors for commuters to provide high-profile, easy to follow cycling streams into central London.

• The creation of a series of Bike Zones for shoppers and the school run in Inner and Outer London, with cycle priority streets, 20mph speed limits and quick, clear and simple routes that link key local destinations and open parks and waterways for cyclists.

• The expansion of the Legible London signage system to help people make short trips around the capital on foot, rather than driving, or taking the bus and tube.

• Working with the London Boroughs on the establishment of 200 Streets of Gold—urban makeovers which link key local destinations like stations, schools and shops in inner and outer London with high quality walking facilities, delivering improved pavements, seating and crossings alongside regeneration measures.

Transport for London (TfL) will be consulting with the London boroughs, and walking, cycling and health stakeholders to define and develop the detailed plans for these initiatives.

The new programs are in addition to existing commitments, which will continue the investment in projects including cycle training, cycle parking, the greenway programme, and the London Cycle network Plus, as well as funding for a bigger and better London Freewheel, the summer mass bike ride for cyclists of all abilities, for at least 60,000 participants this year.

To improve rail and cycle integration TfL will deliver over 850 additional places at suburban London Underground, Overground and DLR stations over the next two years. TfL will also work with train operating companies to deliver 400 more spaces at suburban rail stations, building on 1,300 spaces already delivered at 100 stations. In Central London TfL is working with the private sector to deliver parking stations at London Bridge, Kings Cross and Stratford.

Cycling levels in London have already increased by 83% compared to 2000, and the growth that the new programs aim to achieve would see a 400% increase in cycling levels by 2025 compared to that time.

The new programs are the recommendations from the strategic review of cycling and walking undertaken by Transport for London as a result of last year’s budget agreement letter from the London Mayor to Assembly Members Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones.

The Mayor also signed Walk21’s International Charter for Walking, which commits to reducing the physical, social and institutional barriers that limit walking activity, and as a means to encourage other cities to adopt a similar vision to London’s—for London to be one of the most walkable cities in the world within 10 years.