Sign for Cycling

Candidates commit

We won commitments from all six main Mayoral candidates: Caroline Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat); George Galloway (Respect); Sadiq Khan (Labour); Sophie Walker (Women’s Equality Party); Sian Berry (Green); Zac Goldsmith (Conservative). The result was that Mayor Sadiq Khan had committed to and rapidly started to move on his pledge.

The results

All three pledges have seen significant movement.

• By May 2020, when he was due to finish his elected term, Sadiq had indeed tripled the mileage of protected cycle tracks on main roads. This was in part due to strong progress by the three mini-Holland boroughs. However, the Covid crisis also delayed the election. In the first round of Streetspace schemes, Sadiq went on to nearly quintuple the mileage of protected space on main roads by the end of 2020 due to rapid rollout of Streetspace schemes.
• Sadiq completed two rounds of “Liveable Neighbourhood” funding, funding a majority of London boroughs for a variety of town centre schemes, prior to the Covid crisis. However, very few of these schemes, at that point, had reached construction stage. The Covid crisis and Streetspace funding, however, saw an incredibly rapid and bold roll-out of residential area “low traffic neighbourhood” and School Street schemes – nearly 100 of the former, with several hundred of the latter. On top of that, pavement widening and shopping street closure schemes during the crisis were also rolled out too.
• On lorries, TfL’s Direct Vision Lorry standard, a world’s first, was developed and a licensing scheme aimed at ensuring the lorries with the least driver vision were mitigated with extra measures (such as sensors) or modified or removed from the roads is on track to go live in 1 March 2021, delayed from October 2020 because of Covid, and is set to be tightened further in 2024 to only allow “3 star” vehicles in (or those with appropriate mitigation). LCC action also has seen the EU mandate Direct Vision for lorry manufacturers – with new models needing to feature better, larger windows from 2023 and all models from 2027. Even with Britain leaving Europe, manufacturers tend to make for global markets.

The commitments

The original three items we asked Mayoral candidates to commit to read as follows:

More safe space for cycling

LCC secured a huge investment in cycling at the last Mayoral election. But London urgently needs more high-quality, protected space on main roads and at junctions – these places force cyclists to mix with heavy or fast moving motor traffic, which can put people off cycling. Our next Mayor must triple the number of miles of protected cycle lanes on London’s roads, so that people of all ages and abilities can access the whole road network by bike.

A “Mini Holland” for every London Borough

‘Mini-Holland’ schemes create cycle-friendly town-centres. They encourage people to make local journeys by bike or on foot, help regenerate communities, and bring more customers to local businesses. We’ve already secured new schemes in Waltham Forest, Enfield, and Kingston. Now we want every borough to get its very own Mini-Holland.

An end to lorry danger

Lorries are the largest vehicles on our streets and pose the greatest risk to cyclists – their design restricts the driver’s vision. London’s next Mayor must act fast to end lorry danger. This must include upgrading the Safer Lorry Scheme, procurement policies,  and using planning powers over major construction projects, so that only the safest lorries, with ‘Direct Vision’ cabs and minimal ‘blind spots’ are allowed onto London’s streets.