2025 in review: London’s cycling boom
London’s tipping point for cycling arrived in 2025, so what comes next?
London’s tipping point for cycling arrived in 2025, so what comes next?
Wow, what a year that’s been. A chaotic rollercoaster of highs and lows. What were your best and worst moments? Here are ours…
In late November, TfL released data showing that Londoners were on an average day this year cycling 1.5 million journeys. That amounts to nearly half of all tube journeys per day, and is up a whopping 12.7 percent on already amazing 2024 figures.
The biggest growth was in inner London, up nearly 15 percent year on year, although both central and outer London saw significant growth too (outer London was up nearly 10 percent).
This leads us to believe cycling’s ‘mode share’ of all journeys is likely to be over 5 percent in 2025. What’s causing all this? The inexorable rise of dockless hire and the rollout of safe, comfortable and high-quality cycle routes – both particularly visible in inner London.
Let’s not also forget the few days in September when most TfL tube lines shut down due to strikes and buses were stalled in traffic.
During that period, cycling levels were likely over 2 million journeys daily for much of a week, most of our routes immediately went even more over capacity, and we could all see a both utopian and at times dystopian vision of a future for cycling in London – if we don’t get a lot more cycle tracks and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) fast.
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From end of May to early July, we ran our four-stranded Dare To Dream campaign, daring the Mayor of London to dream far bigger on transforming London for active travel.
As well as asking him to fix outer London town centres, make cycle use attainable for a wider range of Londoners, and deliver car-free Sunday streets across the capital (more on which below), we also asked the Mayor for a Low Traffic West End.
A further consultation on Oxford Street’s pedestrianisation plans arrived in late November, highlighting that while the scheme is a huge leap forward for the nation’s shopping street, the scheme forces a wider conversation about the West End and how traffic-mired it is.
In particular, to deliver viable and high-quality, high-capacity parallel cycling routes to Oxford Street, the obvious answer is to remove through traffic from areas both sides of Oxford Street.
The galling thing is that while the West End remains covered in motor traffic, Paris has implemented a low traffic area in its central zone bigger than the West End (as our report shows).
At the same time, other stakeholders in the West End aren’t waiting on Sadiq to take action. The Crown Estates in July announced bold plans for Regent Street, Haymarket, Piccadilly Circus and surrounds.
The plans are brilliant (and popular), but a tad worryingly light (just like Oxford Street) on where cycling goes and how. Once again, the risk we’re pushing back hard on is that these iconic areas in the west end see the motor traffic reduced or gone, but still remain impermeable for cycling.
In all this, there has been a sea-change in Westminster Council on active travel too. Despite the Labour leader pledging to our Climate Safe Streets campaign in 2022 to deliver a high-quality cycle network, install pedestrian signals at all signalised junctions properly, cut through traffic in neighbourhoods and more, until this year, progress was very slow.
But a new transport portfolio lead and schemes finally making their way to fruition has meant rapid progress – with multiple schemes in construction or out for consultation in the last days of 2025.
Little wonder then that Westminster Council won a ‘highly commended’ for LCC’s Awards in December in the Active & Inclusive Travel category, alongside Newham and both pipped by Camden.
We could probably do an entire separate blog on the progress some boroughs have made in 2025, despite tough conditions.
With a very cautious TfL and Mayor on active travel (more on this below), precious little funding to go round from government and as ever lots of ‘controversy’ and ‘bikelash’ from certain politicians and quarters of the media. But suffice to say it’s not just Westminster making moves.
Camden has been delivering schemes all over the borough including an amazing pedestrianisation of Camden High Street (with cycling) and just at the end of the year released further consultations for the Holborn areas we described as “mind-blowingly good” as well as becoming just the third council in London to put forward plans for a ‘circulating cycling stage’ safe junction for York Way at Agar Grove, following the Romford Road consultation from Newham and Waltham Forest’s ongoing programme that’s now nearly at 10 junctions actually in on the ground and more in construction.
Meanwhile, Lewisham has finally opened Deptford Church Street’s cycle tracks, C4 continues to make its way through Greenwich and C9 through Hounslow and Southwark and Lambeth have been delivering too.
But the stars for schemes in the ground in 2025? Waltham Forest as ever, Newham and, surprise, Westminster.
In July 2024, LCC joined up with Lime, the dockless bike provider, to run the Share The Joy fund, by July 2025, the fund had seen over £160,000 awarded to over 58 grassroots community projects.
Funding has gone to projects such as Black Women on Wheels, Londra Bisiklet Kulübü’s work getting Turkish and Kurdish families cycling, and The Bike Project helping refugees with cycles. The fund is ongoing and the next round opens late January 2026.
Also in 2025, LCC working again with Lime but also the Zero Emissions Network of boroughs, we launched the London Cycling Festival.
Across 14 London boroughs and with over 30 rides and events, thousands of Londoners enjoyed a grand day out in their area. The Festival was in part conceived to replace RideLondon Freecycle, cancelled in 2025, and as an alternative approach – rather than people from outer London ride all the way in and back to central London with kids, why not ride in a group round your own area?
With Freecycle still missing in action, we’re glad to confirm we’re working across London to deliver London Cycling Festival again, only bigger and better in September 2026!
LCC, of course, can’t ignore the downsides of cycling in London and borough and TfL delivery on it. 2025 started with an amazing, jaw-dropping and horrific report and gut-punching film from our Women’s Network on the social safety of TfL’s Cycleways after dark.
Nearly a quarter of the entire network by length was deemed ‘socially unsafe’ – with long stretches of isolated, narrow and dark canal towpath particularly highlighted as unacceptable.
In February, LCC worked with our Newham Cyclists group to protest at the Stratford High Street and Carpenters Road junction where a young man, only recently arrived to the UK to study, we believe, was killed by a turning lorry, at a notoriously dangerous and substandard junction on one of the oldest Cycleways.
In November, we released the latest version of our Dangerous Junctions mapping showing that junction and others as the most dangerous for cycling, for pedestrians and by borough.
The launch highlighted boroughs such as Camden tackling the Holborn one-way system and taking bold action to contrast against ten very real lives lost across London.
LCC never calls for protest or calls out the Mayor and TfL lightly. Perhaps because we are measured in our criticisms, when we call schemes “Too Weak”, the Mayor and TfL listen.
From the woefully poor Great Eastern Street and Curtain Road scheme consultation we fought against at the end of 2024 and into the start of 2025, we saw significant improvements for changes proposed next door at the junction of Great Eastern Street and Shoreditch High Street in July.
Better, but still far from good enough – and going into 2026, TfL and the Mayor of London are being accused by most boroughs we talk to of internal incoherence between delivery of bus priority, cycling and reducing motor traffic.
LCC supports clear and bold moves to not only prioritise cycling, walking and wheeling, but also public transport – buses – with bus lanes and bus gates, as well as moves to reduce motor traffic levels in line with the Mayor’s targets on mode share, carbon emissions and road danger – but we’re far from sure the Mayor or TfL support enough of the same for their own targets.
As well as the looming local elections, we want 2026 to be the year TfL and the Mayor work out once more how to deliver progress for London that cuts unnecessary motor vehicle use (most car journeys could be done relatively easily other ways, says TfL analysis), boost bus speeds and delivers walking, cycling and wheeling priority and safety. Without that, the Mayor’s targets will be missed, and much of this failure will be self-inflicted.
Despite weak junctions and Silvertown tunnels, 2025 then was mostly a triumph – massive growth in cycling, the rise of dockless, the London Cycling Festival and Westminster Council, let us repeat, Westminster Council, embracing cycling! Amazing scenes. But there’s more to come as 2026 is set to be wilder and probably weirder!
Pedicab legislation could mean finally reputable cycle taxis rather than being faced oncoming by a giant hairy disco machine on Westminster Bridge, that charges tourists random rip-off prices. And likely an end to really dodgy working practices and vulnerable riders.
2026 is also going to see live trials of WayMo’s autonomous vehicles on London streets. The cabs are already out on streets in London – but next year will start picking up passengers (although there’ll still be a human driver with a wheel for emergencies, during the trials).
Promised to be ‘far safer’ than private hire rivals that rely on human drivers, it remains to be seen how well these vehicles cope with the complexities of London’s streets (they’re already in over 15 US cities) and indeed, LCC is yet to assess the potential pros and cons in terms not just of cycle safety, but congestion, motor vehicle use etc.
Of course, March to May 2026 is also going to be the election period for London’s councils, with huge potential according to the polling to see significant shake-ups in every direction.
We’ll be launching our local election campaign, asking London’s next council leaders to commit to really delivering on safe cycle routes soon. Until then, have a great holiday season – and here’s to keeping making London a truly world-class cycling city in 2026!
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