London's best-ever year for cycling

2024 in London has seen major successes for cycling.

We’ve seen the highest ever number of daily cycle journeys in London at 1.33 million per day – equivalent to a third of all daily tube journeys.

This is because cycling in many parts of London is now safer than ever, with more protected cycle lanes, more Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, safer junctions, and safer lorries.

“Let us now acknowledge that there are people walking around London today, who would not otherwise be doing so if it wasn’t for the work of many of you [campaigners].” ~ Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner

More wins in 2024

• The cycle network continues to expand thanks to LCC with high quality protected cycle routes from central London towards west London in Hounslow (C9) and east London past Greenwich (C4).
• A new partnership between Lime, London Cycling Campaign and Loud Mobility called Share the Joy announced £100,000 of small grants to community cycling groups across London, reaching groups who would not be able to apply for some of the mainstream grants.
• We also celebrated 10 years of the Waltham Forest mini-Holland programme, an internationally renowned scheme which transformed a car-dominated outer borough into the best London has to offer. Waltham Forest continues to see the highest cycling rates in outer London, and longer life-expectancies for its children.
• Oxford Street is being pedestrianised! New powers announced for the Mayor of London will be used to take the street and give it to people, turning Oxford Street back into Europe’s premiere shopping destination.

Don’t get comfortable…

What we’re seeing now in London is good – but it could be so much better.

An increase of 70,000 more journeys a day in 2024 (on top of a base of 1.26 million a last year) isn’t nearly as big as it could be. We think lots of the credit for the increase in cycling this year goes to the growing popularity of dockless e-bike hire, while slow, weak rollout of new protected cycle lanes and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods across London continues to hold the city back. We’re at risk of forgetting the lessons of the COVID pandemic for the popularity of active travel.

In particular we continue to see woeful disparity between boroughs. Imagine how popular cycling would be if all inner London sorted out their networks? Camden, Islington and Lambeth are on a good delivery path – meaning Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster could all do a lot better. And don’t even get us started on outer London…

We can see strains evident inside Transport for London in terms of delivering coherently, rapidly, to high quality – and on active travel and public transport. We can ill-afford to see cycling always at the bottom of the priority list. So yes, good progress. But this progress is at risk unless Sadiq gets bolder & Transport for London get a lot more coherent.

What next for cycling in London?

In 2025 we’re calling for:

• Women’s freedom. Our women’s network is busy mapping all the cycle routes in London which are unsafe after dark. Watch this space for early 2025 and register now to join the protest on Thursday 6 February 2025…
• A World-Leading Cycling City Centre. Don’t stop at just Oxford Circus. We’re calling for Soho and the West End to be reimagined, to drastically reduce motor traffic and deliver a world-leading cycling city centre.
• Monthly Car Free Sundays. There’s no RideLondon or FreeCycle for 2025, leaving a gap in London’s cycling calendar. We’re calling for every London borough to close streets to cars for one Sunday a month.
• A Bike For Every Londoner. Theft, the cost of a bike and safe cycle storage is a key barrier to cycling for many people. We’re calling for a suite of solutions that together provide a bike for every Londoner.
• Family Safe Cycling In Outer London. The cycling boom hasn’t touched many parts of outer London, from Bromley to Brent. We’re calling for funding so every outer-London borough can transform at least one local centre to be safe for family cycling.