On 2 May 2024, Sadiq Khan was elected Mayor of London for a historic third term in a row. Despite claiming he might still be Mayor in 2040, it seems likely this will be his last term. One year in, how’s he doing (on transport and cycling)?
Sadiq’s first two terms were characterised by major changes to London’s transport systems – for the better.
For cycling, not only did he massively expand London’s network of protected cycle tracks – at last count delivering over five times the amount of his predecessors, in part thanks to LCC’s 2016 ‘Sign for Cycling’ campaign that Sadiq signed up to – but during the pandemic period, TfL’s ‘Streetspace’ schemes resulted in a sea change of approach to trialling schemes before permanent changes were made.
As a result, we saw not only rapid rollout of cycle tracks (often initially ‘wand’ protected) but also a dramatic increase in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) across London and significant junction safety designs, as well as ‘bus gate’ schemes such as at Bishopsgate, on London Bridge and Stoke Newington’s Church Street.
Sadiq also brought in the Direct Vision lorry standard and has since improved it, which has saved lives of people cycling and walking on our streets, again in part thanks to ongoing campaigning from LCC.
Even these major achievements however pale into the expansion of the ULEZ scheme to run London-wide and the delivery of the Elizabeth Line too. Londoners, thanks to Sadiq, breathe cleaner air, have fewer cars on the road and much more cycling and we can get across the whole city east-west in minutes.
There’s a lot, then, to praise Sadiq for his first two terms in transport terms. While there have been places we’ve disagreed with him throughout his tenure – TfL’s pace and quality on junction design probably most visibly – it would be fair to say he’s been a really good Mayor on transport in his first two terms.
This year, however, it’s been a different story.
Firstly, junction design and the general progress of delivery on active travel measures from TfL has been so weak, so incoherent, that we had to launch our ‘Too Weak, Sadiq’ campaign this winter – because the designs for junctions in Shoreditch at one of the most dangerous junctions for both cycling and pedestrians looked like they came from the 2000s or even earlier.
Internally, we are hearing over and over that the ‘lessons’ of the pandemic on trialling schemes have not just been discarded, but indeed that the processes for schemes to be signed off through modelling and past TfL’s buses officers, are more onerous for active travel and safety than ever before.
TfL essentially appears to be unable to halt the constant decline of bus speeds – and its only answer appears to be to cancel, weaken and delay active travel schemes. That is likely in part due to Sadiq and something that’s been dubbed the ‘Uxbridge Effect’…
Sadiq with Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman. Among the highlights from Sadiq, the improvements to lorry safety standards rank highly
In July 2023, the Conservatives retained Uxbridge after previous MP (and Prime Minister) Boris Johnson stood down after investigation into his handling of the pandemic and a mass resignation of his own cabinet.
In Uxbridge, he was replaced by Conservative Steve Tuckwell, with Labour’s Danny Beales getting to within 500 votes in a historically Conservative stronghold.
Both the Conservatives and national Labour figures (and Beales) all blamed ULEZ, with Keir Starmer asking Sadiq at the time to “reflect” on the loss.
Labour’s election to government nationally has also seen a swing towards motor vehicles and away from active travel policy and funding-wise, with Louise Haigh’s “unprecedented” funding for active travel initially promised quickly switching to instead funding for the Lower Thames Crossing, other major roadbuilding initiatives, pro-driver rhetoric and the third runway at Heathrow.
Several Labour metro region Mayors outside London have since cancelled congestion or pollution charging measures or weakened them. And in the run-up to his re-election, Sadiq promised not to implement ‘pay per mile’ or ‘smart’ road user charging measures as Mayor.
From tense words over ULEZ, it seems like there is now a tacit agreement not to rock the transport boat in London for Sadiq. But that is causing real problems for us all now…
Taking pay per mile off the table has had a clearly chilling effect on TfL and unless Sadiq can now incredibly rapidly realign the organisation and transport in London, he will be rapidly sinking his own commitments to climate and road safety.
In 2016, when he was first elected, Sadiq’s new Mayor’s Transport Strategy committed TfL and London to several bold and powerful promises. Sadiq promised to reduce motor vehicle use and boost alternatives to the extent that by 2041 80% of journeys made daily in London would be using sustainable and/or active modes (public transport, walking, cycling etc.). Currently, that’s hovering around 65% as it has done for most of the last decade.
Sadiq also said that he would reduce fatal and serious road collisions by 2041 to nothing.
‘Vision Zero’ seems a long way off (despite it already having been achieved in some European and Scandinavian cities) in London. There were over 3,700 of these in London in last figures (2023) and while the trend is downwards, Sadiq and TfL are way off track to hit their targets.
On top of the transport strategy, in the run-up to his second term in 2021, Sadiq declared his ‘ambition’ to make London a ‘Net Zero’ city including for transport by 2030.
Subsequently, his own report findings suggested that to do that, he’d need to reduce motor vehicle km driven by around 27% by then and electrify a lot of motor vehicles to make that.
Yet motor vehicle km are rising currently and, as above, mode share is flatlining, while bus speeds drop every year (apart from a brief blip during the pandemic).
Sadiq, having taken pay per mile off the table, appears to have no idea how he might reduce motor traffic levels. And that attitude has trickled down into TfL – allowing old-school junction schemes and sludgy consultation processes to overrun any rapid and bold progress on cycling, but even on bus priority measures and definitely on traffic reduction – which Sadiq and TfL are now going in entirely the wrong direction on.
To cap off internal lack of direction and coherence, there’s a further sign that active travel and motor traffic reduction are way too low priorities for Sadiq and TfL now.
While admittedly it’s been in the works from before his tenure, Sadiq did open the Silvertown Tunnel, and not only open it – he went on to suggest London should be “incredibly proud” to have it. Score one massive own goal on motor traffic reduction.
The Silvertown Tunnel in all it’s glory…
The Silvertown Tunnel, TfL would have you believe, will add zero extra motor traffic to (east) London. It’ll be, again, according to TfL, a massive boon to cross-river public transport.
LCC has always opposed the tunnel. Extra road capacity always gets used by more motor vehicle journeys in cities – this principle of ‘induced demand’ is never bucked.
And if the reasoning was to alleviate congestion and pollution at the Dartford, Rotherhithe and Blackwall crossings, as has been claimed, then tolling the Blackwall could have been done before any sign-off on a £2.2 billion car and lorry tunnel.
Instead, the relatively low charge for driving through the tunnel (and Blackwall to match) will do little to constrain growth in motor traffic across the area – something the Lower Thames Crossing will likely only exacerbate too (just outside London).
Meanwhile, as per our recent blog, the promised Canary Wharf – Rotherhithe bridge never materialised, Silvertown’s use as a bus/cycle tunnel was scuppered and every other river crossing outside of central London is pretty horrific for cycling.
The overall impression is that following the fightback he faced on ULEZ expansion and LTNs, Sadiq’s tired of taking the flak on active travel and hasn’t got the fight for another big and bold move (particularly with Oxford Street already on the books).
Plus, as a result of him then having taken road pricing off the menu, TfL is worse than stuck. While those inside the organisation responsible for reducing motor traffic seem to have mostly given up, those responsible for cycling are increasingly obviously facing infighting and internal incoherence.
Right now, we all need Sadiq to spend the next three years going in the opposite direction to the last one by prioritising bold action, safety, clean transport and our city and planet.
That’s why in a few scant weeks we will be launching our ‘Dare To Dream’ campaign to ask Sadiq to do more, dream bigger and be bolder.
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