Vision Zero Action Plan 2 launches
New safe systems plan to cut collisions faster, shows TfL getting bolder
New safe systems plan to cut collisions faster, shows TfL getting bolder
The Mayor of London, TfL, London’s councils and the Met Police have today released a joint Vision Zero Action Plan 2. This follows Sadiq’s commitment in 2018 to a ‘Vision Zero’ of eliminating serious and fatal collisions from London’s roads by 2041. ‘Vision Zero’ being the term used internationally for cities working towards and reaching the point of having no such collisions each year.
LCC has spent years campaigning for more road danger reduction action from the Mayor, TfL and the Met Police.
It is hugely welcome that the current Mayor, Sadiq Khan continues to make road danger a real issue for action and scrutiny. And it’s hugely welcome TfL and the Met clearly are listening to LCC campaigning – in this Action Plan 2 on cycle tracks and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), on speed assist and driver training for working drivers, on illegally modified ebikes and gig economy riders, on the need to reduce private motor traffic, helmetcam reporting and much more…
Oslo is currently way out in front on it’s Vision Zero pathway, but London is not actually far behind according to data released with the report. TfL says that while London is in effect currently twice as dangerous as Oslo in road collision per capita terms, we’re doing very well compared to most comparable cities.
Looking at people killed per 100,000 ‘daytime’ population, Oslo’s at 0.5, Inner London comes next at 0.8, then Zurich, Copenhagen and Stockholm, all just ahead of Greater London at 1.1. But active travel city de jour, Paris is 1.3, Greater Manchester is 2.1 and New York City is 2.4.
However, the Mayor is clear that London has to accelerate, not rest on laurels. “I’m proud that we have saved lives through the important steps already taken,” said the Mayor in TfL’s press release. “But every death or serious injury on our roads is unacceptable and we must go further and faster to eliminate this heartbreak across the capital.”
“This updated plan acknowledges that a step-change in how we tackle road danger in London is needed,” said Andy Lord, Commissioner of TfL and Sir Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.
The plan adds a new target to existing ones to commit London to zero serious or fatal collisions by 2041 and to cut such collisions by 70% by 2030 (from a 2010-14 baseline). The new target is a 65% reduction on post-Covid numbers 2022-24 by 2035. TfL’s way off trajectory on these targets, so for this plan and target to make sense, we need a lot of action, fast.
There’s a whole load in the plan, and we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of it. Indeed, we’ll also come back soon and let you know what we think is missing from the plan too (we’ve already noticed fixing London’s most dangerous junctions gets little mention in this update of the plan). But these are the biggest, most interesting five elements of the new plan…
The most obvious and well-evidenced way to rapidly reduce collisions is to reduce motor vehicle speed – to 20mph. TfL commits to continuing to push government to make 20 the urban default and to expanding 20mph coverage. But it’s curiously coy as to how much further it will go on borough roads and how fast.
The Met also commits to more enforcement of 20mph, more ‘safety’ cameras and TfL, the Met and councils will consider innovative ways to increase speeding enforcement – but what’s missing is anything for London councils who have been asking for civil speed enforcement powers.
If cash-strapped London councils could deploy cameras to catch speeders, it’d be a revenue generator and would lead to far more enforcement – but only on a civil basis. That would in effect decriminalise speeding – which some in power aren’t keen on.
Obviously for cycling, the commitment to near double the coverage of Cycleway schemes across London by 2035 is good news. The Mayor’s Transport Strategy says that 70% of Londoners will live within 400 metres of a ‘high-quality’ Cycleway scheme by 2041. Now he’s committed TfL to getting to 55% by 2035, from 29% in 2024.
That’s a lot more cycle schemes – which rather makes the point of our upcoming Streets For Cycling local election campaign – where we’re asking council leaders to get on and finish the priority routes for the cycle network.
The plan also says that “protected cycle lanes reduce injury risk by up to 65 per cent”. Given TfL’s too weak ‘Cycle Route Quality Criteria’ and apparently increasing bus industry and internal opposition to main road cycle tracks it remains to be seen how much of the cycle network built going forward is direct, highest-quality cycle tracks or through proper Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), and how much is the lowest common denominator wiggly routes too often on ratruns or along isolated canal towpaths.
Committing to doubling the cycle network in under 10 years is broadly a good thing. However, not only is there a risk to the quality of cycle routes currently visible in London, but also that isn’t really an acceleration of the programme in many ways, but a steady rise roughly in line with what was already committed to in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy.
If TfL doesn’t get bolder – particularly on scheme quality – the worst of it is that serious and fatal collisions in London for those cycling, could keep going up, not down!
Cycling is booming, with 39% more journeys in 2024 than the 2010-14 baseline, and the risk of being seriously injured or killed while cycling has fallen 23% during that period. But cycling is also the only mode of transport where total collision numbers are currently going in the entirely wrong direction – serious and fatal collisions for those cycling went up by 8% year on year in 2024 – keeping those collisions in total above the 2010-14 baseline. That alone should send the Mayor, TfL and London’s boroughs the message they’re doing far from enough to enable truly safe, inclusive cycling for everyone.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) have been extremely controversial in London and beyond for some time, despite increasingly clear evidence they work.
While TfL in this document doesn’t explicitly commit to a specific number more of LTNs it does say that London’s ones “have reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured by 37 per cent, and reduced risk across all modes without negative safety impacts on boundary roads” and that councils are encouraged to add more.
The plan does commit to 200 more School Streets however, bringing the total to 1,000 and now including secondary schools. And posits other zonal/area-wide approaches it will now look to, including “at least eight “safer high streets” schemes, with the emphasis on “reducing motor traffic and introducing bus and cycle-only corridors” for these.
On top, the plan talks about ‘Hospital Streets’ that will support the NHS by reducing motor traffic around hospitals, as well as more ‘Evening Streets’ culture and hospitality evening zones, after the four first pilots. So expect lots more motor vehicle ‘low traffic’ areas across London, at least for some parts of the day.
The plan says quietly what we’ll say out loud. This is what TfL says: “Reducing traffic is linked to fewer people being killed or seriously injured. In Oslo, policies to reduce traffic in the city led to zero people killed while walking or cycling in 2019 and 2023”.
They commit to a “continued reduction in freight and motor traffic in central London” and say they’ll ensure they are “on track to achieve the Mayor’s Transport Strategy aim for 80 per cent of trips to be made by walking, cycling and public transport by 2041”, which would in turn mean cutting private motor vehicle mode share to about half what it is now (and has been for years).
What we’ll say is that TfL and the Mayor, despite having taken ‘smart’ road-user charging ‘off the table’ in the run-up to Sadiq’s last election, are clearly aware that reducing private motor traffic and fast is the biggest single thing they can do not just to reduce road danger but also to enable more active travel and public transport, and to cut climate emissions and, well, make a better London.
Remember: a majority of private motor vehicle journeys in London could be done relatively easily by other modes according to TfL analysis. And the place those car journeys are most likely to shift to is cycling.
TfL says “new analysis shows that just under half of all people killed or seriously injured on London’s roads are harmed in collisions involving a working driver or rider”. Of that, 85% of the victims are not the person driving or riding for work.
TfL and the Mayor already have saved lives by taking up LCC’s calls for Direct Vision lorries and they’re now working to improve standards and raise the bar on lorry drivers’ vision.
But also, again following LCC campaigning, the plan asks London boroughs to make all their “procurement contracts and planning standards… specify FORS Silver (or equivalent) and Construction Logistics and Community Safety (CLOCS) by 2030”. These are standards for training drivers and vehicle safety etc.
On top, TfL now commits to “100 per cent Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) coverage across the bus fleet by 2031, by introducing new vehicles and retrofitting older vehicles.” And on gig economy riders, again thanks to LCC campaigning, aims to “expand the scope of TfL’s meal and grocery delivery motorcycle road safety charter to include e-bikes and pedal cycles as well as motorcycles” as well as work with industry to “address the use of unsafe and non-road-legal e-bikes and e-motorcycles”.
The plan has loads more good stuff in it, but to keep the blog to a shorter word count than Ulysses…
TfL says that since 2015, an “estimated 262 deaths have been prevented on London’s roads thanks to the Mayor, TfL and Vision Zero partners collectively taking action… six fewer people each year have been killed in collisions with HGVs while walking, cycling or motorcycling since the introduction of the Mayor’s Direct Vision Standard and… the introduction of 20mph limits on borough roads at current levels of enforcement has led to 34 per cent fewer people, and 50 per cent fewer children, being killed or seriously injured on those roads.”
Bravely, TfL’s plan carries the words of those who have lost people to road collisions. This blog ends with excerpts from two of them – a stark reminder of why we campaign for what we campaign for, how bold TfL, the Mayor and the Police must be in acting, and how we’ll continue to hold them to account for these tragic and avoidable collisions until they cease.
“On the way out to a gig, Mithun and I kissed goodbye and said I love you. In the early hours of 12 May, I woke up and opened the door to police officers, about to hear the most earth-shattering words. The love of my life, the man I was to marry and my best friend was killed. Crossing the traffic lights on his way home” Abi Toghill on her fiancé Mithun
“He was struck at 45mph, on a road where 30mph was the speed limit, by a driver under the influence of cannabis. She failed to stop. His body went over the wall, landing in a skip in the care home, where the care home workers who he had just wished happy Christmas found him.” Tesse Akpeki on her brother Tony
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