City Cycle Plan

The City's Cycling Plan is of great importance to London's cycling community not just because many cyclists cycle through the City on their journeys or because the UK's road network starts at St Paul's. The City already had the highest levels of cycling of any local authority in London and has experienced a record increase this year with a third more cycling bring us up to over 7% of traffic flow.

The City is often the test bed for radical traffic measures. Taxis are being removed from a proportion of the bus lane network, traffic calming is being put in on a section of red route (at Bishopsgate and there's even a proposal to restrict private motor traffic there by 2008) and the ring of steel was extended over the holiday period bring further motor traffic reduction. Additionally there is greatest proportion in London of police who cycle and increasingly freight cycles are used by dynamic delivery firms, while cutting edge companies such as Bloomberg have hired rickshaw fleets for the use of their employees.

All this has happened despite the CoL doing frankly very little to help cycles - the plans for secure parking have stalled, the grants for LCN routes have not been spent for three years in a row and almost all the existing cycle facilities fail to meet basic standards or increase safety. While lobbying by City Cyclists has already lead to creation of a proposed local cycle route network and the bringing forward of the date for LCN+ completion, not to mention the plan stating that cycling is an alternative to all forms of motorised transport (as opposed to private cars only), we still need improvements in the Plan.

Already existing targets in the Plan are looking timid - at the end of 2003, we're almost two-thirds of the way to the 2010 target of doubling cycling from levels in 2000. And with hundreds of thousands of people travelling daily on public transport in conditions not fit for animals and at risk of everything from headline grabbing terrorist attacks to waist expanding obesity, the proposal to treble commuting trips from 2000 to 6000, could reasonably be increased to 20,000.

With a tiny local group resurfacing three years ago, the LCC has not been as active in the City as elsewhere due largely to the lack of people living there. With a little extra help from other LCC groups and members, not only could the City be a shining beacon to other town centres in London, it would also cease to be a barrier for cross-London trips.

Key issues

1. Prioritise permeability remove all gyratories and audit all one-way streets & banned turned to see if cycles can be exempted

2. 20mph City zone based the existing and the experimental Traffic & Environment Zones (rings of steel) in size.

3. Tackle taxis make up most of the traffic while carrying less on average than private cars and blocking kerbsides with impunity: get them out of bus lanes and restrict them where necessary during the day. Private motor traffic is already very low in the City and usually essential, i.e. disabled or secure money deliveries.

4. Fair enforcement enforce existing loading restrictions, move them towards to 7am-7pm on weekdays, improve driver standards and deal with illegal cycling that endangers other road users and is discourteous to other Vulnerable Road Users. Also greater targeting of cycle theft.

5. A cycling Corporation encourage cycling within the Corporation, full time cycle officer, change committee terms of reference, set up a City Cycle Forum

6. Take up targets copy largely from Camden

7. (De)engineer roads to make them more cycle friendlier - the smaller roads need less engineering, i.e. one ways, traffic signals, kerbs, moving towards the idea of shared space for interaction not travel space just for moving. Larger roads (i.e. those designed as travel space) need more engineering, i.e. high quality cycle facilities, including cycle tracks on Embankment and by the Tower.

8. Secure parking secure sites needed urgently

9. Advertising & support for business

10. Open up key routes in the Corporation's green spaces to cycling, e.g. through Epping Forest, Hampstead Heath