Suburban cycling cut to pay for central London cycling  

Suburban cycling cut to pay for central London cycling 

Analysis of new figures released by Transport for London shows how the Mayor is planning to spend £57m on a Velib style cycle hire scheme in central London whilst spending less on schemes, which would benefit cycling in outer London. New figures show that out of a total of 383 schemes which have not been funded in the coming year, 260 are in outer London boroughs.

A provisional breakdown of the £111m cycling budget for 2009/10 has been sent to Jenny Jones. TfL have allocated nearly half the money to cycle hire and £12m to the cycling superhighways, which are fast commuter routes into central London. However, nothing is specifically allocated in the coming year to cycling hubs in outer London and the total spent on the pan London Cycle Network will be just over a third of what it has been this year.

Jenny Jones said: 

"I think that the cycle hire scheme is brilliant and so is the idea of cycling superhighways, but the London mayor is paying for these high profile schemes by cutting hundreds of local schemes which would make cycling safer in London. We have a zone one cycling mayor who is giving far less money to the London Cycle Network in outer London, despite the advice from experts who tell him that four fifths of the potential new cyclists come from the suburbs."

"The previous mayor made it clear that new innovations like cycle hire, superhighways and cycling hubs would all be in addition to existing schemes like the LCN+. The mayor would not be forced to make cuts in the budget for safer cycling schemes if he hadn’t scrapped the plans for emission charging. The revenue from that would have paid for finishing off the LCN+. He has put the interests of the owners of Chelsea Tractors above the safety of suburban cyclists."

Notes to editors

1. Analysis of the money provided to the boroughs for the LCN+ shows that a total of 383 schemes have not been funded in the coming year, 260 of them in outer London boroughs, see attached table based upon Question to the London mayor No: 2698 / 2008.
2. TfL’s cycle hire scheme is aiming for 55,000 cycling trips per day by bike. At present there are around 540,000 cycling trips.
Money spent on LCN+ was £33m in 2008/09, but drops to only £12m in 2009/10. These total figures are divided up between borough roads and the Trans London Road Network (TLRN). The LCN+ expenditure on the borough roads drops from £20 to £10m, whilst the LCN+ spending on the TLRN drops from £13m to £2m.
4. The London mayor has the target of a 400% increase in cycling, but the Transport for London report which proposed this target showed that 80% of the new potential cyclists would have to come from outer London.