Jenny Jones has commented on the London Mayor’s annual allocation of money from the Transport for London (TfL) budget, to the boroughs. A cut in the planned budget for borough spending on cycling, follows the dropping of London Cycle Network plus (LCN+) from the TfL financial plan.
"The mayor has cut £10m off the budget for cycle lanes in London and used the money to help fund a new £11m budget for traffic light rephasing. This might well please a few motorists who want to get through red lights faster, but it is a stab in the back for cyclists in London. After years of waiting for more than a few painted lines, cyclists were starting to see real changes made to road layouts, dangerous junctions and roundabouts. The boroughs had bid for £38m of spending to deliver the London Cycling Network on their roads and had expected to get £20m this year, instead they only have £10m."
"Local cyclists have spent the last three years working on schemes, often having to overcome the resistance of reluctant traffic engineers. What we needed this year was a Mayor with some backbone and the desire to remove the physical barriers to cycling in London. The cycling Mayor was meant to be on their side, yet he has now halved the funding for London’s biggest cycling scheme from."
ENDS
Notes to Editors
1. The Boroughs put in spending bids for almost £38m on the London Cycle Network+. The previously planned TfL budget for LCN+ on borough roads was £20m (TfL 10th Oct), which is the same figure as last year. The allocation announced today is £10m.
2. The previously planned budget for borough spending on cycling was £35m, but the actual allocation is £23m (if the budgets for cycle parking, greenways and Olympics walking/cycling are included). If those items are excluded and a straight forward comparison is made with last years allocation (TfL press release Nov 2008), there is a cut from £24m to £16m in borough expenditure on cycling.
3. The £11m for traffic light modernization is a new budget line within the borough allocation announcement and was not there last year (TfL press release, Nov 2008)