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N-S cycle superhighway (still from @Lakerlikes Instagram)MP says pollution is going up because “road space is being turned over to cycle lanes"
Speaking yesterday during a parliamentary debate, Conservative MP Sir Greg Knight became the latest politician to blame cycle infrastructure for urban congestion problems. Knight said that pollution is, “going up because pavements have got wider and road space is being turned over to cycle lanes.”
Two weeks ago, Lord Tebbit claimed that the "cause of the excess nitrous oxide in the air in this area of Westminster and along the Embankment is those wretched barricades which have been put up by the former mayor.”
The barricades in question were those, “which have been put up in order to assist cyclists – who also get in the way on the main road.”
BikeBiz reports that while enquiring when the Government’s air quality plan is likely to be published, Knight echoed Tebbit’s sentiments.
“Is there not a case — I say this with respect — for making local authorities take into account the congestion effects of their crusade to remove road space in favour of wider pavements and more cycle lanes?
“Someone said to me the other day that there are fewer cars entering central London but that pollution is going up. Well, obviously it is going up because pavements have got wider and road space is being turned over to cycle lanes. The Mayor of London cannot have it both ways. If he wishes to reduce air pollution, he and others need to take care when they are seeking to remove highway lanes.”
Knight is a director of H&H Classics Ltd, a classic car auctions company, and also chair of the all-party parliamentary historic vehicles group.
Labour’s Rob Flello is another MP to voice similar concerns. Announcing the launch of a government inquiry into urban congestion in January, he suggested that “loss of tarmac” for cycle lanes could be a major cause of London’s congestion problems.
A 2016 INRIX report into congestion concluded that Transport for London’s £4 billion Road Modernisation Plan, together with the £15 billion Crossrail programme, would ultimately reduce congestion by 20 per cent, characterising the ongoing construction work as “short term pain for long term gain.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
- Andrewbanshee 1 hour 17 min ago
I experience this quite often when out running. I follow the guidelines, running towards traffic and keep hard right. I am very visible too but...
- eburtthebike 1 hour 30 min ago
"By executing this type of social cost-benefit analysis, and considering the full economic impact of alternative scenarios—including doing nothing...
- mctrials23 1 hour 31 min ago
Not enough to warrant having the role exist at all would be my guess.
- Secret_squirrel 1 hour 39 min ago
Seems expensive for what it is. ...
- JMcL_Ireland 2 hours 5 min ago
Regarding fit, from my experience shoes seem to follow the same nonsense in sizing as a "race" cut clothing - I generally have to upsize one or two...
- brakesmadly 2 hours 18 min ago
"The residents of the town in favour of the bike lane had the good sense to keep away from this meeting."...
- brooksby 2 hours 24 min ago
Except you'll probably find that the factory selling it on Aliexpress are managing that low price by "borrowing" the original design without credit...
- mdavidford 2 hours 42 min ago
You've set up a false dichotomy, though, between 'spend billions on a perfect network', and 'do nothing'. In reality, there are relatively cheap...
- brooksby 3 hours 44 min ago
Note as well how the council has felt that they need to put double yellow lines between the cycle lane and the main carriageway…
- stonojnr 3 hours 58 min ago
It can be 50/50 whether the articles are paywalled or not, even one that looks free can disappear, but you can switch between the EADT &...
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44 comments
It's about time common sense prevailed, so I've started a petition. I see it as a win-win proposal, so certain of becoming law.
Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/189728/sponsors/Ighv3DnmPrbRlRN...
My petition:
Give MPs sedan chairs; let them to use London cycle lanes to avoid congestion.
They'll each need a pair of strong men to carry it, too. So that they will just stop with their ill-informed whining about cycle lanes causing pollution.
http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/mp-who-drives-a-thirsty-old-muscle-car-...
Great idea. It will lead to an increase in employment in the sedan chair manufacturing and carrying industries. Wins all round.
Not that I own one, but if I did and if I was a member of the House of Lords, and if I was looking for the easiest way to get into central London, sign in to claim my £300 and get out again as quickly as possible, I'd be pretty pissed that the convenient helicopter parking space outside the Houses of Parliament has been given over to the common scum in their cars and buses let alone the unspeakables on their horrid pushbikes.
Reminds me of a time when the world was flat and we had witch testing!
It's very simple this one.
Here's what we need to do. The cycling fraternity elect one day per week or month where we do not use our bikes. We could go with Toxic Tuesday or Fuming Friday for example.
We get in our cars and we celebrate the almighty cock up of congestion that is our government transport strategy. Whilst in the line of traffic enjoy yourself by frequently revving your engine and get those dark plumes of toxic waste out there, race between start and stop points and do your very best to get those emissions really high. This will be particularly effective along road sections with emissions recording devices fitted for example but all roads will do en masse.
We mark our cars clearly on the rear window with a yet to be designed sticker so all can see that you would normally be on your bike, just so that dim witted idiot in parliament can gain quantitative data on a normal day and our Toxic Tuesdays.
Can't beat them then lets join them. They want unbreathable air, countless lost hours to congestion, broken road surfaces etc etc perhaps it time we stopped doing society a favour and gave them what they think they want.
Be interested in your thoughts on this, amazing what can be organised now with the power of social media and would be great to show muppets of the ilk of this MP just how valuable our contributions to society actually are.
I'm Spartacus.
No, *I'm* Spartacus (and so is my wife!)
I still think we need to halve the number of black cabs in London, they drive around empty a huge amount of time. Their engines are often running while they are stationary and their drivers are often (but not always!) a-holes.
If you can't get a cab, get a tube, bus or a bike...
Less congestion, less polution, less a-holes on the road.
' Lord Tebbit claimed that the "cause of the excess nitrous oxide in the air in this area of Westminster and along the Embankment is those wretched barricades which have been put up by the former mayor.”'
He sounds like a proper duffer. It's nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide that are the pollutants. Nitrous oxide is laughing gas and not an irritant. Now we can have a good laugh at the uneducated geriatric.
To be fair, he did have a big bang on the bonce a few years back...
To think that he once encouraged an increase in cycling
...
Oh yes, I forgot that was him...
I thought we had a monopoly on idiots in government over here in the Colonies. Let me apologize for our elected officials for lowering the bar and proving that being able to pontificate is not necessarily an indication of higher cognitive function. Some years ago, a Washington State politician blamed global warming on cyclists exhaling CO2 as they rode, thereby presenting his lack of mental acuity. The Internet was less than charitable in its response, and he scurried back to hide under the rock from which he had previously emerged.
"all-party parliamentary historic vehicles group"
Why on earth is there such a group? Have they got nothing better to do?
the assumption seems to be that if you make roads wider congestion will fall but it's false. more road space simply encourages more people to drive and congestion stays the same or it's moved to somewhere down the road. This isn't new, I'm pretty sure this has been studied for decades, it's called induced demand.
TFL report No 9. Worth a read. P174 - 75% of congestion is due to "excess traffic". Returning a couple of cycle superhighways back to motorised vehicle use is going to make squat difference to that.
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-london-report-9.pdf
I recently had the misfortune to travel in a shared taxi from Bermonsey to Soho. After around 1 hr we'd reached Westminster - I bailed out and walked. No cycle lanes on any of the roads used.
There's logic in his statement, that narrower roads with the same amount of traffic as wider roads equal more pollution. |The same number of cars on a narrower road equals more traffic jams and more time on the road with slower speeds and lower concomitant air turnover due to moving vehicles causing drafts.
Of course you'd have to look up the numbers exactly, or measure it!
Or you could just state that narrower roads equals more cyclists and fewer trips by cars and that reduces pollution overall. one thing you can't deny is 10% cycle travel would equal zero air pollution.
Yeah, but that presumes the amount of traffic is entirely independent of the level of congestion, expected journey times, road-space and provision of alternative modes. Which it clearly isn't. Hence the logic, such-as-it-is, is flawed.
The evidence from the mini-holland projects appears to show that, when road space is removed from cars, a significant proportion of the traffic does just evaporate. Conversely, when new roads are built, traffic increases. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/mini-holland-scheme-in-walthamstow-hailed-as-major-success-as-traffic-falls-by-half-a3389936.html
There was a segment on Northwest Tonight yesterday talking about pollution in the North west. They had a piece about a decision in Zurich that didn't quite ban cars in the city, but made them awkward, inconvenient and expensive to use. This is supported by a properly integrated public transport. By LAW there has to be a tram stop or bus stop within 500m of any residential property. The pollution in the city is much lower and the city is a much more pleasant place to be. No doubt they had the arguments that 'it'll kill the place', ' nobody will come'. But Zurich is hardly a dead city is it? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08h33w7
We are too wedded to the car. People see it as a RIGHT to have a car and drive wherever they like. Its not helped by the entire country being built around car ownership, thanks to the previously mentioned Tory road contractor/transport minister conflict of interest in the 50s & 60s.
I wish I could understand, psychologically and politically, where this irrationality comes from. I mean, its obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that a person on a bike takes up less space than a person in a car, even more so when you allow for the space taken by that car when parked. And further, that its the car that causes the pollution. But some people suffer a kind of brain dysfunction when the subject comes up.
The article itself demonstrates that it's clearly not a simple party-political issue, but I think there is a kind of political angle to it. For some people, being able to drive a car anywhere they wish is an expression of power or dominance over others, and any reduction of it enrages them to the point where they can't think straight.
And the deep conviction they seem to have that their car somehow magically takes up no space, and that congestion is something that must have been imposed by wicked outside forces, suggests a desire for a free lunch, a belief in Santa Claus, a child-like refusal to accept reality.
Its just about change. People don't like it and just wish things could be kept the same.
He is an old man and a conservative one at that which makes it twice and three times worse respectivly.
In 5 years time when Kahn hasn't mannaged to lay another metre of segregated infrastructure the cycle superhighways that did get built will just be part of the furniture.
Oh dear, you were doing so well too.
I find it frustrating, even unnerving, that I have no clue what point you are making there, so can't tell if I would disagree with it or not.
Well, you were making good points in your post, worthy of a 'like' but then you suggest that Santa Claus isn't real in a derogatory way. Now, whilst the magic of visiting all good children in the world during a 24 hour period may be stretching the imagination, Saint Nicholas was very real and his giving of gifts, especially to children, during Advent is the basis of the modern day Father Christmas.
I think that might be taking this debate a little off-topic...
Ah. OK, fair point. The thing is, though, that while the modern Santa is of course real, it's just that, given the speed he gets around at, I think we have to assume that he, or at least his, er reindeer 'peloton', are prolific dopers.
So he wants to totally ban cars from our cities (I mean, obviously, since he cares about polution). Bravo. I would love him to feel reponsible for that policy!
One would think that cars that spend more time idling would put out more noxious fumes, don't think so. But wait they are just making their way to where ever they are going. It doesn't mean that less people are trying to get there, just that they are taking longer to get there. Wouldn't that suggest that the same number of people are most likely trying to get there, where ever there is??? If there were less people trying to get "there" wouldn't that decrease pollution? Maybe you should just close the roads to personally owned vehicles and limit the number of taxis that are allowed to transit the city? That would limit the amount of cars on the road, maybe even reduce the amount of pollution due to the lower number of vehicles... And maybe more people would ride bicycles and get healthier? Maybe that would lower medical costs and people would live longer... Uh oh, there is the problem, there would be more people because they are living longer, more pollution. More people, Damn...
Sir Greg Shite.
Since polititicians are clearly dodgy is it time we got some on our side? One that no one could have thought of as pro cycling would be good.
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