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Campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists meets with TfL’s Leon Daniels & Andrew Gilligan

Social media protest group says discussion was “challenging, constructive and forthright”

 

Adding the voices of its large following to those of traditional campaign organisations such as the CTC and London Cycling Campaign, social media protest group Stop Killing Cyclists has met with Transport for London bosses to put across calls for a safer London road environment.

Leon Daniels, Transport for London’s CEO for surface transport, and Andrew Gilligan, the Mayor’s cycling commissioner met with representatives of Stop Killing Cyclists on Tuesday.

The group’s co-founder Donnachadh McCarthy described the meeting as “challenging, constructive and forthright”.

On the group’s Facebook page, he said: “We made a compehensive presentation of the problems/issues as we saw them and then we got down to going through the list of SKC demands.

“Whilst there was a fundamental disagreement about the capacity to invest the money Stop Killing Cyclists is demanding be spent, there was quite a lot of agreement re some of the problems and a number of specific actions were agreed.”

Among the points thrashed out between Stop Killing Cyclists and Messrs Daniels and Gilligan were:

  • Andrew Gilligan agreed to ask the Mayor about introducing cycling/pedestrian representation on the TfL Board.
  • Leon Daniels agreed to include cycling in the Crossrail Report being commissioned into the future of Oxford Street including its pedestrianisation.
  • Andrew Gilligan agreed to consider annual survey of the London boroughs’ performance on cycling.
  • Andrew Gilligan agreed to consider process on how to ensure Superhighway routes are not blocked by borough planning decisions.
  • Andrew Gilligan agreed to consider how TfL could provide expertise/training to the boroughs on Go Dutch standards of cycling infrastructure provision.

Stop Killing Cyclists was founded last year by Donnachadh McCarthy and Stephen Routley to organise a “die-in” protest outside Transport for London headquarters to commemorate the six cyclists killed in a nine-day period in November of last year.

The group’s demands include: 10 percent of TfL’s annual budget being spent on cycling infrastructure until a safe cycling network is completed; two cycling representatives on the TfL board; boroughs to also spend 10 percent of their transport budgets on cycling facilities; 20mph speed limits on all London streets.

Donnachadh McCarthy said: “There are some large boulders to be removed from the route to get the safe cycling and walking London that Stop Killing Cyclists wants urgently for London’s children, pensioners and the vulnerable.

“But this meeting starts the process of levering them out of the way. With 15,000 Londoners killed or seriously injured whilst walking or cycling or travelling on our roads since 2008, London’s transport system is clearly not fit for purpose.”

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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10 comments

Avatar
tazo101 | 10 years ago
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Facebook Twat cyclists V Twat Car drivers Group.

Join, contribute, share and don't be a TWAT.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/408115345981295/

Avatar
tazo101 | 10 years ago
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Twat cyclists v twat car drivers,

Join contribute and share. And stop being a twat

https://www.facebook.com/groups/408115345981295/

Avatar
ironmancole | 10 years ago
0 likes

Those figures are beyond shocking and quite simply a national disgrace.

So, government can call a COBRA meeting to discuss some flooding and services outages but this slaughter is OK?

The hold of the motorcar over society truly is astonishing and now we find out, quite predictably of course, that obesity levels have been drastically underestimated.

Cycling is destined to become the country's greatest ever missed opportunity, a total golden goose. Ministers should hang their heads in shame.

Avatar
jollygoodvelo | 10 years ago
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Don't really care about the 20mph thing personally. But great to see that they're at least being listened to.

Avatar
teaboy replied to jollygoodvelo | 10 years ago
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Gizmo_ wrote:

Don't really care about the 20mph thing personally. But great to see that they're at least being listened to.

The 20mph thing is important as it reduces the perceived danger of fast-moving traffic, replacing it with traffic at a much more manageable speed. This is likely to be more encouraging to new cyclists. It refocuses streets towards people, not cars.

Avatar
Yorkshie Whippet replied to teaboy | 10 years ago
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teaboy wrote:
Gizmo_ wrote:

Don't really care about the 20mph thing personally. But great to see that they're at least being listened to.

The 20mph thing is important as it reduces the perceived danger of fast-moving traffic, replacing it with traffic at a much more manageable speed. This is likely to be more encouraging to new cyclists. It refocuses streets towards people, not cars.

Is it possible to drive over 20mph in London these days? Also that puts some of us cyclist into the breaking the law bracket, next we'll be moaning about speed limits being applied to cyclists, Oh sorry we already have.

Reducing speed limits is pointless unless it's applied to everyone and enforced at all times over the whole length of the road. I'll put my hand up to playing silly bugger going into an Asda, seeing how fast I can get before having to brake for the next speed bump and still get over comfortably.

Now stripping cars of all the little protection features will soon refocus minds, ABS, EPS, (KLF on CD from HMV), traction control, side impact bars, crumple zones, airbags and seatbelts. I'd like to see windscreens removed so that driver can be spat at or have drinks/ fag ends etc lobbed at them. Make it law that every car has to be day-glo orange, yellow or green with reflective strips on the back and drivers have to wear a helmet just case some comes the the windscreen hole.

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pmanc | 10 years ago
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Good progress by these guys and some useful points raised.

But there's a lot of "agreed to consider" - typical political weasel words. Not much "agreed to do". It indicates Gilligan either has no power to commit TfL or is just unwilling to do so.

At the moment there seems to be a lot of talk, but little real money, plus the same old lame proposals keep on coming (all ASLs and dodgy filter lanes).

I'll believe that change is happening when I see decent infrastructure on the ground and not before.

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kie7077 | 10 years ago
0 likes

90% of budget on cycling, f**k everything else  4

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northstar | 10 years ago
0 likes

Ask the mayor? I'm surprised they haven't been represented at all, says it all.

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HarrogateSpa | 10 years ago
0 likes

This is an encouraging development. Keep up the pressure.

I think it's a good idea to ask for things that the authorities have no intention of doing. It might take some time, but it could plant a seed in their minds, and eventually lead to some radical changes.

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