The A40 Westway, London’s second-busiest road, was the scene of a “mass trespass” on Friday evening, when up to a thousand cyclists ignored the road closure signs to ride their bikes on the former motorway, almost a decade on from the decision to scrap plans for a protected cycle superhighway along the route.
As a slow-moving traffic jam was forming along the adjacent Harrow Road, the cyclists rode from the Marylebone flyover to the Westway roundabout, near White City, along the elevated carriageway, which has been closed at numerous points this year to allow for works to replace safety-critical joints.
The route was chosen for Critical Mass London’s latest edition of their jubilant monthly rides, which form part of the wider global movement of Critical Mass events aiming to reclaim the streets from motor traffic and highlight the need for safe active travel routes.
Despite losing its motorway status in 2000, the Westway – stretching for 3.5 miles through inner west London and used by around 100,000 motorists a day – remains ordinarily off-limits for cyclists and pedestrians.
In 2015, then-London mayor Boris Johnson announced plans to create a protected cycle superhighway on the Westway by removing a lane from the flyover, a move welcomed by local cycling campaigners despite concerns over how to enter and exit the road. The plans, however, were quietly shelved by Johnson’s successor Sadiq Khan in late 2016.
The prospect of people cycling on the Westway was finally realised, albeit briefly, on Friday night, with footage shared on showing cyclists making their way onto the elevated carriageway by riding between road closure signs and traffic cones near Edgware Road station.
The large group, which Critical Mass said totalled around 1,000 riders, stopped before the exit ramp onto the West Cross Route, running past Westfield shopping centre, where many participants climbed a gantry to take photos and videos.
“Why did Critical Mass London riders cycle up the closed A40 Westway road on Friday night, westbound from Marylebone to the Westway Roundabout, and then south on to Shepherds Bush Green?” the group posted on Instagram over the weekend.
“Maybe they wanted to be on a road completely free of all motor traffic for a change. Maybe they just wanted to experience the sun setting over the city with friends on bikes.
“Maybe they wanted to send a message to government or TfL to stop spending money on car roads. Maybe they wanted to be part of another positive, joyous celebration and bring it west this month.
“Maybe they were sick and tired of having a road over their heads that they were excluded from and wanted to turn the tables. Maybe they just wanted some decent clips for their social media accounts. Maybe they wanted to have a new segment recorded on their Strava history.
“Maybe they just followed the people at the front riding over the Marylebone Flyover and weren’t thinking about it. Maybe they wanted a clean open road to do some wheelie riding and swerving across three lanes. Maybe they wanted to climb the gantry and see the western part of London from a new perspective. Maybe they just wanted to experience the giddy thrill of a mass trespass.
“All reasons (and others) are equally valid. There is no one narrative or source of truth. Nobody (including this and other social media accounts) can speak as an authority for the ride. If you want to find out the reasons why participants did it, you would have to ask them all individually.
“Critical Mass London is a messy, organic, chaotic meeting of different minds, tribes, styles, histories, motivations. But they all come together once a month to create (not take up) space across the city.”
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Others, meanwhile, argued that Friday’s mass trespass represented a protest against the use of transport money to fund repairs to a “crumbling, costly” road for motorists, which is linked to dangerous levels of air pollution.
“While other cities such as Utrecht, Seoul, San Francisco, and Boston have removed their hulking elevated motorway structures and turned them into linear parks, Transport for London continues with its costly controversial project to maintain the crumbling concrete foundations of the Westway,” one participant told road.cc.
“Despite being an open road with no traffic lights, the speed limit on the elevated section is only 30mph to stop vehicle vibrations from damaging the supporting columns. Although the road passes through some of the most affluent parts of the city, the air quality nearby is consistently at dangerous levels.”
This isn’t the first time, of course, that Critical Mass London has organised a ride on a stretch of infrastructure where cyclists aren’t normally permitted.
In April 2025, hundreds of cyclists also rode through the newly opened Silvertown Tunnel, in protest at the £2bn route’s lack of cycling infrastructure, with riders instead told they must take their bikes on a “greenwashing” bus to shuttle them through.
In that case, Silvertown Tunnel was singled out for its lack of access or safe alternative for cyclists, the project having recently been completed and bicycle riders told they must either cross the river via a lengthy detour or catch a free shuttle bus that has been put on at a further expense of £2m.
The idea that cyclists must, rather than be provided a suitable direct route to ride between Greenwich south of the river and Newham to the north, catch a bus before resuming their cycled journeys on the other side was already branded “ridiculous” by campaigners when the plans were announced.
It was in that context that hundreds of people on bikes defied the ban on cycling and travelled through the tunnel, videos from participants showing the sea of two-wheeled traffic and Critical Mass’s standard carnival atmosphere.
2 thoughts on “Hundreds of cyclists ignore road closure to “mass trespass” on notorious Westway and tell government to “stop spending money on car roads””
No right-wing media frothing about this?
Not quite the first time, I rode over it back in the late twentyteens, just happened to see it was jammed nose-to-tail so thought it would be fun to filter along…turned out there was an overturned lorry at the eastern end blocking all carriageways. I honestly didn’t know cycling was banned (the signs aren’t very prominent), just assumed nobody rode on it because it would be suicidal in normal circumstances. Fortunately the weary copper at the other end who saw me just cut off my apologies and said, “Fuck off over there [a gap in the barrier to a slip road] and don’t do it again.”