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.”
Our official grumpy Northerner, John has been riding bikes for over 30 years since discovering as an uncoordinated teen that a sport could be fun if it didn't require you to catch a ball or get in the way of a hulking prop forward.
Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.
Somewhere along the line came the discovery that he could string a few words together, followed by the even more remarkable discovery that people were mug enough to pay for this rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. He's pretty certain he's worked for even more bike publications than Mat Brett.
The inevitable 30-something MAMIL transition saw him shift to skinny tyres and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.