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London taxi drivers back Cycle Superhighways as plans for judicial review dropped

“I don’t want blood on my hands” says LTDA general secretary, who accepts cyclists need segregation

London taxi drivers have given their backing to the Mayor Boris Johnson’s Crossrail for the Bikes scheme after the threat of seeking a judicial review of the plans was dropped, with the general secretary of the main body representing them saying “I don’t want blood on my hands.”

After the board of Transport for London (TfL) approved the plans for the two segregated routes crossing the heart of the capital in January, the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) said it planned to seek a judicialreview of the consultation process.

It is thought any such move would have been backed by businesses opposed to the project and who had called for the consultation period to be further extended, the most prominent among them the property firm, Canary Wharf Group.

The deadline to apply for such a review was yesterday, despite LTDA general secretary Steve McNamara telling the Evening Standard that he had been “confident” that the legal action would have succeeded.

But he acknowledged that taking that step would have simply led to TfL revising its plans for the two routes – from the Westway to Tower Hill, and from King’s Cross to Elephant & Castle – and the £47 million project would ultimately go ahead.

He said: “At the end of the day, does London need protected cycling? Yes it does.

“What we don’t want to do is issue a judicial review and all we achieve is delaying that by a year, and some cyclist gets killed in Parliament Square.

“I don’t want that. I don’t want blood on my hands.”

TfL is carrying out the work in phases, with construction getting under way on the Victoria Embankment on the east-west route today, with Tower Hill, Lancaster Gate and Parliament Square following later this year.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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