Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

news

MPs call for Games Lanes to be open to cyclists

Olympics sends “wrong message about the importance of commuting by bike”

A group of five MPs from all three major parties has tabled an early day motion calling on Transport For London to allow cyclists to use the special lanes reserved for athletes and Olympic bigwigs to woosh through the congestion of London traffic.

The call comes in the wake of last week's claim by the Environmental Transport Association that banning cyclists from Games Lanes would put lives in danger, and the somewhat clueless response from Transport for London.

Cyclists face a £130 fine and possible impounding of our bikes if we stray into a Games Lane, for example to overtake stationary traffic gridlocked because half the road has been allocated to the Olympics. The Environmental Transport Association said that the combination of the ban and the removal of bus lanes from routes with Games Lanes would put cyclist's lives at risk.

Director at the ETA, Andrew Davis, said: “Transport planners have wrongly assumed that the best place for bicycles on busy roads is hugging the gutter, but experienced cyclists know that the safest place to overtake slow-moving traffic is down the outside – slap bang where the Games Lanes are.”

Transport for London Chief Operating Officer for Surface Transport, Garrett Emmerson suggested that cyclists should sit in traffic queues rather than overtaking slow-moving traffic: “It is irresponsible to suggest that cyclists would be safer if allowed to cycle in the busy offside Games lanes. Experience in London shows that the majority of cyclists prefer to cycle positioned safely in the nearside lanes.”

That would be the 'experience' of the cyclists who've been crushed by left-turning lorries despite being positioned 'safely' on the left then.

“In conditions of slow moving traffic, we encourage cyclists to avoid putting themselves in danger by staying safe and staying back,” said Emmerson. Because after all, we can't have those pesky cyclists actually using our one big advantage to get around at a sensible speed.

Transport for London says that it expects "Games family" traffic to be 1,300 vehicles an hour. "It's not going to be one VIP every 20 minutes," a spokesperson for the organisation told the Guardian.

Conservative MP and former transport minister Sir Peter Bottomley is a signatory to the early day motion and says he believes cyclists would not disrupt the use of Games Lanes.

He said: “If a bus is in front of an approved car, yes, they are going to be held up. If a lorry is in front of them, they will be held up. But if it's a cyclist it isn't difficult to get past. I don't see why cyclists should be forced into one of the remaining lanes with all the other traffic, which would be dangerous.”

The four othe signatories are: Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn and Lib Dem Andrew George.

The motion in full reads:

“That this House recognises the outstanding development and success of professional cycling in the UK over the past 10 years, as well as the welcome growth of amateur cycling in the UK; but raises concern about the logistical impact of Olympic Games Lanes on the daily commute of cyclists; and calls on Transport for London (TfL) to monitor on a daily basis whether cyclists need to be excluded from the Games Lanes which will exacerbate congestion and send the wrong message about the importance of commuting by bike.”

It's debatable whether Transport for London could force the Games Lanes to open for cyclists as the The Olympics Can Have Anything They Like Act 2006 London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 seems to give the Olympic Delivery Authority power to set the necessary traffic regulation orders over Transport for London's authority.

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.

Add new comment

7 comments

Avatar
Joselito | 12 years ago
0 likes

Should Wiggins win on Sunday, how about you Londoners taking to your bikes in the Zil Lanes in a Euro football fans style convoy?

Avatar
james-o | 12 years ago
0 likes

£130 fine for a bike straying into VIP's hallowed ground.

£60 fine for a car breaking the speed limit on the same roads.

Avatar
Tripod16 | 12 years ago
0 likes

I look forward to riding in under-used lanes that are free of cars...thank goodness for the hoops and G4S screwing up so bad that there won't be any police around to enforce the O-Lanes anyway!

Critical mass indeed.

Avatar
handlebarcam | 12 years ago
0 likes

These ZiL lanes are precisely the sort of thing that won London the games over Paris. The Olympic bureaucrats knew the Parisians wouldn't have tolerated it for a second. Even if their politicians had agreed to it, the citizens of France would have just ignored such an ludicrously undemocratic policy en masse (notably a French term.) But subjects of the United Kingdom, on the other hand, will largely accept it.

Avatar
londonbrick | 12 years ago
0 likes

Lets open the Games ehm lanes, next Friday...

Avatar
georgee | 12 years ago
0 likes

Tour de Game Lanes?

Avatar
mattsccm | 12 years ago
0 likes

Time for a critical mass type event?

Latest Comments