Sadiq Khan announces £770m cash injection for London cycling infrastructure

Staff reporter(wp/es):

Sadiq Khan today promised to spend £770m on cycling over the next five years under plans to get more Londoners out of their cars.

The Mayor announced plans for two new cycle superhighways as he claimed he had gone “well beyond” a manifesto pledge to increase the proportion of Transport for London’s budget spent on cycling.

The move was widely welcomed by the cycling community but there was concern that the full amount would never be spent after a series of schemes first proposed by predecessor Boris Johnson were delayed or axed.

The funding, part of TfL’s business plan that is being published later this week, works out at an average of £154m a year. This compares to the £158 million spent in Mr Johnson’s last year as Mayor and the £302 million he spent in his second four-year term.

If the money is spent, it will almost double the scale of investment in cycling infrastructure. Mr Khan says the average of £17 per Londoner per year is on a par with leading cycling nations such as Denmark and the Netherlands.

Mr Khan said: “I said in my manifesto that I’d be the most pro-cycling Mayor London has ever had. Today I’m delighted to confirm that TfL will be spending twice as much on cycling over the next five years compared to the previous Mayor.”

Construction of the Farringdon to King’s Cross northern extension of the North-South superhighway will begin next year. Consultations will begin next year on CS4 between Tower Bridge and Greenwich, and CS9 between Kensington Olympia and Hounslow.

The funding package includes the highly-controversial CS11 between Swiss Cottage and Oxford Circus and the western extension of the East-West superhighway between Paddington and Acton. However, no dates for these extensions were released today.

There was also a pledge to plan or build 20 “quietways” - non-segregated routes through residential streets. City Hall was unable to guarantee that all new superhighways would be fully segregated - regarded as essential in improving safety for cyclists. The aim is for 1.5 million journeys a day to be made by bike by 2025/26.

Ashok Ski 

nha, chief executive of the London Cycling Campaign, said: “This unprecedented investment in cycling shows the Mayor is serious about meeting his promises to triple the extent of London’s protected cycle lanes, fix the most dangerous junctions and enable boroughs to implement major walking and cycling schemes. It will help make London a better, greener, healthier and less congested city.”

Andrew Gilligan, who was Mr Johnson’s cycling tsar, said: “£154m is less than we spent last year. But even this level of spending will not be achieved unless the Mayor actually starts building something. So far, most movement has been in the other direction, with shovel-ready schemes delayed or cancelled.

“The promise to consult on two cycle superhighway routes is welcome, though neither will reach central London and I note there is no commitment that they will be segregated.”