Mayor of London Boris Johnson will today outline his plans (see: London mayor launches Crossrail for bikes) to spend more than £900m making cycling a pillar of the capital’s transport network and bringing it into line with other cycle friendly cities such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
He will be accompanied by Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman MBE at the announcement in central London. Johnson’s cycling czar, the new cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan and Commissioner for Transport for London, Peter Hendy will also attend.
The meeting comes in the same week the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group concluded its evidence gathering sessions in the Get Britain Cycling inquiry, co-chaired by Ian Austin MP and Julian Huppert MP. The inquiry is due to publish its report in late April.
Ben Plowden, director for better routes and places at Transport for London (TfL) told the inquiry that almost £1bn was earmarked for developing cycling in TFL’s current business plan, which runs for the next 10 years.
Almost a third of the 68 witnesses who gave evidence in the inquiry’s six information gathering sessions which began in January, were either involved in London’s cycling strategy were politicians working in the capital or academics connected to institutions based there.
Currently more than 540,000 journeys are made by bike in the capital and Johnson – famous for introducing the so-called Boris Bikes cycle hire scheme in 2010 – has ambitions to increase this by 400 per cent.
This will be achieved through measures such as the completion of 12 so-called cycling super highways criss-crossing the city, the introduction of a cycling grid in central London and safety improvements at 100 problem junctions.
See our full report from today's announcement: London mayor launches "Crossrail for bikes"