I bicycled around London quite a bit back in the 1990’s. Back then, it was a lot like the US — no dedicated cycling infrastructure, and only a few hard-core cycling types.
But now…Holy Cow!
The full extent of how cycling has taken over London can be revealed today.
The biggest ever census of bike use in the city reveals one in four road users during the morning rush hour is a cyclist – and on key routes such as river crossings and roundabouts bikes even outnumber all other vehicles.
The study for City Hall reveals that Theobalds Road, Holborn, is London’s busiest bike street as 64 per cent of vehicles passing along it in the morning peak are bikes, followed by Kennington Park Road, which runs between Kennington and Oval (57 per cent) and Old Street, Shoreditch (49 per cent).
At 29 of the 164 monitoring locations, cyclists made up the majority of vehicles on the road in a further sign that the 21st century bike boom is helping London close the gap on Amsterdam as a leading cycle capital.
Amsterdam? Not yet, but soon:
Bikes now account for 24 per cent of all road traffic in central London during the morning peak and 16 per cent across the whole day.
Even more impressive when you consider that London’s bike infrastructure is largely built to American standards, and that, by European (esp. Dutch and Danish standards), London’s bike infrastructure still sucks balls.
Yes, and Boris Johnson has committed to spending practically a BILLION POUNDS (yes, pounds, not dollars) to enhance infrastructure in the capital. Soon, London will have better segregated infrastructure than NYC. Already, though, London drivers and cabbies are much, much more courteous and respectful of cyclists, on balance, than American drivers.