CAN CYCLING SAVE BRITAIN?
Park Lane may be a place of high-end shops patronised by well-heeled clientele, but just two months ago a bike ride there was about as pleasant as ingesting a glass of cold kitchen cleaner. In the blink of an eye, the experience of riding down the second most expensive street on the Monopoly board has changed beyond recognition. What was an acre of tarmac has been rapidly civilised, dividing it into a safe, wide lane for cycling, leaving a narrower aperture for promenading drivers.
This follows the realisation that, with public transport reduced to 15 per cent of its capacity, London’s roads would grind to a wheezing halt if serious steps weren’t made to improve road efficiency by making way for cycling. As London’s walking and cycling commissioner, Will Norman, puts it, cycling schemes that would normally take two years to implement are being deployed in just a matter of weeks – week after week. When the world is in crisis, the bicycle is a saviour of sorts. Facing weeks of lockdown, confined to our homes for all but exercise and essential trips, as a nation we dusted off our bikes and took to the empty streets – and we liked it.
National cycling charity Cycling UK’s Duncan Dollimore sees this as a vindication of what many have long known: a lot more people will cycle when they don’t have to mix with heavy traffic. “We often hear it said that more people won’t
