Tuesday 3rd September 2024

Open letter to Westminster City Council: Where are the cycleways?

To Cllr Adam Hug, Leader of Westminster City Council, and Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Cabinet Member for City Management and Air Quality 

Before the May 2022 elections, you pledged to build a high-quality cycle network across the City if Westminster Labour won. It’s been over two years now. Where are the cycleways?

You made a promising start in 2022 with an announcement of £35m in active travel, and three consultations for good quality, safe cycleway infrastructure. We were pleased to see that these all received broad support from the public. But rather than get on and build them, we’ve seen delay after delay after delay.

Two of the cycle schemes - Cleveland Street and Cycleway 51 - are not due to start construction until over two years after their consultations ended, with nothing started for another year! Cycleway 43 is even worse, despite considerable public support for protected cycle tracks on George Street in a high-quality proposal from Hyde Park into Marylebone. This scheme is being watered down, changing the route to one that is less direct and unprotected, with no expected date to deliver. Will any of these schemes even get built, or will they be abandoned amid the inevitable distractions of the next elections in May 2026?

More generally, at the last local elections you pledged:

 “By 2026, at least 75% of residents in Westminster will live within 400m of a cycle route that meets the highest standard, to create a network that is safe and inclusive for all.”

We question whether

• By 2026, a City Of Westminster scheme will have delivered a single completed protected cycleway?

• Will a City Of Westminster scheme have increased the percentage of residents who live within 400m of a high standard cycle route? 

We fear that you will not have delivered on this pledge either, when you next face the electorate.

It appears that despite the decline in residential car ownership in Central London, a noisy minority seem to have undue sway on your perfectly sensible initial planning proposals.  Maintenance of car parking provision will fail to encourage more active modes of transport for short journeys in Central London yet apparently, this is more important than safe and well used cycle ways. 

History teaches us that progress on active travel always faces opposition from a loud minority. But good leadership presses ahead with healthy street schemes, giving clear evidence-based reasons for doing so. Invariably, after these schemes are built and bedded in, they are demonstrably well-used and popular. Look at nearby Camden and Islington for inspiration.

Maintenance of a high volume of cars being encouraged to take short journeys in Central London's residential streets will remain a dangerous barrier to inclusive mobility and healthier more active residents. Hardly the ‘Fairer Westminster’ you envisage.

The City of Westminster is, shamefully the borough with most people killed and seriously injured while cycling in London in recent years. Londoners have waited decades for a Council willing to challenge the car-first status quo. We thought that moment had arrived, but the failure to deliver in the last two years and the foreseeable future is in danger of making you indistinguishable from the previous administration.

Please act now to change our minds and show residents you care about road danger, active travel, climate emissions, air pollution, and will make our streets healthier and inclusive in delivering your vision of a Fairer Westminster.

Dr Mark Smithies

Coordinator, Westminster Cycling Campaign