Sunday, 1 December 2024
InfrastructurelegislationNews

London Cycling Campaign calls on Mayor for stronger action on dangerous junctions

Thousands of Londoners have signed a petition by the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) demanding the Mayor takes more urgent action on reducing road danger for those walking and cycling at dangerous junctions in the capital.

London Assembly Transport Committee chair Florence Eshalomi, deputy chair Caroline Pidgeon MBE and member Caroline Russell accepted the petition outside City Hall this morning.

The petition calls on the Mayor and his team to:

“Upgrade the Safer Junctions programme, to not only accelerate pace of delivery, but to ensure every junction that moves forward eliminates ‘critical issues’ – removing the most dangerous elements to pedestrians and cyclists according to TfL’s own criteria – and takes a significant step toward your Vision Zero target by eliminating serious injuries and deaths at that location.”

The LCC said it has seen a lack of progress on tackling London’s most dangerous junctions, a year or so after hundreds joined the charity’s protest at the Holborn gyratory.

LCC’s chief executive Dr Ashok Sinha, said: “If the Mayor’s promise of zero fatal and serious collisions in London by 2041 is to be achieved, and indeed if we are to remove some of the biggest barriers to more people cycling, it’s vital we make sure collision risk is designed out at every dangerous junction.

“That means raising the safety bar for TfL’s junction redesigns, as well as acting quicker, to ensure the Mayor’s Safer Junctions programme really does help deliver a future where no one dies in avoidable collisions on London’s roads.”

This was echoed on a broader industry scale at last month’s Eurobike Show in a presentation by the ECF’s advocacy director Adam Bodor, who attributed unsafe and inadequate infrastructure to a lack of accessibility to cycling. Infrastructure and road danger were also key talking points in CI.N’s latest Ask the Trade.

Eshalomi echoed Dr Sinha’s sentiments, adding: “The Transport Committee wrote to the Mayor in March this year of TfL’s Safer Junctions Programme and called on him to expand this programme to areas of London that pedestrians and cyclists avoid because they feel they are too dangerous to use. We welcome the Mayor’s work on this so far but more needs to be done.

“As more and more Londoners make journeys on foot and by bike, we need to ensure that London’s roads and footpaths are safe to travel on. We thank the London Cycling Campaign for the work they have done on this so far. The London Assembly Transport Committee will continue to work on this issue and call on the Mayor to do more for Londoners who cycle and walk around the capital.”

The Petition can be read in full here.