Cycling In London On The Increase
With new docking station for Wandsworth planned
Cycling in London is now at its highest rate since records began.
Cycle use grew by 10 per cent last year and is forecast to grow by 12 per cent over the next financial year, according to figures released by TfL. Wandsworth is also to get a new docking station at Putney Pier.
2014 saw new records for usage of the capital’s Cycle Hire scheme and overall cycling on the Transport for London (TfL) road network.
Across London’s main roads (the TfL network), cycling levels in Quarter 3 (14th September to 6th December 2014) were 10 per cent higher than in the same quarter the previous year, and the highest since records began in 2000. It was the fifth record quarter in a row. By the end of 2014/15, TfL forecasts a 12 per cent rise from the previous financial year.
Last year was also a record for hires on London’s Cycle Hire scheme, with 10,023,987 journeys made – up five per cent on 2012 (the previous highest year) and 25 per cent on 2013.
The significant increase in ridership of London’s Cycle Hire scheme has in part been made possible because of the addition of more docking stations across the 100km2 area of the scheme, including at Clapham, Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea. There are now more than 10,000 bikes available from over 700 docking stations, up from 6,600 bikes and 400 docking stations when the scheme launched in July 2010.
London Mayor, Boris Johnson, said: “Last week I announced my final intentions for the new East-West and North-South superhighways. These amazing numbers show how cyclists are becoming ubiquitous in London and prove, if further proof were needed, why we need to crack on with catering for them. Barclays Cycle Hire continues to grow in popularity and there can be no doubt that our trusty bicycles have changed the way people get around our great city.”
In addition to these figures, last year TfL began monitoring the number of cycle journeys made within the central London Congestion Charge (CC) zone. Analysis from the first year of this monitoring indicates that over 170,000 journeys are now being made each day in the CC zone, equivalent to the number of people that cycle each day to work or educational institutions in the City of Copenhagen. Bikes now make up around 16 per cent of traffic in Central London, rising to around a quarter or even half of all journeys on some routes during peak hours.
Ben Plowden, Director of Strategy and Planning for Surface Transport at TfL, said: “Our aim is to make cycling an integral part of London’s transport network and to be normalised so that anyone can jump on a bike to get to work, to the shops or to discover London. Seeing these continuously record breaking numbers of cyclists in London is a great demonstration that our work to make cycling easier and safer, including unprecedented levels of investment, is achieving this aim.”
Working with London boroughs, TfL is identifying further sites for docking stations to help intensify the scheme within its current footprint, providing greater opportunity to hire and dock bikes. Close to 1,000 new docking point locations have now been identified that could be delivered across London, subject to planning permission, by early 2016.
February 2, 2015