New cycle infrastructure for London's health
The Mayor of London and TfL have unveiled an ambitious plan to create a unified London-wide cycle network across London, with new quality standards for the building of new cycling infrastructure.
This will be a topic discussed at our Healthy Cities Forum on 30th January 2019 at Apothecaries' Hall, City of London. The event will look at how our physical environment and infrastructure is helping or hindering the nation's health.
The London Mayor's Chief Resiliance Officer, Dr Fiona Twycross will open our discussions that will also look at planning our new towns and green energy projects with Savills, creating low carbon public spaces in Bloomsbury and Stratford for the health of Londoners with University College London and funding strategies for joined-up city energy and 5G projects.
The Cycling Action Plan set out how TfL and the London boroughs will use cycling to help address poor air quality and congestion, while improving infrastructure to make cycling even easier safer and more accessible for everyone.
The Mayor wants to increase the proportion of people walking, cycling and taking public transport to 80 per cent of journeys by 2041, from the current 63 per cent.
Construction work on several major new cycle routes is set to begin in 2019. Following a public next spring, TfL will work with boroughs and local partners to build a route between Camden and Tottenham Hale. The route will link together communities and businesses in north London, tackling barriers to cycling the area's most intimidating roads. Other routes across the capital are also planned.
Matt Winfield, London Director of Sustrans stated 'The Action Plan is essential for the development of our city ...but it will need a huge effort from London boroughs and others to ensure the target to double the number of trips made by bike becomes a reality'.
Part of the plan from TfL and the Mayor's office includes the world's first Cycling Infrastructure Database. TfL has amassed data over the past 18 months on every street in London, cataloguing almost 146,000 cycle parking spaces, 2,000 km of cycle lanes and more than 58,000 cycle signs and street markings. The information will be released as open data alongside a new digital map of cycle routes.
The record-breaking Santander Cycles Scheme will be developed in the plan, giving more people across London access to a bike. There have been 10 million hires this year.