From the Department of Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, last week the city of London announced one of the largest cycling transportation development budgets in the history of the bicycle, qualifying it as one of the world’s largest public works projects.
And here I thought we're doing quite well in my city of San Francisco, even re-enacting some old world magic at last weekend's kickoff to our Sunday Streets season.
This occasional taste of what it would be like if streets were for people and not cars is, of course, all fine and well, and as one of the most bicycle friendly cities in the U.S., SF even has a solid bike plan to more permanently improve safe streets for cycling. However, there is only so much tinkering around the edges you can do before you run up against the limitations of a fundamentally car-centric infrastructure and the realization that bigger, more systemic changes that require bigger and bolder investments are needed. So ultimately, the resources allocated to making these big infrastructural changes a reality is where the intertube meets the bike lane, and London has just made a huge statement that it is serious about doing so.
Here's a sampling of what you can do with £1 billion ($1.4 billion):
It's pretty simple: If you have a comprehensive network of separated bike lanes, people will use them and turn drivers into cyclists. Here's what it will look like:
- A new 'Central London Grid' of bike routes in the City and West End, using segregation, quiet streets, and two-way cycling on one-way traffic streets, to join all the other routes together
- A new network of 'Quietways'– direct, continuous, fully-signposted routes on peaceful side streets, running far into the suburbs, and aimed at people put off by cycling in traffic
- Substantial improvements to both existing and proposed Superhighways, including some reroutings
- Major improvements to the worst junctions, making them safer and less threatening for cyclicsts