TfL Gives A Master Class In How Not To Win Public Approval

Meetings of London councils are usually fairly placid affairs dealing with burning topics ranging from rubbish removal to parking violations. A recent one in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, however, had all the excitement and even blood lust of a prize fight – one that should have been stopped out of mercy in the early rounds.

            Transport for London (TfL) entered the so-called ‘consultation’ about proposed road changes in an up-market attractive part of London with all the self-righteous arrogant zeal of  early Christian crusaders out to slay any and all unbelievers. Unfortunately for TfL these particular unbelievers were well organized, well informed and well armed. The historically minded might have recalled the Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187 in the Holy Land. How could anyone, the zealots from TfL assumed, oppose such 'beneficial' plans to increase bicycle access? Quite easily, it turned out.

TfL failed to impress this crowd

            The essence of the plan published more than a month ago was to remove one of the lanes of traffic, cut down 27 mature trees that have graced this area for more than 100 years, and reduce the number of bus tops serving the area. All this was in the name of improving access for bicyclists, which as ‘everyone knows’ is a self-evident good thing. Well, maybe not so self-evident. Don’t worry about the trees, TfL said, we will re-plant most of them. Great, but in the 100 years in takes to grow these trees, the area will look as if it has been given a buzz cut.

Some of the trees that TfL wants to cut down to add a bike lane

            TfL did not do itself or the cause of bicycling in London any favours by the aggressive and self-righteous way it approached this audience of about 600. Instead of actually listening to objections TfL simply tried to hammer home the ‘wisdom’ of its scheme as if anyone who opposed it was a hopeless Range Rover-driving Neanderthal. Will Norman, the TfL commissioner for bicycles, even went so far as to accuse Londoners of not exercising enough and that increased bicycle lanes were the answer to that problem. I have heard of ‘mission creep’, but this is the Nanny State run amok. Are we to feel the stern, disapproving look of TfL every time we sit down and put our feet up?

            This was supposed to be a consultation, but at no time did the TfL invite comments to counter its claims that bicycles are the answer to London’s undeniable road congestion and air pollution. TfL cited the number of accidents along this stretch of road as a rational for the separate bike lane. Unfortunately, TfL at no time offered any information about those accidents. Did they all involve bicycles? We were left to assume – without any context or supporting information – that the separate bike lane would prevent such accidents. Maybe yes, maybe no. Without further information it's impossible to say.

            When confronted with the criticism that such a separate bike lane on a main east-west artery would inevitably lead to increased congestion as two car lanes were squeezed into one TfL breezily cited ‘studies’ that showed there would be no increased congestion with the attendant increased pollution from idling cars, trucks and buses. TfL had no answer at all to the obvious problem at Lancaster Gate where they installed a separate lane for less than 200 feet with disastrous effect on congestion on the busy Bayswater Road. Will TfL recognize this error and remove the separate lane? Don’t count on it.

            But perhaps the most questionable part of TfL’s claims was that these bike lanes – benefiting a scant 3.8% of London’s road users – are the answer to the city’s air pollution and congestion problems. Increased use of bicycles would indeed reduce pollution if – and only if – TfL could prove that most of the bicyclists had switched to bikes from cars or motorcycles rather than from public transport. Otherwise the impact on air pollution is quite limited. Did TfL provide such a study? No.

            Given the relative numbers of passengers involved one obvious way to encourage people out of their cars is to improve is London’s public transport. While there are an estimated 650,000 bicycle journeys every day in London, there is a daily bus ridership of more than six million , and there are more than five million tube passenger journeys every day. One might think that improving and increasing those services and keeping buses flowing smoothly would be higher on the agenda than creating bicycle lanes.

            Increasing the fleet of electric cabs and private cars would be an obvious target. There are 21,000 black cabs serving London today, and at the moment only 500 of these are electric. Before many more electric cabs can be added to the fleet the number of charging points has to be sharply increased from the current 150. Electric black cabs are a great idea, but currently they have range of only 80 miles on one electric charge. The average London cab can easily do twice that amount in a normal day. The range can be extended to 400 miles with an on-board petrol-powered generator – but that sort of defeats the purpose.

            The TfL also did not help its cause by remaining mute on the subject of 'bicycles behaving badly' by violating traffic regulations or weaving in and out of pedestrians on pavements with impunity. 

            The TfL presentation did nothing to allay the fears of the Kensington audience, most of whom were vehemently opposed to the scheme seen as a serious threat to the quality of their neighbourhoods. TfL’s proposals were met either with stony silence or cat calls. The highlight was when the RBKC council leader and another council member said the council would reject TfL’s scheme. The audience erupted in cheers.

            Did the TfL take this defeat with good grace and a commitment to review its proposals? Hardly. Will Norman, the bicycling commissar, blamed the council for a ‘political stunt’. It was like a failed politician blaming ‘stupid’ voters for his defeat. Was the council’s decision greeted as a manifestation of local democracy at work? Hardly. ‘Selfish’ and ‘narrow minded’ were two of the milder epithets in social media. One commentator even brought up the dreaded Brexit argument by claiming ‘Leavers = Cars while Remainers = Bicycles’. Not quite sure how that logic works, but there you have the state of political discourse in Britain these days.