Many years of ‘encouragement’ have failed to lead to significant growth in the numbers cycling – while across the sea in the Netherlands there is clear evidence of what is possible in a country with a very similar climate. That shows that if you want more people to walk and cycle you need to make it easier and more pleasant than it has been in the past, but you also need to make driving a bit more difficult (otherwise people will take the easy option). See Milton Keynes.
Lambeth has long had a ‘road user hierarchy‘ (linked doc from 2002) that was supposed to define how the streets were designed but no scheme ever actually followed it – most of the time you’d be forgiven for thinking the order was reversed.
Hopefully that’s now changed. The Transport Strategy hinted at it – talking about Lambeth being a “Walking, cycling and public transport borough” and had as a strategic outcome that “Motor traffic levels have fallen significantly across the whole borough” buried within it.
But now we’ve seen an explicit pledge on traffic reduction – Lambeth were the first borough in London to sign up to the LCC’s ‘Turning the Traffic Tide’ campaign and commit to keeping Lambeth’s traffic below pre-COVID19 levels and directly linking this to the council’s climate change commitments:
Lambeth Cyclists 