Re-inventing the wheel: London's cycle super highways

Modelled on the successful Vélib scheme of Paris, Mayor of London Ken Livingston announced a new cycle hire initiative for London in 2007. Transport for London drew up proposals after discussions with transport commissioners from Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lyon, Munich, Oslo and Vienna. The resulting 2008 proposals were hailed as revolutionary. That is revolutionary within a British context as such schemes were first pioneered on the continent as early as the 1960s.

The new Mayor of London Boris Johnson, himself an avid cyclist,  quickly adopted the scheme as his own. Operations started in 2010 with 5,000 bicycles and 315 docking stations spread across Inner London. The bicycles and docking stations were designed and built in Canada and are copied off the per-existing Bixi scheme operating in Montreal. Mr Johnson also negotiated a sponsorship deal with Barclays Bank which includes blue cycle paths and bikes reminiscent of the company colours.

Another important political exercise was the creation of so-called cycle super highways to make London more accessible for cyclists. This development is still ongoing, but has been plagued by accidents (many deaths on designated routes) and local resistance to chances in street layout and traffic arrangements. Ignoring already established practices in Denmark and the Netherlands TfL looked towards American cities to find inspiration for designated, safe cycling routes. Sadly European cities are much more comparable to the cramped streets of London than the spacious grid-cities of the US. The planning is also haphazard and routes are badly aligned with dangerous crossings and sometimes poor connectivity. The result has indeed -the so desired- uniquely British character, but isn't cost-effective, poorly executed and often sub-standard when compared to Dutch and Danish examples. An internship for London traffic planners in Odense, Enschede, Utrecht or Eindhoven would be advisable!

Since 2015 another bank -Santander- has taken over the sponsorship of the cycle hire scheme, so the blue colour is slowly phased out and replaced with Santander-red. One such cycle super highway, basically a cycle lane painted blue, here running along the Thames in Pimlico. The cycle hire scheme has a logo in blue modelled on the TfL Underground logo.