Boris the Biker Details London Improvements

In 1863 London began the process of building the Underground.  The Underground is a collection of exactly 12 rail lines intersecting London with stops at 270 stations.  Trains generally run between 5 a.m. and midnight, Monday through Saturday.  Operating hours are reduced on Sunday.  London's transport map is divided into six zones with Zones 1 and 2 in Central London and Zones 6-9 covering the outer edge of the capital.  Over 3.3 million people ride the Tube each day, all of it underground. Each and every day scores of people are in London’s Tube.  But now a new idea is coming forward to…

“Get people out of the tube.”  That’s what London Mayor Boris Johnson wants to accomplish with an ambitious new bicycle initiative in the heart of the UK’s largest city.  After 150 years of encouraging people to walk the steps down to the Tube’s platforms, Johnson wants Londoners to stay topside and go for a ride.  Johnson, the wild-haired 48-year old Mayor announced last week a grand plan to invest nearly £1 billion to create a new and improved bicycle system in the capital.  “The big thing is to make London the most attractive city for cyclists,” said Johnson and not just for the lycra-wearing cyclist but for the “guy in a suit commuting to work.”  
 

Johnson hopes to deliver a clever network of bike lanes and trails beginning with “quietways” (existing roads less traveled by car will have speed limits reduced to 20 m.p.h.) from the outer suburbs that will bring people into the downtown.  Johnson mentioned that already cycling is up 20% in London without any major improvements and he is hoping this new system will keep people riding and encourage others—“someone with a bike in a cupboard”—to choose the bicycle.  The ultimate goal is to make cycling as a form of transportation “more attractive and safer,” said the mayor.  The quietways will lead to a much more improved “bicycle grid” in the center of London from which any destination in the city is possible.  The middle of London will have a 15 mile bicycle “super highway” and what Johnson claims will be the “longest urban cycle highway anywhere in Europe.”  

Cars are still the problem.  Oftentimes riders find them parked in the bike lanes and car drivers and bike riders are still searching for common ground in terms of right-away and proper yielding.  Is London a cycling utopia?  No, but with £1 billion it may be possible to build something that works.  Johnson, ever the bicycle advocate, revealed the day after the new bike system announcement that he is looking for all new e-bikes for the London Police.  The electric mountain bike or “e-bike” (pictured) would be battery powered and able to go faster than a criminal on the standard pedal-powered bike.  These new machines can even climb stairs.  With a full suspension and aluminum frame, the bike has a 36 volt battery and weighs in at 20.5 pounds.   The mayor sums it all up: “With criminals increasingly using (ordinary) bikes, e-bikes will keep the police one step ahead."

Please visit our website.  We love the Steel Line of Bikes from Bianchi.  Read our Bicycle Review at www.stickybottleteam.net.