Thirteen ‘biking boroughs’ in the capital are in line to share £4m of new funding to help them boost cycling in their local area and create ‘cycling communities’ in outer London.
The funding, which covers a three year period, are being provided by Transport for London to help councils “create a local culture of cycling” with TfL also promising to supply “extra support and expertise” to help boost the take-up of cycling.
The 13 boroughs – Barking & Dagenham, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Haringey, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kingston, Merton and Redbridge – will be able to submit bids for a share of the money from next Monday.
In a statement Mayor of London and TfL Chair Boris Johnson said the funding would “enable our friends in outer London to develop exciting ways to make cycling bloom in their boroughs making it easier to replace some short car journeys with pedal power.”
During the 2008 election the Mayor promised a “cycling revolution” in the capital and has overseen implementation of the London cycle hire scheme first cproposed by predecessor Ken Livingstone.
Earlier this month Mr Johnson reversed his decision to cut the amount of money given to boroughs for local transport projects which opponents had warned would damage efforts to encourage cycling.
Green Party London Assembly Jenny Jones, who was a vocal critic of the Mayor’s original decision to cut local funding, said he had “realised that his cycling revolution for London will stall if he carries on concentrating on zone one and forgets the outer boroughs”
However Jones expressed concerns that “13 boroughs aren’t enough to make the sort of difference that London needs – it has to involve all 32 boroughs, with consistent, reliable spending.”
peter.leach says
February 18, 2011 at 12:20 pmThe Key to this renta bike concept was always getting home from and back to the Tube station when let down by the buses and no taxi cabs available, so please dont forget places like Epping outside of the M25 and/or a provision of lock up shelters at stations for people who wish to use their own bicycles.
Which then begs the question what happened to integrated transportation systems – It is pointless spending £850m for a train upgrade to 33 trains per hour only to arrive at your destination and then having to wait three quarters of an hour for a bus to complete the final leg.