Published: 26 January 2012
by TOM FOOT

THE capital’s most celebrated and influential cycling group has refused to back a series of protests calling for safety improvements on King’s Cross roads due to the “forceful” tactics of those involved in demanding changes.

London Cycling Campaign (LCC), a charity with 11,000 members, did not attend the second “Bikes Alive” demonstration on Monday night as around 80 cyclists blocked rush-hour traffic from 6pm by cycling very slowly around the one-way system outside King’s Cross station for an hour.

They tinkled their bells at the spot where fashion student Deep Lee, 24, was killed in October at the junction of York Way and Gray’s Inn Road.

LCC campaigns chief Mustafa Arif said: “London Cycling Campaign is a charity.

[We] cannot associate with unlawful protest. LCC has to be careful about what action we associate with.”

Mr Arif, who attended a candle-lit vigil at the junction in December, said it was important to set a “positive tone” in the build-up to mayoral election.

Mike Calvert, spokesman for the LCC, added: “London Cycling Campaign hasn’t joined the Bikes Alive protest because we’re concerned about the forceful language used in the event’s publicity.”

Bikes Alive, which was founded last year, want a cycle lane to be introduced in Gray’s Inn Road and have threatened to “organise regular road closures until TfL (Transport for London) comes to its senses”.

Founded in 1978, the London Cycling Campaign has been actively promoting cycle use for more than 30 years.

Bikes Alive’s “Go Slow” flyer called for cyclists, pedestrians and “anybody in London actively resisting oppression by motor vehicle policy” to turn up and join the “organised resistance”.

Monday’s route snaked around the gyratory system” from King’s Cross station, up York Way, back down Pentonville Road and on to Euston Road to St Pancras.

One rider was dressed entirely in black – but the mood was far from anarchic insurrection.

Some cyclists said they feared the LCC was “in danger of trailing on cycling issues” and some indicated that they would cancel their subscription.
 
Green Party London Assembly Member, Jenny Jones, who attended the last Bikes Alive event, could not make it this time, but she told the New Journal: “I am committed to working with groups that use peaceful means.

“In any campaign, opinions on tactics differ, but the most important issue here is the tragic and unavoidable deaths of cyclists on London’s roads, and the urgent need for the Mayor to act.”

Deep Lee and Paula Jurek, both young women who died riding bicycles in Camden last year, were two of 16 cyclists killed in London last year.

“Polite meetings and symbolic action are having, on their own, too little effect,” said Albert Beale, a spokesman for Bikes Alive.

“Enough is enough.”

The next Bikes Alive protest
is scheduled to take place in February.