‘When you build a protected bike lane more people choose to use active transit’

• THERE’S an old rule in urban design called “induced demand” – basically “if you build it, they will come”.

People usually use it to explain why building more roads doesn’t alleviate car traffic; whenever you build another freeway, people are encouraged to get in their cars because they know there’s a new freeway.

However it works with active transport too and that means building bike lanes not just where there is currently heavy demand but also where you want there to be an increase in cycle traffic.

Why should the loving mothers of the “Chelsea tractor brigade” take their children to school by cycle when the route is unsafe?

Would you put your children in harm’s way by putting them in a shared road with car traffic? Of course not! But when you build a protected bike lane more people choose to use active transit.

I look forward to a future where every child and elderly person feels safe to cycle, and the only ones using personal cars in the borough are those who actually need it (for example, those with disabilities and perhaps in rare “cross-country journey”).

AL BROWN
Parkway, NW1