Cycle lanes make London most congested city in world

MILES of new cycle lanes built since the start of the pandemic have contributed to London becoming the world’s most congested city, a study has said.

Supporters claim the extra cycleways boost bike use and cut pollution – but they have provoked fierce opposition from drivers who say they create bottlenecks, with stationary traffic belching out fumes.

Now traffic information supplier Inrix has given weight to the critics’ claims by saying segregated spaces for cycling were one of the reasons drivers in the capital will lose an average of 148 hours stuck in jams across the whole of 2021.

That is just 1 per cent down on pre-coronavirus pandemic levels,

‘Road use is about supply and demand’

a much smaller decline than many other major cities across the globe, and sees London shoot up the rankings from 2020 when it was in 16th place.

Ministers controversially pledged £250million across the country for measures to encourage people to travel on bicycles and minimise public transport use at the height of the Covid crisis. In London, several councils reversed the schemes after opposition from motorists but some cycle lanes remain.

Inrix operations director Peter Lees said the main reason for London’s surge in the traffic jam ranking was its relatively strong economic recovery from the pandemic compared with other global cities.

But he said the cycle lanes had also had a ‘negative impact on congestion’. ‘use of roads is all about supply and demand,’ he said yesterday. ‘If the demand goes up but the road space is being shared with other forms of transport, there’s less tarmac effectively for the cars to be on, which then has an impact on the speeds on the road and therefore congestion.’

Paris came second in the global ranking for most congestion (140 hours lost in 2021), followed by Brussels (134 hours lost), Moscow (108 hours lost) and New york (102 hours lost).

Inrix estimated that the economic hit from drivers being stuck in traffic this year will cost an average of £595 per person, and the uK £8billion.