Unused cycle pop-up lanes add to congestion

I notIce that while the city has been engulfed in the worries of the coronavirus pandemic, our mayor has taken the opportunity to blitz the city centre’s roads with traffic cones for cycle pop-up lanes.

they are an absolute eyesore and I have yet to see more than three cyclists in one of the lanes, as opposed to hundreds of cars backed up in traffic jams.

Some of these new lanes have robbed some major and busy roads of lanes that now cannot be used by either cars or buses, as is the case on Saffron Lane.

So is Sir Peter Soulsby now admitting the bus lanes don’t really work and the pop-up cycle lanes are his latest brainwave to inflict more misery on drivers who, in the main, are trying to get to and from work?

May I remind him that owning and driving a vehicle in this country is not yet illegal (although most of the time we are made to feel as if it is) and it is very expensive.

We also help pay for the road network via road tax.

cyclists do not contribute and I say this as a cyclist myself, at times.

I may be cynical, but I feel this is all a plan by the mayor and the local government to eventually inflict work parking charges on people, or even a congestion charge like in London.

Is it any wonder Leicester ranks very high in the country for poor air quality and traffic congestion when we have a mayor who seems hellbent on clogging the roads up instead of aiding traffic flow?

Martyn Shepherd, Leicester