London cabbies vent fury at Mayor for prioritising bicycles and buses

LONDON cab drivers have likened Sadiq Khan to a “lunatic taking over an asylum” for prioritising cyclists and buses on the capital’s streets, as their earnings fall with traffic in gridlock.

To help reduce car usage and demand on public transport, the Mayor of London has created 17km of new cycle lanes throughout the city, with 15,000 square metres of extra pavement space to enable social distancing on streets.

But this has led to people shunning cabs in central London to avoid the increased fares charged by drivers forced to travel further in search of drop-off points, according to Darryl Cox, secretary of the London Cab Drivers Club.

He was particularly critical of the pop-up cycle lanes in tourist-heavy areas such as Euston Road and Park Lane, where demand for taxi services is still well below pre-lockdown levels.

Speaking on behalf of his 1,000 members, Mr Cox told The Sunday Tel

egraph: “The traffic is gridlocked because Sadiq Khan has helped massively increase the amount of bike lanes being constructed around central locations. There is also restricted access to the roads which are being redesigned purely for cyclists, buses and pedestrians. It is now harder for us to drop and pick up passengers – especially disabled ones – at some stations as there are fewer spaces to pull over. The lunatic has taken over the asylum.”

Under proposals to transform parts of central London into car-free zones, Mr Khan also plans to create “bus-only corridors” within sections of Zone 1.

However, Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, said: “Any policy which deters people from coming into central London and safely resuming their old routines, especially those who do not feel safe using public transport and for whom walking and cycling is simply not an option, will undermine London’s recovery and do further economic harm.”

A spokesman for the Mayor of London said: “Sadiq makes no apologies for the temporary emergency measures he has put in place to encourage Londoners to make as many journeys as possible by bike or on foot to help enable social distancing on public transport, and prevent a car-based recovery leading to one public health crisis being replaced with another.”