Crossrail £16 billion. London cycle routes £3.5 million

Three bits of news last Friday prompted me to start this blog.

1. “£16billion Crossrail plan clears Commons”
2. “£3.5m for London cycle routes”
3. “Surveys suggest that about a quarter of Londoners would cycle if it were easier”

So London cycle routes are going to get 0.02% of what is going to be spent on Crossrail even though 25% of Londoners would cycle. What percentage of Londoners will use Crossrail?

The London cycle routes, and the Sustrans schemes, seem geared more towards leisure cyclists than commuters. Where are the plans for real cycle routes, dedicated trunk roads for cyclists?

It would be good to have four major routes:
a) East-West
b) North-South
c) NorthWest-SouthEast
d) SouthWest-NorthEast

I could suggest any number of routes. For East-West we could start with Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush Green, Holland Park Avenue, Notting Hill Gate, Bayswater Road, Oxford Street, New Oxford Street, Holborn, London Wall.

If that were a dedicated cycle route we would have tens of thousands of extra cycling commuters at a fraction of the cost of Crossrail.