Transport for London cycling statistics

I have been trying to make sense of the data in Tfl’s Travel Report 2007. Some of the data is hard to pin down, but here are some highlights:

- On an average day in 2005 there were just over 27 million journey stages in London. 2% were by cycle versus 40% by car. Tfl quotes the figure of 480,000 bike journeys per day

- Table 1.4.1: 17,000 cyclists enter central London in the morning peak compared to 84,000 cars. That is more than 20%.

- Table 1.6.1: 3% of people working in central London commute by bike, versus 9% by car and 68% by train and tube. I’m not sure what to make of that 1:3 rate of cyclists to drivers in central London. Perhaps the point is that the selfish 9% take up 90% of the road space, cause all of the 3,700 annual deaths and serious injuries and, of course, most of the pollution.

- Chart 3.5.4: 43,000 cyclists cross the River Thames screenline every day. Hmm: how should I reconcile that with the 17,000 entering central London in the morning peak? This must imply many many more cyclists entering central London every day, but no figures are given.

- Chart 3.5.5 shows the proportion of people cycling to work by borough. There is a huge variation with a general tendency towards greater cycle use by residents of the centre and west of London. Is this because cycling is an affluent middle class hobby?

- In a separate report, Transport 2025, Tfl says: "6.6.9 Cycling: London has experienced unprecedented growth in cycling in recent years. The aim is to build on this success in the future with a target to increase cycling trips by more than 400 per cent by 2025. This could increase the mode share of cycling in London from one percent now up to five per cent by 2025, equating to more than one million extra trips every day."

It is not easy to reconcile all the figures but it is clear that by 2025 there will be more cyclists than cars in central London. Actually cycling in central London rose 20% from 2004 to 2005. Maybe it won’t take 17 years for cyclists to be in the majority.