Saturday 24 May 2014

Space for Cycling Big Ride Report

The Big Ride was an amazing ride. It is estimated that about 5,000 people turned out to ask our politicians for safer, better streets.

The weather was great and the atmosphere was terrific. The ride made a big difference to the local air quality as many of the central London's roads that are ordinarily chock-a-block with fume-spewing motor traffic were closed off for the Big Ride. The pedestrians were cheering us and waving at us, as the ride snaked its way down Park Lane, Pall Mall, Whitehall and on to the Embankment.


Park Lane, the crowds gathering before the ride.


An unusually quiet, peaceful and pollution-free Park Lane. This is what London can look like in the future if we reduce the amount of traffic entering the city and prioritise walking and cycling.


Ordinary Londoners who want to be able to cycle to the shops, work and to school without fear of being run over. Ordinary Londoners who want space for cycling. Ordinary Londoners who don't want their street to be a rat running race track. Ordinary Londoners who demand Dutch levels of spending, rather than the totally insufficient amount currently spent.

BBC News Extract (kindly supplied by hfcyclists.org.uk)