London’s Tory mayoral candidate is pedalling backwards on biking coverage | Biking

Among the many political strands uncovered by the Conservatives’ determination to select Susan Corridor to face for London mayor – not least the obvious unlikeliness that she will be able to win – is one that may appear area of interest however is the truth is arguably very telling: what it says about lively journey.

Anybody who has noticed Corridor in her six years as a London meeting member, and particularly her energetic and sometimes outspoken Twitter feed, could have realised she is just not a fan of cycle lanes, biking, or certainly of cyclists themselves.

Whereas Corridor intermittently insists she is just not anti-cyclist as such, she has lambasted these on two wheels as lawless and harmful, raised the thought of obligatory registration for cyclists, and claimed bike lanes and different lively journey measures trigger congestion.

There could possibly be an argument that given the lengthy odds on Corridor unseating Labour’s Sadiq Khan subsequent Could, and the barely arbitrary course of by which she received the nomination, such opinions will be written off as marginal, even irrelevant.

This is able to be incorrect. There are a number of methods during which Corridor’s one-woman battle in opposition to biking, and her subsequent adoption because the governing social gathering’s option to inherit the most important direct electoral mandate within the UK, is critical and telling.

First, her opinions will not be too removed from these now emanating from the Division for Transport (DfT), which has pointedly stated it can now not fund low-traffic neighbourhoods, a comparatively routine intervention that seeks to make smaller residential streets extra pleasant to pedestrians and cyclists.

In an interview earlier this month, the transport secretary, Mark Harper, selected to criticise such schemes as tending to be about “banning vehicles or making it troublesome for motorists”.

It isn’t a coincidence that Corridor is a eager member of the Conservatives’ “tradition battle” faction, a bit of the social gathering whose views are sometimes fanned by tales in a handful of rightwing newspapers, and that has an growing affect on Rishi Sunak and his group.

Energetic journey – or, extra particularly, strikes to attempt to incentivise this over city automotive use – has change into more and more drawn into this orbit, partially by conventional politics akin to Conservative opposition to Khan’s expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), but additionally, on the fringes, by conspiracy theories linking visitors schemes to supposed UN plots to imprison individuals of their properties.

Tradition wars and unfavourable media headlines will not be the one motive why Harper’s DfT is so sceptical about lively journey, a view insiders say Sunak firmly shares. Amongst Conservatives, Boris Johnson’s strongly pro-cycling view was at all times seen as an outlier.

However it’s simple that if you end up a Conservative minister and in search of insurance policies to axe, these which can be already the topic of normal condemnation in pleasant newspapers, to not point out appreciable social media froth, are a straightforward goal.

All this brings us to the crux of why all this issues: on one of many extra essential insurance policies for city life within the coming a long time, London and the UK danger not simply falling behind however actively shifting backwards, with probably vital financial and social penalties.

For all types of causes that may take too lengthy to set out now, together with the atmosphere, public well being, social fairness, and the small matter of attracting companies and vacationers, cities world wide are attempting to puzzle out how greatest to maneuver away from vehicles and vans because the dominant transport mode for shorter city journeys.

Different locations are shifting quick. Paris is spending a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of euros to make it extra pleasant for bikes and pedestrians, with dramatic and instantly seen outcomes, whereas cities akin to Brussels and Barcelona have additionally reworked their strategy to city streets.

Even Copenhagen, a metropolis with a protracted report of excessive bicycle owner numbers, used its position because the departure level for the 2022 Tour de France to launch a closely funded, multi-level push to attempt to get much more bizarre Danes on their bikes.

It’s certainly not common, however in lots of cities, particularly in Europe, this tide appears to be shifting just one method. However Corridor, Harper, and lots of different Conservatives, seem intent on trudging backwards.

Sure, many earlier UK governments have paid little greater than lip service to lively journey, however they’ve usually praised it, at the very least in idea. Now we have now a DfT that’s at greatest impartial – and in Corridor, a high-profile candidate who’s actively hostile.

That is new, and by way of different international locations it’s anomalous. And it issues.