FAQs

We are providing new temporary cycle lanes in those areas where our analysis has shown there is the greatest potential for more people to cycle. We are providing temporary measures to help people to safely social distance only where pavements are narrow and there is the potential for lots of pedestrians to gather - for example, at busy high streets or transport interchanges. It will take a little time after the introduction of each new temporary scheme for the numbers of people cycling and walking to increase.  

Where changes are identified as being required, yes. Sometimes schemes will need to be adapted once they are in place, and introducing them as experiments better allows us to do that. Feedback from local people and other stakeholders and our ongoing monitoring help us to understand where changes might be needed, and what changes are required. 

We believe introducing more walking and cycling facilities would help older and disabled people to get around. By encouraging people who can do so to walk and cycle more often we can:  

1. Reduce pressure on our public transport networks, where social distancing requirements are still in place. This would mean that buses and trains would be more easily available to people who cannot walk and cycle
2. Reduce the number of trips made in London by car. Congestion levels across London would rise if trips previously made by buses or trains were instead made by car. This would delay not only buses, taxis and other public transport services such as Dial-a-Ride; but also the emergency services and freight and servicing trips
3. In some cases it is necessary to relocate some disabled parking bays to make it possible to provide facilities to encourage people to cycle. We locate these bays to nearby side streets, where there would naturally be less traffic so that it is safer for older and disabled people 

Of course we do. We want to emphasise that providing new walking and cycling facilities is intended to help everyone who can do so to walk and cycle more often. We know and understand that there will be some people who cannot do so, however these changes will offer benefits to them also. If we did not provide some people with the means to walk and cycle more often, there would be greater pressure on our road and public transport networks.  This would actively disadvantage everyone who needs a vehicle to travel because there would be greater congestion across London. It would also disadvantage people who rely on public transport, because there would be greater demand for buses and trains. 

We undertake assessments of the potential traffic flow impacts of the changes we have introduced. Whenever a change is made to an existing road layout, there will always be a period of time after it has first been introduced in which traffic will need to adjust to the new layouts. We are confident that, after people have adjusted to the new layouts, there will be a neutral effect on traffic flow. We however listen to local people, and monitor the effects of the changes once they have been introduced. There is further information about our monitoring in the Documents section.

We and London’s local authorities are working jointly with all of London’s emergency services. Each month, we and London’s boroughs meet with senior representatives from the emergency services to discuss the changes and any issues that it may be causing. This gives the emergency services much greater awareness of the schemes we and London’s boroughs have implemented and allows them to provide response time data, which we use to identify and adjust any schemes which might be causing an issue.

As London continues to recover from the effects of the coronavirus, any increase in car use will lead to an increase in congestion on London’s roads which would have a detrimental impact on the vital work undertaken by the emergency services.  

In each case, the temporary and experimental changes we introduce in a particular area are intended to address a set of issues specific to that area.   

In many cases, we are restricting turns because a large proportion of collisions in London in which people walking or cycling are injured or killed involve traffic turning right or left at junctions.   

By restricting certain movements temporarily, we can greatly reduce the potential for collisions and help people to feel safer.   

We temporarily remove parking and loading bays only where absolutely required to provide more room for people to safely social distance, or to help people to cycle more easily or safely. Wherever possible, we introduce new temporary parking bays on side roads. As much as we possibly can, we plan the schemes so that some provision for loading or unloading is available as close as possible to local businesses. At the same time, it simply isn’t possible for us to provide parking or loading bays in close vicinity to every business in London.  

We know that people who walk, cycle or use public transport shop more often than those who drive, and they spend up to 40 per cent more in high streets and town centres than those who drive there. For businesses who rely on making or taking deliveries, it is important that traffic is as free-flowing as possible. Introducing more walking and cycling facilities will help encourage everyone who can do so to walk or cycle, as an alternative to using the car. If we were not to help people to avoid private transport as much as possible, there would be an unmanageable increase in congestion across London. This would be highly disruptive, including to the emergency services and businesses who rely on deliveries, and would increase pollution, which contributes to thousands of premature deaths.  

Yes. We are engaging with organisations representing people with specific accessibility requirements to understand their views on the changes delivered so far. Over the past year we have hosted a series of working groups with representatives from older and disabled people's organisations, including Transport for All, Disability Rights UK, Inclusion London, SCOPE and Royal National Institute of Blind People.