London’s cycling commissioner, Will Norman, is dismayed at the demographic makeup of the city’s bikers, finding them to be too white, too male, and too middle class. “It touches on something which is a real challenge for London cycling, which is diversity,” Norman told The Independent. “Even when we have seen the growth in the number of cyclists, we haven’t seen that diversity.”
London has been doing its level best to boost the number of people biking around the city. Mayor Sadiq Khan, who pledged to be the “the most pro-cycling mayor London has ever had,” has committed to spending £770 million ($1 billion) over his term on biking infrastructure. That’s about twice what his equally pro-bike predecessor, Boris Johnson, spent to build the city’s Cycle Superhighway network. Khan has promised to triple the network’s size from 12 to 36 kilometers.
The effect of all this investment has been to increase cycling’s share of trips taken from 1 percent to 2 percent. In addition to pissing off drivers, who blame the new bike lanes for increased traffic congestion, the heavy investment in cycling has created equity concerns, since the people who use the network the most tend to be privileged white men.
Read the rest at Reason.com.
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