‘Cycling First’ policy for London has badly damaged buses

LONDON is sadly still suffering from one of Mayor Boris Johnson’s least thought-through transport policies – the over prioritisation of cycle infrastructure. With his contradictory policies of ‘keeping the traffic moving’, highly personal ideas on buses, a single focus on his pet interest in cycling, and the unforced error of the Roads Modernisation Programme[1], which was code for the Cycle Superhighways[2], the former Mayor made the single biggest contribution to the decline in London’s bus services for a generation.

Contrast that with his predecessor Mayor Ken Livingstone, who was elected with a balanced transport plan, political nous, professional officers and the courage to transform London’s bus services for the better. And he did just that, in short order; alongside an unexpected increase in cycling associated with the congestion charge.

Under Mayor Livingstone, contracts incentivised bus operators; the London Bus Initiative[3] installed end to end bus priority on important bus corridors; there was enhanced enforcement of waiting and bus lane violations; fares and ticketing initiatives came in such as Oyster that made boarding swift and easy ; more services were introduced, and, of course, there was congestion charging. Livingstone willed both the end and the means to get a better bus service for London. Passenger numbers rose and Londoners noticed a difference.

It only took a few short years under Mayor Johnson for London’s bus service, that we had started to take for granted, to decline. The shelving of a second planned London bus initiative programme was one of the early indications of change.

Removal of the bus lane on Waterloo Bridge has significantly disadvantaged buses.

Why does this matter? Apart from the wider point about great cities needing an integrated, balanced, multi-modal transport system, London TravelWatch, London’s statutory passenger watchdog, set out the core issue precisely in its Free The Bus campaign in 2021[4]:

“We know that the main reason that more people don’t use buses is that people think they are too slow and won’t get them where they need to go on time. If London is to meet the Mayor’s target of 80% of all trips in London being made on foot, by cycle or using public transport by 2041, then we need a 40% increase in bus journeys to reach that target.”

And alongside this:

“….if London buses can travel just 1mph faster than they do today, it could potentially save Transport for London between £100-£200m a year. And as well as saving £100-£200 million a year if buses run more efficiently, TfL will also be able to generate additional revenue of £80-£85m with more reliable services leading to an increase in passengers.”[4]

Under Mayor Johnson’s Roads Modernisation Programme, data-led interventions and business cases were been replaced by propaganda and ‘stated-preference surveys’ of what people might do, rather than the revealed-preferences of what they actually do. Andrew Gilligan, as Johnson’s Cycling Commissioner, was responsible for the London Cycling Census in 2013 that counted a bus and cycle as single vehicles and ignored the thousands of pedestrians that thronged across London’s bridges every morning. The cycling journalists and bloggers prompted huge and positive coverage with no challenge:

Move over Amsterdam, the London cycling revolution is in top gear[5] was one headline.

Johnson’s Deputy Mayor for Transport, Isobel Dedring, described the work that led up to huge spending on cycling to the ‘City Lab’ conference in 2015[6]:

“We ended up working very closely with a lot of the bloggers and influencers on twitter to craft the programme we are now putting in place. We’ve got a billion pounds cycling programme…”

The ‘bloggers and influencers’ said that the solutions were easy and everyone would benefit from more and safer cycling. They blogged that if Dutch style cycle lanes were inserted into London’s road network, those who had responded to the surveys saying they might cycle, would cycle. But they didn’t.

However, despite record amounts of expenditure on cycle infrastructure and a change in the way TfL measures cycling levels[7&8], their own chart (shown overleaf) shows cycling continuing on the same trend as it has for the last 20 years. This increase from starting point of only 2% of all journeys in 2013 to 4% in 2022[9] and in part a function of population growth, particularly in inner London.

And there is little sign of the broadening of the demography as Johnson hoped for in his Vision for Cycling[10]:

“…more women cycling, more older people cycling, more black and minority ethnic backgrounds…”

Meanwhile the impact on bus services has been dire. The first wave of no more than 10 miles of central London cycle tracks built between 2013 and 2016 took out bus lanes on Stratford High Street, at Vauxhall, Blackfriars and Farringdon. Between Bow Church and Aldgate the bus lanes became part time. Important junctions on bus corridors, for example at Parliament Square, lost capacity, though Gilligan emphasised that there would be no impact from the scheme along the Embankment as there were no buses on that route. In fact the impact of the changes at Parliament Square were large.

Growth in cycling journeys in London (TfL)

The cost benefit analysis[2] presented by TfL identified minus -£4.9m benefits to bus operations per year, with zero modal shift identified for the section of the superhighway known as east to west! Remarkably this superhighway, of only 6 miles in length, had an approved estimated final cost of £41in February 2015 that rose to £59m in November 2016.[11]

The chart on the right is derived from TfL’s I-bus system data and shows the decline in the average speeds of all London buses as this revolution in cycle roadspace provision took place. The decline was halted before the pandemic, I think by better operational management and shortening of services, but has never recovered.

Delays were exported outside of the central area by using what was variously called ‘gating’ or ‘active traffic management’. This was described to me by the network management people at TfL as slowing down the traffic entering inner and central London. Which of course translated into slower bus services beyond the central area.

Alongside these impacts we are now seeing the consequences of cycle track designs that route cycles travelling at some speed through and around bus stops. The so-called floating bus stops mean nuisance, fear and occasionally injury for some passengers and for blind people the loss of their access to bus services.[12]

Around 2015, TfL undertook a lot of analysis looking to understand the decline in passenger numbers. They were certain of a connection between the introduction of the cycle superhighways and the decline in bus speed, but cautious in spelling it out. This impact was recently restated in their Bus Action Plan published in 2022.[13] It said:

“There has been a clear correlation between declining bus demand and deteriorating average bus speeds.”

There have been statements in the numerous cycle track consultations undertaken by TfL and the London boroughs regarding bus lane removals and performance. They all seek to minimise the future impact of the removal of bus priority on bus speeds. The Daily Telegraph highlighted one in Chiswick[14] last year. And to the casual observer, that may seem plausible. But it is categorically not true. The journey time savings and reliability improvements of bus priority introduced between 2000 and 2008 had a large and positive impact on both the cost of running buses for TfL and their attractiveness to passengers as described by London TravelWatch above.

The TfL Bus Action Plan is clear:

“Research shows that a ten per cent increase in journey times can, on its own, lead to a six per cent fall in bus demand. Many of these journeys will instead be made by car or not be made at all, both bad outcomes for local economies.”

The contradictions in Mayor Johnson’s policy positions are still evident. Mayor Khan has continued with these policies in the belief that this will somehow transform London for the good. There has been some growth in cycling over the last decade, but there is little evidence of any growth in recent years above the long term trend, even with massive expenditure and the weekend cycling boom prompted by Covid during those warm days of the first lockdown when the streets were emptied of motor vehicles.

Declining bus speeds (TfL)

Cycling growth also occurred during Mayor Livingstone’s term. Indeed the highest level of growth in cycling was seen in my borough, Hackney[15], where cycling grew alongside the considerable improvements to bus priority, more bus services and increased passenger numbers. There were no demands for cycle tracks from the local group of London Cycling in Hackney then. In fact the local cycling group and the council resisted a cycle superhighway on the A10[16], a major bus corridor, because of the poor cycling provision it would provide and the problems it would give everyone else including bus passengers.

Reduced bus usage in turn brings pressure to cut back on service provision further to better match passenger demand with bus miles run, posing a significant challenge to TfL as this will mean further deterioration in the attractiveness of their services.

But even now TfL and the London boroughs, funded by TfL, are taking out bus lanes! If Mayor Khan is serious about 80% of journeys being made by sustainable modes, as set out in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy[17], then cycling has to coexist with bus services, not undermine them, and the best use of available roadspace be carefully calculated and acted upon in the interests of all citizens - on bikes, buses and on foot.

‘Floating’ bus stops have drawn criticism, particularly for the visually impaired. Source (picture left): National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFBUK). Source (picture right) TFL Eleanor Bentall

The modal split for cycling is currently 4% of all journey stages. The scope for more travelling by bike is feasible with the right policies, but restoring bus use to earlier levels and getting people out of cars and off the overcrowded tube is a much more practicable and equally beneficial aim including for public health[17]. That is also before we look at the demographics, age, health and social circumstances of those for whom buses can make a real difference to their lives, and for which regular cycling is not a practical option.

Cycling is important for the city. But it shouldn’t be pursued at the expense of the other good options. A first step will be for those in charge to clearly admit Boris Johnson’s big mistake in going overboard about biking without considering the collateral impacts on other modes.

References and Links

1. Roads Modernisation Programme: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/londons-road-modernisation-plan.pdf

2. Proposed Cycle Superhighway schemes: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/board-20150204-part-1-item-07a-propose-csh-scheme.pdf

3. London bus initiative: https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/bus-lanes-2

4. Free the bus: https://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/blog/why-london-travelwatch-wants-to-freethebus/

5. Cyclists make up a quarter of London vehicles, says TfL: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/jun/25/cyclists-quarter-london-vehicles ; Move over Amsterdam, the London cycling revolution is in top gear: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/move-over-amsterdam-the-london-cycling-revolution-is-in-top-gear-8671069.html
   

6. Deputy Mayor on YouTube at City Lab 2015 (15 minutes in): https://youtu.be/KaNKJpIxcig?si=Du0ci-0IrDKqWTG6

7. Cycling Action Plan 2: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/cycling-action-plan.pdf

8. FOI release: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-0963-2425

9. Travel in London reports: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/travel-in-london-reports

10. Vision for Cycling: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/cycling_vision_gla_template_final.pdf

11. Updates on the Cycle Superhighways: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/pic-161130-08-cycle-superhighway-programme-authority.pdf and https://content.tfl.gov.uk/pic-161130-07-cycle-quietways.pdf

12. Floating bus stop campaign: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-69001698

13. Bus Action Plan: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/bus-action-plan.pdf

14. The loss of Chiswick High Road bus lane: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/22/jeremy-vine-bus-lane-scrapped-cycle-lane-congestion-tfl/

15. Hackney is capital’s top cycling spot: https://news.hackney.gov.uk/hackney-is-capitals-top-cycling-spot/

16. Hackney resists cycle superhighway on the A10: https://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/hackney-blocking-cycle-superhighway-a10/

17. Mayor’s Transport Strategy: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/the-mayors-transport-strategy