The Guardian: "We can't let lobbyists destroy London's segregated cycle lane plans"

"The main political parties and 60 big employers support 'Crossrail for bikes' – yet behind the scenes there are intense efforts to poison the project, says Chris Boardman"

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"There is a battle going on in central London right now which will decide its future, and perhaps the future of every other city centre in Britain. Officially, it’s about cycling – in particular, Boris Johnson’s plan for a new segregated cycle superhighway from Tower Hill to Hyde Park Corner. In reality, it is a battle about health, about noise, about pollution, about the kind of cities we want to live in – and the kind of politics we want to have.

"All the political parties support the superhighway scheme. So do more than 60 big London employers, including RBS, Deloitte, Orange and Unilever. Two years ago, more than a million Londoners elected Johnson on a promise to 'implement three Dutch-style cycle schemes [with] segregated bike tracks' and 'complete the superhighways to Dutch standards'.

"What the mayor proposes is big by cycling standards, but not that big by most other standards. It involves converting one of the four traffic lanes into a cycle track on Upper Thames Street and the Victoria Embankment, a stretch of road all of two and a half miles long. Some motorists’ journeys will take longer, but most of the delays are small and some journeys will actually be quicker. The average delay along the route at the busiest two peak hours is 1 minute 26 seconds."