London Mayor opens central London’s first cycle superhighway
The first of central London’s dedicated cycle superhighways was officially opened by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson between Oval and Pimlico last week.
Work to construct the 1.4km Cycle Superhighway 5 (CS5) cycle lane was carried out by CVU, a joint venture between VolkerHighways, Colas and Aecom and will provide cyclists a safe route across Vauxhall Bridge and through the Vauxhall gyratory.
At its busiest, more than 750 cyclists are already using the new lane which was opened to the public three weeks ago. This is a 29% increase in the total number crossing the Vauxhall Bridge in the same hour before the cycle superhighway opened.
The CS5 lane will link to the existing CS8 at Millbank and CS7 at Oval to provide cyclists with traffic free access around the area and will form part of the network of cycle superhighway lanes being constructed around the city.
Before the improvements, cyclists accounted for almost a quarter of rush-hour traffic through Vauxhall with around 580 in the busiest peak hour. With the opening of CS5, the proportion of bicycle rush-hour traffic has already risen to almost 40 per cent.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP, said: "We've brought a bit of Amsterdam to the unlikely environs of Vauxhall - opening up access to huge swathes of south London for safer cycling. I've always believed that more Londoners would cycle if they felt safer, and this new route already proves it.
"With London's population growing by 10,000 a month, there are only two ways to keep traffic moving - build more roads, which is for the most part physically impossible, or encourage the use of vehicles, such as bikes, which better use the space on the roads we've already got."
CVU are currently working with VolkerHighways to complete work to construct CS1, an 11km stretch of cycle superhighway between Liverpool Street Station in the city to White Hart Lane in Haringey which is expected to be complete in spring 2016.