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The cycling prohibition at the entrances to the tunnel, and in the tunnel itself, should go.
These rules are stupid, not people who choose to ignore them. People need to be given responsibility to negotiate space properly and safely. Maybe it's the assumption that WE NEED RULES ALL THE TIME is what makes people ride like pratts, perhaps because once they've already broken the rules by riding, what the hell?
The only enforcement should be to make people not ride like selfish pratts. This is also really pretty easily done given the political will to engender a positive cycling and pedestrian culture in this city. There are rules around shared-use spaces, and they need to be transmitted and if necessary enforced. We must not stop people riding absolutely. BIG difference.
Skülly-
We must not stop people riding absolutely. BIG difference.
Obviously, I do not think that we should stop people riding absolutely. However, to think that in our current society we can rely on individuals to make rational, socially responsible decisions is simply naive.
For example, many cyclists think it is OK for them to ride on footpaths crowded with pedestrians, of through a pedestrian crossing - something you see every day in the city.
For this reason, for better or worse, we need rules and these rules need to be enforced. At the moment, the rules in the Foot Tunnel (Foot Tunnel, the clue is in the name), prohibit cycling, and should therefore be observed.
If the rules change and cycling is allowed, I will be fine with that.
However, for what it's worth I don't think the rules ought to be changed. What I see every morning is not a group of rational, socially motivated cyclists riding carefully through a shared-use space; rather I see a group of vacuous; self-important individualist determined to get through their journey in the least possible time without any regard to the needs of others.
That is the result of decades of Thatcherist ideology, and I can't fucking abide that.
Jingle_Jangle
Unfortunately, we cannot be allowed to cycle everywhere.
Just outside the foot tunnel is Cutty Sark Gardens, where cycling is also prohibited.
During the week, Cutty Sark Gardens is a large, flat expanse of concrete, and one would question why one shouldn't be allowed to cycle across it. But at the weekend, Cutty Sark Gardens is packed with people, and cycling can be hazardous.
Leicester Square is the same. You just can't allow individuals (the majority of whom are retards) to make decisions. You have to have socially determined rules, and once you do, you have to enforce them.
Anyway, I am drinking now, so I am going to leave it for a bit.