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Well, TfL can't just 'take a street over'--it would require primary legislation.
They literally can, but it requires the consent of either borough or the Secretary of State. See section 5:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/29/section/261I can’t see them siding with the Mayor over K&C, even if the bike lane policy and cash comes from central government.
(I’m as puzzled how the lane ever came into existence given what we know about K&C)
grams
Oliver Schick
But on what grounds? The highway authority is the highway authority and has sweeping powers over its highways.
As I've said in various places before, some campaigners in the past have tried to go down the legal route, but all that did was to cause authorities to dig their heels in further and to be even more obstructive on a legal defence footing. If that looks like an attractive route to go down, the ground for change simply hasn't been prepared properly. It's a lot of work--while the much-praised redesign of Kensington High Street all those years ago was good compared to what had been there before, it wasn't all that good, and streets like it do need updating every decade or so, so there's a natural process that people wanting the street to change need to get involved in. Having things plonked in from a great height generally doesn't work.
Well, TfL can't just 'take a street over'--it would require primary legislation. (I'm not a legal expert, so my understanding would be incorrect here, apologies if so.) Its powers over the TLRN (or 'GLA Roads') stem from the 1999 GLA Act (basically, with quite a few changes, taken over from the Traffic Director for London's office). I have no idea how that would work politically; it seems that the Tories don't like the fact that the Mayor of London is Labour again and they have greatly damaged the function of TfL in the last five years or so (as they have damaged local authorities, but of course K&C to them isn't just any old local authority, so undoubtedly it suffered much less than others; still managed to cause the Grenfell disaster somehow). With their general anti-statist tendencies, somehow I can't imagine that they'd want the GLA/TfL to acquire more power over streets in London, but maybe I've missed something somewhere.