Mayoral candidates respond to London Cycling Campaign #ClimateSafeStreets pledges

Firstly, thank you to everyone who took action and wrote to the candidates asking them to commit to our three campaigning 'asks' this year (listed here in full with our #ClimateSafeStreets report):

Massively extend the high-quality cycling network, and fast

We’re calling on all the candidates to promise to deliver 50% of the Strategic Cycling Network complete by 2024, creating streets where everyone who wants to cycle, can.

Give every Londoner access to dockless e-bikes and electric car clubs

We’re calling on all the candidates to promise to make sure all Londoners have access to alternatives to the private car such as dockless e-bikes, cargo bikes and electric car clubs within 300m of their home or work.

Create a fairer, simpler “smart road user charging” system

We’re calling on all the candidates to promise to replace all current road charges with a London-wide Smart Road User Charge, to reduce congestion and free up the space needed for cycling, walking and public transport.

We've since received three candidate statements, from Luisa Porritt (Liberal Democrats), Sian Berry (Green Party) and Sadiq Khan (Labour, and the incumbent Mayor of London). Luisa and Sian both committed to the pledges in full. Sadiq Khan's statement is more qualified and less emphatic.

Those statements are in full below:

Luisa Porrit – Liberal Democrat

“As the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London, I welcome LCC’s three point agenda to create zero carbon roads by 2030, and am committed to achieving it.

I will work to accelerate the roll out of a high-quality cycle network, delivering 50% of the Strategic Cycling Network, improve transport options by ensuring that Londoners live and work within 300m of a share mobility option like dockless bikes or e-scooters, and introduce fairer pay-as-you-go smart road pricing.

The time to tackle the climate emergency is now. London can lead the way with rewilding - from green roofs to green walks, a zero emissions bus fleet, free bikes on Sundays, stopping the Silvertown tunnel and airport expansions, and investing in active travel as well as clean, green public transport options. ”

Sian Berry – Green

“London can be the greenest city in the world, and I promise to deliver zero carbon transport across London by 2030. Not just roads - but the entire transport system.

We haven’t seen nearly enough on this yet. There's no traffic reduction target, there's no mission to get people travelling differently like during the Olympics, and there hasn't even been a shred of work on a smart, fair road pricing system.

Lockdown gave Londoners a taste of cleaner air, quieter neighbourhoods and safer streets - any why wouldn't we keep all of that? A Green Mayor will deliver on the three asks of LCC’s Climate Safe Streets campaign and beyond, investing in walking and cycling, getting more cars off the road, expanding low traffic neighbourhoods in a joined up way, and just as importantly - setting a target for zero deaths on our roads so people feel safe and empowered to get on their bikes in London. ”

Sadiq Khan - Labour

I am determined that we do not emerge from this pandemic to replace one health crisis with another. Getting Londoners out of their cars and cycling will be a huge part of this. In my first term as Mayor, I am proud to have taken world-leading action to promote cycling. I appointed London’s first Walking and Cycling Commissioner and have increased London’s protected cycle space by five times what it was when I started. Over the course of the pandemic, my Streetspace Plan saw 100km of new or upgraded cycle lanes built.

I, like many others, have rediscovered my love of cycling this year. That’s why I will continue my rapid expansion of London’s cycle network to connect communities and town centres with protected cycleways on main roads and low-traffic routes on local streets — so that it reaches a third of Londoners by 2025. I’ll invest to modernise and expand the Santander Cycle Hire scheme so it can be accessed by more Londoners, as well as introducing e-bikes. And I’ll continue to deliver my cycle parking plan, providing 5,000 new residential cycle hangars and parking hubs at stations and more parking on our high streets.

This is all part of my ambition to ensure 80 per cent of all journeys by 2041 are walked, cycled, or made by public transport, so that we can make London a zero-carbon city by 2030. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild our cities and our economies so that they are cleaner, greener and more sustainable, and I’m determined to work with groups like London Cycling Campaign to get there.