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You may be trolling, but I'll bite. How often do you use the tunnel? Just asking, as you must be aware that people cycle through it all the time, ban or not. I walked through twice today and was passed by six riders (lumping them together irrespective of direction of travel) on the first leg and about a dozen on the second. One fairly tall cool fixie rider weaved between me and some walkers coming the other way with about a metre to spare to each. I've also seen roadies going full pelt, which is actually quite a ridiculous sight, and as you may imagine, I think people should behave.
However, I've never heard of a single pedestrian-cyclist crash in the tunnel, either anecdotally, in newspaper articles, or from other sources, and I do keep my ear to the ground. This FOI response from 2018 says:
The Royal Borough of Greenwich has no record of any injuries in the foot tunnel since the technology trial was introduced.
(This covers 2016-2018.)
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/greenwich_foot_tunnel_usage_and
It's not just the foot tunnel. While close-passing incidents do occur, pretty much every study ever on shared use has concluded that levels of conflict are insignificant and that crashes are extremely rare, and this doesn't just include relatively simple (e.g., junction-less) environments like the Foot Tunnel, but parks and other public spaces where pedestrians and cyclists mix. There are decades of data on this, but people still make simplistic assumptions like yours above.
Cycling absolutely should be permitted in the foot tunnel. Bans on cycling, e.g. in parks, usually only have the result that meek people who like following rules, and wouldn't under any circumstances present a problem to walkers, don't cycle there, while your resident ne'er-do-wells, those who caused any alarm that occurred in the first place, will simply not obey and will cause worse problems than if cycling were permitted to all.
The problem, as I hinted above, is that while people continue to flout the rules, there is absolutely no chance of the ban on cycling being lifted. The rules, however, were made for a long-gone time when the foot tunnel saw much heavier levels of foot traffic, i.e. workers going to work in the morning (unlike the example on Tyneside that I posted above, where two tunnels were built, one for riders and one for walkers), and there was no DLR or other means of crossing the river there. It is high time that the bylaws were adapted for modern times and completely changed circumstances. That requires that people stop cycling through the foot tunnel at busy times so that people get the impression that they're not completely lawless. For full disclosure, as I mentioned somewhere earlier, I cycle through late at night when there's no-one around and walk at all other times, which I don't think does harm to the cause.
Oliver Schick-
Having used it for years can remember the lift guys would shut the doors on cyclists who were ramping along… I’m in the ‘ride it when it’s quiet’ group - it’s not as if you’re saving that much time. Woolwich though - have never walked it and never had to
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It's not unreasonable for cycling to be prohibited in the tunnel. The tunnel is 2.7m wide and if you have a cyclist coming each way and a ped coming each way they won't all fit. The only sensible option is for everyone to be a similar moving speed pedestrian.
Maybe if there were less cyclists in there more pedestrians would walk through? As for injuries, sure none have be reported but the idea that no cyclist has ridden into a pedestrian is absurd. I've seen a couple of close passes down there myself (very infrequent user) so it must be happening, albeit without any serious injury.
I'm as pro cycling as anyone but IMO this is just not the space for it.
Tacheovale
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People should definitely not be allowed to cycle through the tunnel. It's far too narrow and while most will be sensible with their speed, some won't and will be clattering into peds. While we do love cycling, walking is infinitely better for the world.