A much-used cycle lane in London that was removed because the local council said it was impeding the flow of motor vehicles has since been blocked by parked cars up to 80% of the time, a study by a campaign group has found. Kensington and Chelsea council ripped out the £320,000 lane on the busy east-west thoroughfare in December, citing complaints from 322 people, about 0.2% of the borough’s population. The Conservative-run authority said removing the cycle lane, which was used by up to 4,000 cyclists a day, would add extra space for motor traffic, and thus ease congestion and quicken journey times. But the study, which involved analysing video footage from Transport for London traffic cameras using Google artificial intelligence tools, found that the space had instead been largely taken up by parked cars. The study assessed average car journey times on a sample 1.1-mile stretch of the street using Google Maps’ real time traffic data, finding that these had increased after the cycle lane was removed.

Source: The Guardian January 01, 2021 06:56 UTC