RAC comment on Boris Johnson’s £913million London cycling plan

RAC technical director David Bizley said: “On the surface this appears to be good news for London if it truly lives up to the mayor’s aspirations of making transport in the city better for everyone.

“The RAC supports schemes to ensure that cycling is easy and safe as many motorists are cyclists and many cyclists are motorists. Segregating the two is ultimately the best solution so the proposals are welcome from that respect but the devil is very often in the detail therefore we are keen to understand how traffic will be affected.

“In common with all transport investments, we expect prioritisation to be based on value for money. For these reasons, we have concerns about proposals for HS2, not because we are anti-rail but because it delivers a relatively poor return on investment but will soak up huge amounts of transport investment which could be better spent on other, more modest schemes that deliver greater value.

“There must be some risk that the mayor’s cycling superhighway is the HS2 of cycling … a great idea in principle but does it deliver as much value as could be delivered by a number of smaller, more modest schemes?”