Here’s one guaranteed to make all my Murkin Readers chortle:
Pop-up cycle lanes set up as part a £225million plan to get Britain moving again are lying empty while traffic is squeezing onto narrowed streets, bringing the capital to a halt, it can be revealed.
MailOnline visited some of the key cycle lanes across the country at the height of the rush hour to gauge how busy they are, only to find them chronically under-used with cyclists criticising them as well as motorists.
Our research in London, where Transport for London is leading its own £33million scheme, shows that on the Euston Road, just 7 cyclists used the designated lane over a 15-minute period. Meanwhile 420 cars fought their way through traffic. In Park Lane, Mayfair, just 21 cyclists used the lane as 400 cars battled past.
Nonsense like this basically stems from the dreaded Car Hatred Disease, which engenders the opposite feeling from motorists. The Englishman, as I recall, thinks that shooting cyclists from one’s car should not only not be prosecuted, but rewarded. Mr. Free Market’s opinion should not be made public, but suffice it to say that there is plenty of gore involved.
We have nice wide roads Over Here in north Texas, so the “two-wheeled Taliban”, as the Brits call them, are not much more than a mild nuisance — other than committing the visual offense of wearing those faggy Lycra outfits and pisspot helmets. It is, however, one more reason to enjoy winter here, because our usually icy roads make cycling deadly. (“Make it compulsory, then,” grumbles Mr. FM.)
Of course, because BritPM Scruffy Johnson is a rider, all these crappy devices (“pop-up” cycle lanes?) are given a lot more government attention and support than they deserve.
I know that secretly — or perhaps not so secretly — the Greens would banish all cars if they could, and force us all to ride around on two wheels. This is one of the reasons why, when the Beer & Treason Crowd gathers at its secret meetings, mass execution of Greens is generally ranked after the same treatment for anarchists and Communists, but just ahead of record company executives. Or maybe it was vegans, I don’t remember.
I do know that in Britain, cyclists are generally hated more than badgers, and they squirt poisonous gas into the ground to deal with them. Come to think of it, that sounds remarkably similar to one of Mr. FM’s suggestions…