Congestion Charging

Times

February 18, 2003

Virgin cyclists ring the changes

By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

WHIZZING past queues of fuming drivers is one of the great pleasures of cycling in London. Yesterday morning, however, it was the drivers who were whizzing past me on my 12-mile pedal round the boundary of the congestion charge zone.

Each junction offered another view of deserted streets inside the zone. They were so empty you half expected to see tumbleweed spinning across the road.

Small groups of anti-charge protesters, huddled together for warmth, were to be found every couple of miles along the border. Sadly for them, most drivers were moving too fast to notice their placards, much less collect a leaflet. There were a few honks of support, but many more rings from bicycle bells as cyclists offered sympathy or scorn.

At Kennington Lane, widely predicted to become a congestion hotspot because the boundary narrows through a residential area, the only person on four wheels was an ageing skateboarder scooting down the middle of the road.

Gareth Adamson, a member of the local residents’ group, which is struggling to pay a £20,000 legal bill for a failed challenge to the scheme, had got up early to protest. “We have to admit there is no congestion this morning, but it could be a false dawn,” he said.

At Vauxhall Bridge Road another group of protesters began packing up before 9am. “It’s just too cold to hang around,” one Conservative Party organiser said.

Vauxhall Cross, where cyclists normally thread carefully through the traffic, had become a racetrack. Drivers swerved across five lanes, unable to believe their luck at finding so much empty tarmac.

The only hold-up came at Hyde Park Corner as a steady stream of cyclists cut diagonally across the junction.

The number of shiny new bikes and pristine yellow bibs did much to explain just what had happened to all those vanished motorists.

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