Cyclists can ignore one-way signs
Author: The Times |
Cyclists will be permitted to ride the wrong way along one-way streets under a change intended to encourage more people to give up their cars or use them less.
The Government will announce today that cyclists will be permitted to ignore no-entry signs: a practice already followed by many, including David Cameron, the Conservative leader.
The Department for Transport is authorising a trial in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Mr Cameron’s home authority in West London, in which a small plate saying ?Except cyclists? will be attached to poles carrying no-entry signs.
If the trial is successful, the department intends to extend the policy to the rest of Britain and permit thousands of one-way streets to become two-way for bikes. It believes that long diversions around one-way systems are a significant deterrent to new cyclists, who might be less confident about breaking the rules.
This is the first time that the department has permitted an exception to the no-entry rule. Existing cycle ?contraflow? lanes require authorities to build separate entrances for cyclists so that they do not have to break traffic rules. The cost of building these entrances, though, has deterred all but a tiny number of authorities from creating contraflow lanes.
Hackney Council in East London pioneered the introduction of contraflow lanes and now has the highest rate of cycling of any London borough.