A new £4.5million cycleway through the heart of the City of London’s financial district has been proposed and could be opened within four years’ time.
The City of London Corporation wants to create a ‘high quality east-west cycle route’ for those travelling through the Square Mile, linking Aldgate with Blackfriars.
The planned route would take cyclists along St Botolph Street, Aldgate Square, Leadenhall Street, Cornhill, Bank Junction and Queen Victoria Street.
It would also provide an alternative route to Transport for London (TfL)’s Cycleway 3 (C3) which runs along the Victoria Embankment and Lower Thames Street – and was opened by Boris Johnson on his final day as the capital’s Mayor in May 2016.
Restrictions imposed on Bank junction since 2017 already mean only buses, cyclists and pedestrians can use the area after cyclist Ying Tao died there in an accident involving a lorry in 2015 and dozens more were injured in a series of incidents.
The new cycleway would connect with C3 on Victoria Embankment, as well as with two other TfL routes – C2 at Whitechapel High Street and C6 at New Bridge Street.
The plans will go before the corporation’s streets and walkways committee today, with hopes that construction will start in summer 2026 and it will open in April 2028.
But planners said in a report that there may be ‘mixed support from the public consultation’ because of ‘significant changes to the highway’ required.
These include ‘restricted kerbside access, modifications to traffic signal junctions, reallocation of road space to prioritise walking, wheeling and cycling, and changes to parking, taxi ranks, and bus stops’, reported The Standard.
The cycleway would only have full segregation between cyclists and vehicles along part of the route on Queen Victoria Street and around Aldgate due to high amounts of traffic in these areas.
In other sections such as Bank junction, Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, the traffic flows are below a given threshold for protected space for cycling.
TfL has spent £207,815 on designing the route and will also fund the public consultation.
The corporation is expected to have to come up with about half of the estimated budget, which is between £4million and £4.5million.
The rest of the money could come from on-street parking income or a levy imposed on developers.
The corporation said the pace of the project ‘has been determined by the availability of TfL’s funding grant and their oversight requirements’.
The original planned year for completion had been 2025, but this was ‘substantially delayed due to the financial impact on TfL’s finances caused by Covid-19’.
Simon Munk, head of campaigns and community development at the London Cycling Campaign, said the plans were ‘very welcome’, citing TfL analysis showing there is ‘huge untapped cycling demand along it’.
He told : ‘We do think however there is plenty of space around Aldgate to not divert the route round the back of the station – indeed, there are cycle lanes there already, so mostly all they need to do is add some protected kerbs.
‘London loves cycling – the data shows cycling amounts to a third of all tube journeys in London, with 1.26million made daily.
‘If we want a thriving London, and to tackle crises of climate, air quality, inactivity, road danger and congestion, we need more people cycling – and TfL’s analysis shows there’s a lot more potential even in central London for cycling. And that means more high-quality, protected Cycleways.’