Tooley Street to welcome cycling and a car-free day to get things moving

The diggers are back in Tooley Street!

This time it will to help achieve the vision stated in the London Bridge Cycling Action Plan, that Cycling will play a major part in the ongoing transformation of London Bridge as a globally significant place of modern commerce, creativity and enterprise, and in creating one of the UKs flagship transport hubs.

Transport for London recently made two big announcements about the future of Tooley Street. 

Proposed Plans for Cycleway 4

Firstly, they have given the go-ahead for Cycleway 4, from Tower Bridge to Greenwich. The work started immediately on Tooley street, with a completion date for the whole scheme of Spring 2020. More information is available here. TLB supported the scheme, with segregated lanes and new crossings, except that we want it to extend all the way up Tooley Street, and into the City.

This is somewhat compensated by the second announcement for the Tooley Street Healthy Streets scheme. This will create some limited protection for cyclists and restrict some traffic movements into Tooley Street. This will make it difficult for taxis to be hailed directly from the street, but due to protests by black taxis and concern from some businesses about access from taxis, the proposed restriction to eastbound taxis has been dropped. 

Work will commence from Spring 2020. Once that is completed then TfL has stated it will further consider fully extending Cycleway 4 through the area. We think it is crucial to make cycling safe through this street to meet the need of the growing number of cyclists, but we need to make it safe for the thousands of pedestrians too, and TLB will continue to make the case for that. 

Both schemes will come with 20mph, which will mean that almost the entire TLB area will be 20mph – the area in the congestion zone. 

Our Bikes for Business programme will help your business get ready for all these changes – your urgent packages can be moved up to 12 times faster by bike, and we’ll subsidise it https://www.teamlondonbridge.co.uk/bikesforbusiness

Finally, the Mayor of London has announced a Car-Free day for London on Sunday 22 Sept. This will include Tooley Street, Tower Bridge, London Bridge (bus only) and parts of the City of London. What better chance to see London Bridge without traffic. If any retailers on Tooley Street want to make the most of the day, we’ll support you to get chairs and tables outside, as well as deck chairs. 

Get in touch with jack@teamlondonbridge.co.uk

Or sign up for cycle updates by emailing cycling@teamlondonbridge.co.uk