10 WAYS TO GREEN YOUR LONDON LIFE, advised last Thursday’s Evening Standard. The usual blather was accompanied by ADVICE FROM THE CAPITAL’S ECO HEROES, one of whom was Koy Thompson, ‘CEO of The London Cycling Campaign’:
Cycling is so fashionable, rejuvenating, addictive and plain good fun it shouldn’t be green. Imagine your commute being the best part of your day rather than the most miserable. Why not discover London rather than simply fight through it? So ditch tired old travel habits and join the cycling revolution.
Well I’m sure quite a lot of people do commute every day along the cycle lane shown above (pictured where the A112 approaches the junction with the A104), as it’s probably the quickest and most convenient way of cycling in a north-south direction through the heart of the London Borough of Waltham Forest.
But I’m not sure that this lane is really the stuff that dreams are made on, or that addictive and plain good fun and the best part of your day are quite the phrases that will spring into the mind of anyone cycling here. Photos taken yesterday, in the rain.
Nor am I persuaded that the overwhelming majority of the population of the borough who currently don’t cycle are really going to switch to the bicycle if these are the conditions which await them.
As Daphne du Maurier famously wrote: ‘Last night I dreamed I went to the Netherlands again. And then I woke up in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, with its innovative and extensive cycling facilities.'
