London’s roads were designed around the car

What a traffic light is for

A traffic light tells a driver that people may be crossing. Without it, a car travels too fast for its driver to see someone step into the road and stop in time. And when a driver gets it wrong, the person on foot takes most of the harm, if not all of it.

The light is there because of what a car is: quick, heavy, and slow to stop.

Cars have outgrown the city

Cars were made for roads, but time has shown they do not suit a place like London, where the streets are narrow and space is short. Meanwhile there are cleaner, cheaper and more efficient ways to get one person across town, the electrically assisted pedal cycle among them.

The future of a city is not bulky vehicles moving at fatal speeds, making it dangerous for everyone else to share the outdoors.

We cannot keep filling our cities with more cars. We cannot build public transport that is dense, fast and appealing enough, soon enough, at a price we can pay. But we can change how we think about getting around, and make room for a safer, shared street with many kinds of modern, motor-assisted personal travel on it.

20 mph is a step the right way

Much of London now has a 20 mph limit. That is progress towards the speed at which people can move around a city safely, alone or in groups, without supervision. It is also, roughly, the speed of a bicycle.

A rider is not a small car

Someone on a bike or an e-bike is agile and can change direction in an instant. They sit high, in the open, with nothing between them and the street, so they see a pedestrian sooner. They also carry the consequences of their own mistakes, which makes them careful.

And when a rider does get it wrong, the result is rarely fatal, as it too often is with a car or a motorbike.

London makes cycling harder than it is

The way cycling is set up here is, plainly, dangerous:

• Lanes to nowhereCycle lanes that simply stop
• Raised kerbsOn both sides, with no room for error
• Parked carsIn the lane that was meant for you
• Drains and potholesExactly where a rider has to be
• Narrow lanesStuck behind someone, with nowhere to pass

Veer a little too far in a narrow lane and you clip the kerb. Make that mistake in a car and you scuff your alloys. Make it on a bike and you can break a bone.

Then there is the attitude. A rider cruising at 15 mph gets overtaken with inches to spare by a driver who will be sitting in a queue just down the road, where the rider filters past again. Nobody gained anything. So what was worth the risk?

Better lanes are slow to arrive

Protected cycle lanes are a great idea. They are also expensive and take years, and when they do get built they are often too narrow: one slip and the bike goes over the kerb. A city cannot wait for its infrastructure to catch up.

The cheapest fix is a rule

Changing what a red light means to a rider costs a sign and a line of law. No road has to be dug up. A rider approaching a red light should not have to come to a full stop. Instead:

• Only at 20 mph or lessFaster roads keep the full stop
• Give way to peopleAnyone crossing goes first, always
• Give way to trafficVehicles with a green light have priority
• Cross only when clearNo oncoming traffic, nobody in the way
• Otherwise, waitIf in any doubt, the red light stands

The limit matters. At 20 mph everyone has time to see each other and stop. Above it, they do not, and the red light should mean what it means today.

It is already working elsewhere

• FranceSince 2012, a small sign under the light lets riders go through on red, giving way
• NetherlandsSigned junctions let riders turn right on red, giving way
• IdahoSince 1982, a stop sign is a give-way sign for cyclists
• DelawareReported fewer cyclist crashes at stop signs after doing the same in 2017

These places trust riders with it for the reasons above: a bike is agile, stops quickly and safely, and fits through gaps a car cannot.

Or take the light away

Some cities go a step further and replace the signal with a crossing. Nobody waits for a colour. Everyone slows, looks, and gives way by a simple order:

• People on footGo first. Riders and drivers give way
• Whoever is already crossingFinishes. The next one waits
• RidersRoll through when it is clear, without a full stop

Amsterdam switched off the lights at Alexanderplein, a busy junction, in 2016 and then removed them. About six in ten cyclists asked afterwards said it worked better. Britain already has the tool: since 2016 a parallel crossing puts a cycle crossing beside a zebra, and drivers must give way to both.

What cycling is for

The whole point of cycling is freedom of movement. The ease of it. The wind in your face. A city that keeps stopping its riders for rules written for cars takes that away for no gain.

To be clear

This is a case for changing the rules, not a description of them. In the UK today a red light applies to cyclists exactly as it does to drivers, and you must stop.