More big increases in cycling

[Earl Aelfheah]

4 minutes ago, Rockets said:

oh @Earl Aelfheah..........deary, deary me....you're on a roll today aren't you 😉

You've asked what people think is the catalyst, and immediately added that you're not buying the infrastructure message.  🤷‍♀️

I think it's fairly clear that the consistent, upward trend in cycling in London over a couple of decades now, demonstrates the impact of continued investment in infrastructure. 

[Rockets]

But does that explain the massive sudden annual jump from 5% to 12.7% - I believe (and it's hard to tell as TFL has changed their reporting methodology over the years) that could be a bigger % jump in growth than even during and post-Covid?

Would you not expect that if it was infrastructure then growth would be gradual rather than an overnight jump? This year massively bucked the year-on-year decline in cycle-stage growth.

Anyone else got any other ideas?

 

[Earl Aelfheah]

The sustained long term trend is clearly linked to infrastructure. Shorter term, the massive popularity of hire schemes (e.g. Lime etc) in the context of that infrastructure having been put in place, no doubt a big factor. 

Why do you think infrastructure isn’t relevant?

Edited Tuesday at 12:46 by Earl Aelfheah

[Rockets]

21 minutes ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

The sustained long term trend is clearly linked to infrastructure.

But until this year cycle stage growth was in decline in the preceding years: in 21/22 it was 18%, in 22/23 it was 6.3% in 23/24 down to 5% and then in 24/25 back up to 12.7%. 

I don't think infrastructure is irrelevant - but it just doesn't explain the over doubling of cycle stage growth in the last year. 

Edited Tuesday at 13:02 by Rockets

[Spartacus]

Maybe the explosion of lime and forest bikes has had an impact on cycling numbers over the past year 🤔 

[Earl Aelfheah]

54 minutes ago, Rockets said:

But until this year cycle stage growth was in decline in the preceding years: in 21/22 it was 18%, in 22/23 it was 6.3% in 23/24 down to 5% and then in 24/25 back up to 12.7%. 

I don't think infrastructure is irrelevant - but it just doesn't explain the over doubling of cycle stage growth in the last year. 

That's not decline, it's a slowing in growth over 2 years (there have been similar spikey patterns in other areas over the last few years linked to changing commuting habits post-Covid). Of course, any single year will not tell you the whole picture, but the trend has been consistent; Cycling has been growing year on year for over a decade, as investments have been made in cycle infrastructure. And the recent boom in hire bikes has also been enabled by the existence of that infrastructure.

I'm so bored of your completely predictable responses to anything to do with transport. It's great that we've seen consistent growth in cycling over many years now. The investment to get here has been tiny as a proportion of the overall TfL budget. It's a great success story.

And it proves those that said "a low single digit percentage gain in cycling numbers is all any set of measures will ever deliver" wrong.

Edited Tuesday at 13:57 by Earl Aelfheah

[DulvilleRes]

Earl is indeed on a roll of brilliant fact checking, the overall result of which has been a decrease of unchallenged factual inaccuracies and misleading statements on these threads. Long may he keep it up.

Yet again Rockets, you have been proved wrong - out of respect to your fellow posters, why don't you just admit it?  That way we could have a measured and mutually respectful debate, instead of constantly having to counter what feels like propaganda.

 

[Rockets]

49 minutes ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

That's not decline, it's a slowing in growth over 2 years

I have consistently said a decline in growth....which it is exactly what it is....which can also be referred to as a slowing in growth if you prefer....deary, deary me....

1 hour ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

And it proves those that said "a low single digit percentage gain in cycling numbers is all any set of measures will ever deliver" wrong.

Ha ha....still some way to go to get to the 10x increase promised during the lobbying for funds phase during Covid though....we are seemingly at .43x after 6 years....

12 minutes ago, DulvilleRes said:

Yet again Rockets, you have been proved wrong - out of respect to your fellow posters, why don't you just admit it?  That way we could have a measured and mutually respectful debate, instead of constantly having to counter what feels like propaganda.

@DulvilleRes what, in your mind, have I been proved wrong about exactly? Is what I say about the data and information in TFL's report wrong? No it isn't. Do you have an opinion on the catalysts for the big jump in cycle stage growth this last year - or are you just here to try and attack a fellow poster? I do find it laughable that you suggest I am pushing propaganda when asking questions about  TFL's report....

 

 

 

 

 

[Earl Aelfheah]

3 hours ago, Rockets said:

Ha ha....still some way to go to get to the 10x increase promised during the lobbying for funds phase during Covid though

The mayor suggested cycling could increase tenfold and pavements could be widened, under a scenario where travel returned to normal levels, but the need for distancing remained in place. This was 5 years ago, during the Covid lockdown, when we didn't have vaccines and things were extremely uncertain. They were planning for the possibility of having to move large numbers of people about the Capital, whist enforcing distancing. 

Edited Tuesday at 20:03 by Earl Aelfheah

[malumbu]

12 hours ago, Penguin68 said:

 

The great worry is that cycling, like hula hooping, was or is a passing fad. 

 

In deed, I understand that in the 1950s rock and roll was considered to be just a fad by many.  

And in the 1860s the same thing was said about the new fangled bicycle

[Earl Aelfheah]

This trend for driving around in cars will likely be replaced by pogo sticks next week.

[first mate]

15 hours ago, Rockets said:

what, in your mind, have I been proved wrong about exactly? Is what I say about the data and information in TFL's report wrong? No it isn't. Do you have an opinion on the catalysts for the big jump in cycle stage growth this last year - or are you just here to try and attack a fellow poster? I do find it laughable that you suggest I am pushing propaganda when asking questions about  TFL's report....

 

It has gone very quiet. Looking forward to @DulvilleRes response..
 

1 hour ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

This trend for driving around in cars will likely be replaced by pogo sticks next week.

Malumbu told us that he performs a community service by driving around checking on various aspects of road design to ensure they are working properly. It will be most entertaining to see him do this on a pogo stick. Let us know when he starts.

[exdulwicher]

20 hours ago, Rockets said:

I am not downplaying the data just asking if people know what is driving the large jump this year (after years of decline in cycling growth). Is that a question I am not allowed to ask? I would suggest that anyone who had read the TFL report (and not just the headlines from TFL's press release) would probably ask the same questions I am as there are clear contradictions within it - do you have any explanation?

Various explanations.

One is that over the years you have consistently cherry picked stats and figures to suit whatever your opinion is at the time, shouting about the ones that you like, downplaying the ones you don't so that will have skewed your perspective. I honestly don't know how much of that is wilfully misleading on your part or you simply don't understand how stats work - sadly facts don't really care what you do or don't believe in, they remain facts no matter what.

Another is that mainstream media (of all political persuasions) are not good with stats because most people (readers and the people writing the newspapers) don't understand them so they'll dumb them down. Now to an extent, that's the job of media, to take a complex topic and unravel the basics so that the layperson can get the gist of it but it does lead to confusing stats such as "50% increase in cycling" (for example) but with no indication in the headline of over what time period, from what baseline, is it numbers of people cycling (and if so is there any understanding of how often those people are riding) or is it done on mileage / time...?

Very basic examples:
If I ride 10 miles in a day and then the next day I ride 15 miles, that could be interpreted as a 50% increase in cycling!
If an average of 100 people ride their bike 3x a week or more for a year and then the next year, an average of 150 people do the same for a year, that's also a 50% increase in cycling. However, that won't pick up local and period-specific trends. During the school holidays for example, only 20 people are riding for 3 months of the year cos everyone is on holiday  - whereas you'd probably look at that and shout "DECLINE IN CYCLING!!!", anyone doing some statistical analysis on it would look at the overall trend and agree that yes, there are peaks and troughs (as with all stats) but the overall average trend is a 50% increase.

As an aside, you can see this with vehicle traffic; the School Run Effect in Dulwich is very pronounced because of the sheer number of schools.

Another reason is, as I mentioned above, locality. Where exactly are these stats being measured - is it City of London, Greater London, London within the N & S Circulars, all London boroughs combined...? This also needs balancing out because averages hide a lot of info. If you have a safe and efficient cycling corridor (like Greendale, Calton, Dulwich, HH) it's very well used compared to a corridor like Denmark Hill, EDG, Village Way, HH. So someone standing at Goose Green will see a very different picture of number of people cycling vs someone standing in Dulwich Square which is why personal views and "I've seen / I've not seen..." is such a terrible measure of understanding.

(same way that if you said there were an average of 30 buses an hour in Dulwich - there might well be 30 buses but someone on Woodwarde Road will see zero and someone on LL will see 20 and someone on EDG will see 10. Every single one of them would question the "30 buses per hour" narrative.)

And a final reason is methodology although that one is easy to balance via various statistical calculations. Data now is more dense and detailed than ever before via traffic count sensors, mobile phone data, fitness tracking apps, connected vehicles etc so there's a constant process of adjustment and factoring in new info while still maintaining the old info.

*it should be obvious but all the figures, counts and percentages I've quoted above are examples, designed to show the picture of how stats work. I don't know how many buses there are, I've chosen easy to understand figures.

[first mate]

@exdulwicher Thanks for the stats lesson.

But, DulvilleRes stated that Rockets had been proved wrong, quoted below. 

16 hours ago, Rockets said:

Yet again Rockets, you have been proved wrong - out of respect to your fellow posters, why don't you just admit it? 

Please can DulvilleRes detail specifically where on this thread's issue Rocket's has been "proved wrong"? We are talking here about "proof" not just views or interpretations of data.

[Earl Aelfheah]

4 hours ago, first mate said:

Please can DulvilleRes detail specifically where on this thread's issue Rocket's has been "proved wrong"?

Here:

On 09/12/2025 at 09:39, Earl Aelfheah said:

  On 11/12/2021 at 00:46, Rockets said:

...a low single digit percentage gain in cycling numbers is all any set of measures will ever deliver and the collateral damage that goes with it does not justify it

Here:

On 09/12/2025 at 09:39, Earl Aelfheah said:

  On 12/10/2023 at 10:17, Rockets said:

...the long-term trend is that, even after the installation of masses of new infrastructure, cycling growth has stalled...

etc...

Not really about that though. Just would be nice to have any conversation about transport that didn't involve Rocks jumping in with cut and paste responses from his automatic 'cars vs bike' post generator.

The increase in cycling (both the most recent spike, but more importantly the sustained long term trend) is really positive and shows that (even relatively modest) investments in cycling infrastructure work. 

Edited 17 hours ago by Earl Aelfheah

[Rockets]

14 hours ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

The mayor suggested cycling could increase tenfold and pavements could be widened, under a scenario where travel returned to normal levels, but the need for distancing remained in place. This was 5 years ago, during the Covid lockdown, when we didn't have vaccines and things were extremely uncertain. They were planning for the possibility of having to move large numbers of people about the Capital, whist enforcing distancing. 

Hmmm, you might want to do some fact checking....fear not I did it for you.

The ten-fold increase was the headline stat when TFL and the Mayor created their StreetSpace strategy during Covid. Streetspace replaced Healthy Streets (cynics may say that after years of struggling to get support and consultation greenlight for their OHS plans they took the emergency powers they were given during Covid to roll-out measures without the need for consultation). The ten-fold increase was, apparently, based on TFL modelling.

Here is the link to the press release they put out at the time: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayors-bold-plan-will-overhaul-capitals-streets?fbclid=IwdGRjcAOleDhjbGNrA6V4H2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHnjF6_KNVYD87w51L1CY3cxDmYTY7vuJ-W5EkVv-Dy0q2Lv8Bb8145EFPl9O_aem_tH55yqGGzEhBy4g5u7h3Fg

 

Mayor’s bold new Streetspace plan will overhaul London’s streets

• Transformation of London’s roads to be fast-tracked, giving space to new cycle lanes and wider pavements to enable social distancing
• Landmark locations to benefit from temporary bike routes and more space for walking to reduce pressure on Tube and buses
• Clean, green and sustainable travel to be at the heart of London’s recovery
• Cycling could increase 10-fold and walking five-fold post-lockdown

 

This was jumped on by the pro-cycling media usual suspects and Will Norman even wrote op eds quoting the ten-fold increase.

https://bikebiz.com/mayors-streetspace-plan-could-see-cycling-increased-tenfold-post-lockdown/

 

@Earl Aelfheah your preceding post is getting embarrassing now such is your frantic desire to try and land a punch. Sorry to break it to you but you keep missing: in 2023 cycling growth HAD stalled - it was declining so that statement was absolutely 100% correct. How that is proving me wrong is anyone's guess but maybe it further exposes some of the desperate tactics used to try an attack some of us.

And now to rescue the conversation from the grudge-match war of words some are waging:

@exdulwicher you still haven't explained why a sudden increase may be reported by TFL - any ideas? What was it that caused cycling stage growth to jump by so much after a couple of years of decline? Are you saying TFL may be collecting the data differently or has changed their methodology to give the big jump - if that was the case surely some sort of explanation would be required especially given that that was the headline stat used by most of the media? I just don't see a sudden switch from 5% growth in cycle stages to 12.7% without some significant catalyst behind it - is it a massive increase in Lime bike usage or something like that? 

[Earl Aelfheah]

Yes, that's a press release from May 2020 - Just to remind you, on 10th May 2020 the the PM announced a conditional plan for lifting lockdown, and said that people who cannot work from home should return to the workplace but avoid public transport. We didn't yet have a vaccine for COVID (or know whether we'd have one in future). The plans (and if you followed the discussions at the time you would know this), were intended to start thinking about how we might return people to work, whilst having to maintain social distancing (including on public transport). At that time, the mayor suggested that in such a scenario cycling could increase 10-fold and walking five-fold post-lockdown. 

What you've done is to say that he promised that would happen and tried to use this cherry picked, context free nugget, to downplay a big increase in cycling in 2025. It's irrelevant to the conversation.

I genuinely don't get why you're so determined to paint the sustained, and really quite remarkable increases in the numbers cycling as a failure. Especially when you've previously suggested that no set of measures would ever deliver more than a low single digit percentage gain in cycling numbers (or perhaps that's exactly the reason).

Like I said - we know your view - car vs bike, car good, bike bad. We can write your responses before you have. The numbers could double again tomorrow and you'd find some way to downplay them - so what's the point in commenting. 

45 minutes ago, Rockets said:

What was it that caused cycling stage growth to jump by so much after a couple of years of decline?

Sorry? What decline? The number of cycle journey stages have seen sustained increases - an estimated 1.19 million daily in 2022, 1.26 million in '23, 1.33 million by 2024, and 1.5 million daily in 2025.

Edited 19 hours ago by Earl Aelfheah

[first mate]

@Earl AelfheahAt that time, the mayor suggested that in such a scenario cycling could increase 10-fold and walking five-fold post-lockdown. 
 

It is a phrasing that infers that if certain things were changed there would be a ten-fold increase. The motive here is to persuade those changes are worth making to get 'that result'.

Anyhow, my issue here is that DulvilleRes said Rockets had been "proven wrong"...again and called him a propagandist. I see no conclusive evidence to support that claim at all. In fact, I would argue that is the kind of hyperbole and character assassination that reads far more like propaganda.

 

 

Edited 18 hours ago by first mate

[Rockets]

@Earl Aelfheah honestly. What I am clearly saying is that the promised-land of ten-fold increase in cycling that TFL and the Mayor used to secure hundreds of millions of pounds (remember this was based on TFL's own modelling so one presumes for the Mayor and Will Norman to use it they must have thought it was attainable) of tax-payers money for Streetspace has not materialised. Not even close - we are struggling to get to a one-fold increase. Even giving a politician a healthy slice of "they sometimes say things they get wrong" that ten-fold increase was clearly TFL modelling nonsense.

24 minutes ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

Sorry? What decline? The number of cycle journey stages have seen sustained increases - an estimated 1.19 million daily in 2022, 1.26 million in '23, 1.33 million by 2024, and 1.5 million daily in 2025.

Cycling stage growth decline. The clue is in my sentences (which are very clear to most people) about it - let me repost it in the hope you read it this time.....notice how growth goes from 18% - to 6.3% and then 5%.....that's a decline in growth isn't it? Or are you going to continue the habit of a lifetime and argue it is now.

Now it's back up to 12.7% so it's not unreasonable to ask what the trigger for the increase in growth as it is a sizeable jump wouldn't you agree? (I doubt you will but it's worth a try at least...;-))

But until this year cycle stage growth was in decline in the preceding years: in 21/22 it was 18%, in 22/23 it was 6.3% in 23/24 down to 5% and then in 24/25 back up to 12.7%. 

[exdulwicher]

13 minutes ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

Like I said - we know your view. The numbers could double again tomorrow and you'd find some way to downplay them - so what's the point in commenting. 

It's the standard "keep yourself relevant" method. It doesn't matter what is announced or what happens in terms of cycling, it'll never be enough, or never be justifiable, or never be "worth it".

If 20 people use a cycle lane, that's not enough, it should be constantly busy 24/7 and this needs to happen within 10 minutes of the cycle lane being finished, otherwise it's a scandalous waste of taxpayer money. If the cycle lane is busy then everyone on it is a danger to themselves and everyone around and drivers can't drive and pedestrians can't cross and won't someone think of the children / elderly / disabled / wildlife?!

Also of course, it must be very difficult for many people on this forum to actually understand how this increase has happened because remember that most of them simply cannot see cyclists at all! They are literally invisible. I'm not surprised that some people on here claim to have never seen anyone using a cycle lane. The cycle lanes are really busy but they're actually in an alternate dimension, imperceptible to drivers. That explains why so many of them park in cycle lanes, they just assume they're empty.

[Rockets]

@exdulwicher can we have less of the passive aggressive attacks please - are you even going to both to try and answer the question or just here for the fun of the pile-on? You're supposed to be an expert in such matters yet you seem unable to offer any conclusion - like many others, just posting to attack me for daring to ask the question.

The usual suspect responses are hilarious to read - creatures of habit and all that!

 

[first mate]

9 minutes ago, Rockets said:

@exdulwicher can we have less of the passive aggressive attacks please - are you even going to both to try and answer the question or just here for the fun of the pile-on? You're supposed to be an expert in such matters yet you seem unable to offer any conclusion - like many others, just posting to attack me for daring to ask the question.

The usual suspect responses are hilarious to read - creatures of habit and all that!

 

Yup, just not addressing the points you made; so, so obvious. Still nothing from DulvilleRes. If you make attacks and claims like that, at least have the decency to  provide the 'proof'.

13 minutes ago, exdulwicher said:

The cycle lanes are really busy but they're actually in an alternate dimension, imperceptible to drivers.

You may have a point- perhaps they exist only in the imaginations of some.

Not saying all cycle lanes are not busy, just some. 

Edited 18 hours ago by first mate

[Penguin68]

30 minutes ago, Rockets said:

notice how growth goes from 18% - to 6.3% and then 5%.....that's a decline in growth isn't it?

Strictly I'd call that a decline in growth rate. I'm afraid that people tend to think of 'a decline in growth' to mean a contraction - rather than a slowing down. There is an argument to suggest that such a slowing down would indicate that maxima (a ceiling) may have been reached.

[Earl Aelfheah]

I think most people would understand it as year on year growth. To pick any individual year out and ignore the very clear upward trend is misleading.

It's ridiculous to use language that implies 'declines' against massive, long-term growth. It's not very subtle.

If you look at the trend, I don't think anyone would use the word 'decline' in relation to it, unless they were trying to misrepresent the actual pattern. This is what it looked like as of last year, and this year it's trending up even faster:

1 hour ago, first mate said:

Anyhow, my issue here is that DulvilleRes said Rockets had been "proven wrong"...again and called him a propagandist. I see no conclusive evidence to support that claim at all

Two statements already provided, that have clearly been proven wrong. You don't see it because you don't want to.

On 11/12/2021 at 00:46, Rockets said:

a low single digit percentage gain in cycling numbers is all any set of measures will ever deliver and the collateral damage that goes with it does not justify it

Clearly proven wrong...and

On 12/10/2023 at 10:17, Rockets said:

the long-term trend is that, even after the installation of masses of new infrastructure, cycling growth has stalled

The was never a 'long-term trend' of growth having stalled...there are lots of other examples, but what's the point? 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by Earl Aelfheah

[exdulwicher]

1 hour ago, Rockets said:

Cycling stage growth decline. The clue is in my sentences (which are very clear to most people) about it - let me repost it in the hope you read it this time.....notice how growth goes from 18% - to 6.3% and then 5%.....that's a decline in growth isn't it? Or are you going to continue the habit of a lifetime and argue it is now.

Now it's back up to 12.7% so it's not unreasonable to ask what the trigger for the increase in growth as it is a sizeable jump wouldn't you agree? (I doubt you will but it's worth a try at least...;-))

But until this year cycle stage growth was in decline in the preceding years: in 21/22 it was 18%, in 22/23 it was 6.3% in 23/24 down to 5% and then in 24/25 back up to 12.7%. 

Growth was in decline... 🤔

Growth rates will fluctuate day to day, week to week, month to month etc which is why you look at overall trends. Note that against all this there have been changes in population, changes in transport options (like the Elizabeth Line for example, also changes to congestion and ULEZ zones / charges), there's been a pandemic and associated changes in working patterns.

There's a whole mix of factors in the background but *overall*, the trend is up. 

Imagine if you drive 12,000 miles in a year. That's an average of 1000 miles a month, yes? You could draw a dead straight graph of that growth. Except it won't look like that will it? That month you were away and the car sat on your drive. 0 miles, no growth in mileage. That month you did a big road trip, 3000 miles. HUGE growth! But the next month you WFH a lot and didn't drive to work much so it was only 500 miles. And so on.

But the average over a one year period is still 1000 miles a month.

Same here. The increase is the 43% stated. It honestly doesn't matter much what happened month to month, year to year so long as you look at the figures in Year X and the figures in Year Y and calculate accordingly. You can absolutely get more in depth with things like "ULEZ zone extended on this date" and "Elizabeth Line opened on that date" and "new cycle lane installed here" and "new housing development built there" and that'll obviously play into it but what it being talked about here is a headline figure.

X % increase over Y years.

It is as simple as that.