The Tories are claiming that cycling to work instead of driving causes congestion and air pollution!

The latest anti-Labour Tory attack line is so unbelievably stupid that you have to see it to believe it.

The Kensington and Chelsea Tories have been handing out flyers attacking the development of London's cycle infrastructure with absurd claims that measures to increase the number of people cycling to work instead of driving will increase "traffic congestion" and "air pollution".

Air pollution and traffic jams

Now, every evidence-based air pollution study I've ever seen on improved cycling and walking infrastructure has detailed massive reductions in air pollutants like nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and black carbon.

According to a study by Sustrans, if the number of UK cycling trips could be doubled, and the number of short walking trips increased, this would produce such a significant reduction in air pollution that 8,300 lives a year would be saved.

Aside from the improvements in air quality and life expectancy, their study estimated a £5.67 billion boost to the UK over the course of 10 years. 

These are huge quality of life improvements with a significant economic benefit to boot, all for a relatively modest initial outlay in infrastructure improvements (the £42 million the Tories are shitting themselves with rage over is significantly less than 0.1% of the projected cost of HS2).

Research into a similar Cycle Highways scheme in the Netherlands found that the construction of 675 km of cycle highways resulted in a 3.8 million hours per year reduction in traffic jams!

Another study in Waltham Forest demonstrated a massive reduction in severe air pollution after the introduction of a Mini-Holland cycling infrastructure plan.

And another study in Washington DC indicated a 4% reduction in traffic congestion that was directly attributable to their Capital Bikeshare scheme.

If the Tories want to claim that improved cycling infrastructure increases traffic congestion and air pollution, they really need to show some counter-evidence to the numerous studies demonstrating the exact opposite effect.

Local Businesses

The claimed "damage to local businesses" is at least just misleading, rather than an outright inversion of reality.

Of course some local businesses may be inconvenienced during the construction phase, but you'd have to be utterly delusional to believe that more people walking and cycling along your street, rather than driving through in cars, would be a bad thing for local shops and businesses in the long run.

Trees

As for the tree removals that the Tories seem so upset about, I'm pretty sure the reduction in CO2 emissions from reduced car trips and traffic jams would be more than enough to offset the loss of a few trees, and if the Tories really did give a damn about trees, they could easily demand that the developers plant two or more trees in the local area for every one they need to remove.

The Tories obviously don't give a shit about trees, they've just added it because a list with two bullet points (one of which is the most absurd of lies) would have looked absolutely ridiculous.

True motivations

The worst thing about this Tory nonsense is that we know what all of this is really motivated by.

The Tories are blatantly pandering to car users because they know the kind of people driving massive pollutant-billowing SUVs around London are one of their core demographics.

Their attitude is screw people on bikes, and those in the poorer areas of London who are far more likely to suffer toxic levels of pollution, they're never going to vote Tory anyway, so "fuck them".

In fact the Tories have such contempt for people living in high pollution areas that Boris Johnson and his Tory minions deliberately buried a damning study about the dangerously high levels of toxic air pollution in London for several years, rather than do anything about it.

The Tories obviously don't give a damn about air pollution, or congestion, or trees, they simply want to disguise their real car-supremacist agenda with a load of misleading drivel instead of being honest about it.

So fuck all the people who would like to cycle to work but don't feel willing to risk their lives because the current infrastructure is too dangerous. Fuck all the kids with asthma and allergies that are triggered and exacerbated by air pollution. Fuck the thousands who die each year because of the filthy air in our cities.

As far as the Tories are concerned the car is king, and car drivers are the only demographic they're interested in pandering to, and they're going to pander so hard they're resorting to outright and easily disprovable lies.

What a noxious bunch they are.

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