101 reasons to love cycling in London #13 - you reduce congestion

Transport for London believes that there are half a million bicycle journeys in Greater London every single day.  This figure includes people cycling to school, popping down the shops, riding for pleasure or cycling to work and back again.  By cycling, and therefore taking up little more road space than our own actual mass, we are helping to massively reduce congestion on London's already crowded transport system.  Half a million everyday and ordinary cyclists are equivalent to:


297 Central Line Underground trains at full capacity at 1680 passengers per train - that's 8 carriages with a maximum capacity of 210 each - all the seats, plus an 'official allowance' of 4 people standing per square metre as I understand it (a quiet afternoon then). (Hansard )


6250 of London's newest double decker buses, with a maximum capacity of 80 each (and remember, you're always guaranteed a seat on your bike!) 


If we all took to driving cars as single occupants instead - taking as an example Britain's most popular car the Ford Focus at 4.48 metres long - there would be a new 2240 kilometre long traffic jam on our great city's streets (or 1391 miles if you prefer)

42 folded Brompton bicycles in one standard parking space

Furthermore we've already touched on the issues that result from carbon-based vehicles such as emissions, noise pollution, and having to pay the congestion charge.


Helping to make London a more sustainable and grid-lock-free city?  It's reason number 13 to love cycling in London!

101 reasons to love cycling in London #7 - the sound of silence

I challenge anyone who finds what I am about to say odd or in anyway outlandish, to walk or cycle the length of Old Street between the Old Street roundabout and Shoreditch at peak rush hour on a Monday morning, and then assess again what I say here:

We should love cycling in London because, as a machine, bicyles are the most silent of all for transporting us around the city.  I love the idea that we can propel ourselves down broad city streets with nothing but the whirr and hum of gears and tyres on tarmac.  Anyone who has been on a mass participation cycling event on roads that have been closed to other vehicles will vouch for the fact that they are almost eerily quiet.

Automobiles, of course, are a different matter all together - each internal combustion engine makes noise - each tonne of car pressed onto the road makes surface sounds.  One engine makes a row - a hundred make a cacophony.

Now, recent studies are helping us to understand the impact of this noise on our lives within urban environments more.  Traffic noise, it seems, is so bad for us that it does, in fact, kill.  It contributes to stress, high blood pressure, to coronary disease, and prolongued exposure can lead to tinitus.

All this aside, there is something joyeous about the quiet progress of a bicycle - and, perhaps more importantly, that progress is not to the detriment of others.  Who ever heard of a bike making you deaf, or worse?
 
The quiet, almost silent sound of a bicycle is the sound of good health all round - yet another reason to love cycling in London.