Red light changes hit bikes

With its impressive turn of speed and ability to exploit the tiniest gap in traffic, the motorcycle has long been king of the road in London.

But new figures reveal it is finally being defeated - by traffic lights.

Once, a competent rider could travel the 3.3 miles from Knightsbridge to Aldersgate Street in the City in 11 minutes. Today, thanks to new sets of lights and a major redesign of Trafalgar Square, the same journey takes 19 minutes.

It's a similar story from Cannon Street to Clerkenwell Road, both inside the congestion charge zone, from which motorbikes and scooters are exempt. Eight years ago the journey took six minutes. Today it takes 11.

The figures were compiled by the Despatch Association, which timed six key routes in 1996 and again this spring. Its researchers were astonished by how the re-phasing of traffic lights and introduction of new ones affected motorcycles at a time when they are more popular than ever.

"Bikes are still the fastest way to cross the capital," said Despatch Association chairman Bob Doughty. "What shocked us was how the advantage has been eroded by the frantic wave of traffic-calming procedures - traffic lights on red for longer."

The association says the number of traffic lights in the capital has risen by about a third since 1996, especially in its centre. And there has been an explosion in the number of road humps, chicanes and bus lanes.

Meanwhile, it says, key junctions including Vauxhall Cross, Trafalgar Square and the southern end of Westminster Bridge have been radically redesigned to help buses and pedestrians, often to the detriment of cars and motorcycles.

Transport for London is conducting an 18-month trial in which motorbikes can use bus lanes on the East India Dock Road (A13), Brixton Road (A23) and Finchley Road (A4).

TfL said an increase in motorbike numbers, by between 10 and 15 per cent, was itself slowing down riders. The Despatch Association also timed key routes in a delivery van, and its results confirm the success of the congestion charge in reducing traffic levels in the centre of London.

In 1996 it took 26 minutes to drive a van from Gloucester Place, at the junction with Upper Berkeley Street, via Kings Cross Road, to Goswell Road near the Barbican. Now - with 65,000 fewer car journeys through the zone each day - it takes 19 minutes. TfL said it found the results of the survey "encouraging".