Boris Johnson resignation: A blow for active travel? Will the next Prime Minister be as supportive of schemes aimed at boosting cycling and walking, asks simonmacmichael cycling
The news that Boris Johnson will today resign as Conservative Party leader – he plans to stay on as Prime Minister until the autumn to allow time for his successor to be chosen, although it is widely expected a caretaker will take on the role – signals the end of what has been the most chaotic premiership of my lifetime, and that’s from someone who lived in Italy when Silvio Berlusconi was in power.
But back in his days as Mayor of London, he would regularly commute by bike from his Canonbury home to City Hall, and it was under his tenure there that the Cycle Superhighways programme was launched, as well as the cycle hire scheme that would give rise to the nickname ‘Boris Bikes’ . Johnson and ill-thought-out infrastructure projects go hand in hand – the Garden Bridge, the airport in the Thames Estuary, the bridge linking Northern Ireland and Scotland and the Emirates Air Line cable car to name but four, with only the latter ever being built – but that cycle route, used by thousands of people each day, has proved to be transformational for getting across the heart of the capital safely and quickly.
When he replaced Theresa May as Prime Minister in autumn 2019, Johnson – who, as foreign minister had been banned on security grounds from riding his bike around London – swiftly appointed Gilligan as his transport advisor. The big question now from a cycling perspective is whether whoever succeeds Johnson as Prime Minister will embrace active travel with the same enthusiasm as he did?
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