London mayor 'evangelical' about cycling, but braced for backlash by angry motorists

London mayor Boris Johnson is bracing himself for a backlash to his pro-cycling policies from motorists angry that their journeys are being delayed by the increased volume of cyclists on the road.

'I’m conscious of what a controversial and difficult policy this will ultimately be,' Johnson told London Assembly members. 'I hope the support will still be there when the motorists turn on me and say that they don’t want so many bikes on the roads. Because that will be a very big issue for us and there will come a time when the motorists will say ‘well, it’s all really too much of a good thing’ and they don’t want to see so many bikes. This won’t be politically cost-free.'

The mayor’s central London bike hire scheme will be launched next summer with 6,000 bicycles. The mayor has also pledged to deliver 12 cycle superhighways offering commuter cyclists direct routes into central London on main roads.

Johnson told the Assembly’s transport committee that he was 'evangelical' about cycling and wanted to see more trips by bike not only in central London but in outer London too.

'It is just crazy – crazy, crazy, crazy – for people in outer London to be mucking up their Sundays, mucking up their weekends, their days, by getting into cars and driving less than 2km when they could be walking or cycling,' he said. 'And if we can do something to educate people about the benefits of cycling in outer London we will not be wasting our time.'

He said he hoped many outer London boroughs would want to become ‘biking boroughs’. But under questioning from Green party assembly member Jenny Jones, the mayor was evasive about what money was available for outer London boroughs to implement cycling measures. He simply cited the availability of Local Implementation Plan (LIP) funding, prompting Jones to point out that the LIP allocation is set to decline.

The committee was meeting to quiz Johnson about his new draft transport strategy and many members wanted to better understand his position on congestion charging given that the strategy, which runs to 2031, leaves the door open to further schemes being introduced.

But Johnson said that no further congestion charging schemes would be implemented during the course of his mayoralty. “With the best will in the world I am not going to be mayor beyond 2017,” he said.

'During my mayoralty I will not introduce road user charging but this is not because of some fierce, philosophical hatred that I have,' he said. 'I have no intellectual philosophical opposition to road user charging. This is a good old-fashioned Chicago School of Economics idea – this is sound right-wing stuff – you charge people for a public good.'

Explaining why he was opposed to further schemes he said: 'I think it would be the kind of extra tax that Londoners would not want to pay.

'We have to look in the course of this 20-year strategy at all theoretical possibilities and I made it very clear to my officials as soon as I was elected – I said bring me the options on road charging, show me what they could be because it’s my job to consider these things. In a 20-year strategy I insisted there should have been some reference to the possibility – the theoretical possibility – of road pricing.'