London Mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged to use his significant powers over transport to make London 'a healthy, resilient, fair and green city’ as population and economic growth put increasing pressure on its transport network.
Mr Khan has published a report, A City for all Londoners as the first step towards the creation of a new London Plan.
The document sets out how the mayor plans to respond to ‘the big changes’ London faces, which include ‘the pressure of a fast-growing population [and] the uncertainty caused by the EU referendum result’.
London mayor Sadiq Khan
Mr Khan sets out most of his transport plans within the context of ‘accommodating growth’ and promises to ‘fully join up my plans for transport with those for housing and other kinds of land use’.
He states that he will ‘intensify housing development around stations and well-connected town centres’ as well as planning housing developments in areas where new transport links will open in the future.
As well as re-iterating his own transport-based measures to improve air quality in the capital, Mr Khan calls on ministers to introduce ‘a 21st century Clean Air Act’, which would enshrine the right to clean air and create a general competence for local authorities to tackle emission sources, and not to water down air quality standards after the UK has withdrawn from the EU.
Mr Khan says he wants to complete a cycling grid in central London to enable quick and convenient cycling trips around Zone 1 and will seek to open more Quietways, as well as pressing ahead with more cycle superhighways, while ’learning the lessons from the construction of previous tracks’.
To manage increasing pressure on limited road space, Mr Khan states that he will consider innovative methods such as ‘using road space for different purposes at different times of the day’, shifting lorry consolidation centres closer to the Thames or the rail network, and encouraging more business deliveries by bike.
He also pledges to tackle traffic congestion and promote smart systems such as signal technology to help pedestrians, cyclists and bus users at congestion hotspots.
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