AN OPEN LETTER TO BORIS JOHNSON:

Dear Mayor Johnson,
According to ‘Beyond the Kerb’, nine misfortunate cyclists have lost their lives in London already this year.

I believe that your blinkered ideology of enforcing a capacious Cycle Super Highway upon the already overburdened streets of a city such as London, will cause not only chaos, but contribute to a higher death rate.

Your plans to funnel and chicane London’s traffic through major roads, bisected to accommodate a handful of cycles, will literally choke the efficiency out of the Emergency Services.

Your ego fuelled resolve to get the CSH finished before you relinquish your tenure as Mayor, has compounded the ongoing fiasco that is ‘Roadworks London’.

To placate your self-glorifying timetable, Victoria Embankment and Upper Thames Street will be closed from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Bridge, between 20:00 and 06:00, from 6th December until 23rd December 2015.
God help anyone in need of the Emergency Services during this period.

The ripple effect the closure of the Embankment will have on the surrounding area, both sides of the Thames, will be devastating.
God forbid London suffers a Paris style terrorist attack.

Your conceit has paralysed the Emergency Services; no police, ambulances or fire engines would be able to get through.

If anyone is injured or taken seriously ill, they will be left to their own devices, because no cavalry will appear in time to save them.

Your predecessor’s aim of getting everyone out of their cars and onto bikes, has failed miserably on your watch. Under your helmsmanship, people have not abandoned their cars, but abandoned your stationary buses.

Ex bus users have found it quicker to walk, than sit on a motionless bus. Many have opted for the overcrowded Tube.

The Tube during rush hour is unbearable. If livestock were transported in that fashion, its lines would be shut down by the RSPCA.

Empty buses clog the roads during rush hour. Boris bikes weave in and out of pedestrians, whilst vehicles of all shapes and sizes bellow noxious fumes for twice the amount of time their journey used to take.

Under your watchful eye, ‘Transport for London’ have increased the number of Private Hire vehicles by twenty six percent, to eighty six thousand, in just two years.

The oxymoronic ‘rush hour’ has become an all day feast of frustration and pollution.
Nine thousand Londoners die each year from air pollution.

How many more are going to die from your ineptitude?

Your incompetence has rendered this once great city defenceless.
You were elected Mayor to serve the people, not your hubris.
I once thought your buffoonery was an act. I now believe your stupidity far outweighs your ignorance.

Hopefully a new Mayor will have the backbone to reverse many of your disastrous decisions.

Yours sincerely,
L H Etheridge