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Road congestion could spiral into traffic nightmares in two booming areas of London left behind after city council gutted its bus rapid transit plan, the city’s deputy mayor warns.

Underscoring Jesse Helmer’s concerns, one of London’s largest developers, York Developments, is pushing ahead with ambitious projects in the bustling north and west ends even though they were cut out of BRT.

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That’s a sign of the growth Helmer says will pressure city hall to quickly find an alternative transportation fix for those areas.

“If we don’t solve the mobility problem and we have intensification along the routes, congestion will get even worse,” said Helmer, a prominent proponent of BRT. “We need to deal with the mobility issue to support intensification.

“We will have to keep talking about it. The problem remains, how will we move people to (downtown) over 20 years? The problem is not going anywhere. We can’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening. It will get worse.”