London is a city that was barely designed for horse and cart, let alone the automobile. Cars are still a big part of life in central London, but they’re about to be outnumbered by cyclists.


Transport statistics are normally eye-wateringly dull, but Transport for London’s latest report makes for surprisingly good reading. The number of cars has been halved in the last 15 years: 137,000 per day were coming in in 2000, compared to 64,000 in 2014.

Even more impressive is the transfer to alternative transport: in the same period, cyclists tripled from 12,000 to 36,000, and the number of rush-hour cyclists is expected to outnumber motorists in a few years.


All this is a welcome and necessary accomplishment for a city that’s seen double-digit population growth over the same period. With London growing larger and more dense, other transport solutions like subways, buses, and bikes are having to grow to meet demand. Increasingly, cars just really aren’t part of the equation for rush-hour London.

[Transport for London]

