Welcome to bizarro transport policy world

I felt like I had fallen down a rabbit hole into bizarro transport policy world this morning when I saw two staggeringly daft ideas for improving transport within London. Had I taken the red (Boris bus) pill or the blue (Boris bike) pill?

The first of today's cavalcade of lunacy comes courtesy of the Daily Mail (sorry about that), where a mad architect called Sam Martin is proposing segregated cycleways in the sky, following the lines of railways, to speed us on our merry way into London.

A really very stupid idea. Note the lovely Barclays blue.

Oh Sam, Sam, Sam. How stupid is this? Let me count the ways.

My biggest objection is that despite providing a safe environment for cyclists, it will in fact contribute to decreased safety on the ground.

How so? Well, with the expenditure on this sort of infrastructure cyclists whose needs it does not meet - such as myself, my commute from Battersea to the West End does not shadow any railway lines - will find ourselves more vulnerable to bullying and road rage from the automorons.

"Keep on the f****** cycle lanes!" the cabbies will yell. "Get off our f****** roads!" the Transit drivers will scream. I hear it all the time already if I have the sheer gall to exit a cycle facility that is unfit for purpose and use the road instead.

Martin's proposals include charging cyclists to use his infrastructure, a pound a time, presumably using an Oyster card. Now, I cycle because on a good week, it saves me nearly £30. Okay, a pound a ride isn't too onerous, and is cheaper than both buses and trains but cycling is a free activity, it is one of its great benefits and daily cyclists will not take kindly to being charged to use a bike lane.

Martin says: "TfL estimate the number of journeys made by bike will treble to around 1.5 million by 2020. Where are they meant to go? SkyCycle is the next logical step, because you can’t realistically build more cycle lanes on ground level.

"You have to start knocking down buildings and there will always be the problem of traffic. It will be less safe than it is now and you can’t persuade people to get on bikes as it is even if you keep raising taxes on cars."

Excuse me, but this is total nonsense. You absolutely can build more cycle lanes and we should be doing so, and to portray the cycling lobby as agitating to knock down buildings is sheer idiocy. It is pointless to own a car in London and pointless to drive in London. The city's medieval street network is simply unable to cope with it, the pollution is insane, and the quality of life of everyone in the city suffers.

What we need to be doing is legislating and constructing to drive motorists out of London, not pushing cyclists off the road and surrendering them to even more lethal, dirty metal boxes. Let's not forget, cyclists produce such low emissions and cause so little damage to the roads that they don't have to pay Vehicle Excise Duty (aka Road Tax) for the privilege of using them, to the ire of the minicab set.

Should we introduce punitive taxes that target motorists to get them out of their cars?

One could make that argument, but I'm no fan of this approach; I think we should spend our existing taxes on creating well-planned, fit-for-purpose cycling infrastructure that takes us where we need to go, at speed and at the expense of good vehicular traffic flow. The inconvenience to motorists and the ease of movement for bikes will act like a carrot and drive more drivers onto bikes. Look at firms like UPS, they're already doing it, using Dutch-style cargo bikes for deliveries in parts of London.

Will that ever happen? The London Cycling Campaign's Love London: Go Dutch campaign reckons it is an achievable goal, but it will require serious political pressure and buy-in from a mayor who truly supports cycling. And people like Sam Martin. Hey, Sam, sorry I called you a nutter, but if you really want to help average commuter cyclists like me, you should be spending your time and energy supporting these guys and redesigning traffic flows and junctions to meet our needs, rather than shunting us off into a bizarre Le Corbusier-esque system of streets in the sky. Seriously, Sam, f*** Le Corbusier.

Talking of medieval street networks, which I briefly was, did you know that about 50 years ago the Government wanted to build a massive grid of motorways encircling and criss-crossing London?

Good show, Mr Robinson! (Credit: Media Storehouse, Mary Evans)

They were called the Ringways and they were billed as a glorious system of urban motorways that would whizz cars around London at high speeds, a bit like Los Angeles*. There are probably Ministry of Information films about it somewhere. I expect they show six lanes of empty road, while a single Ford Zephyr driven by Mr Robinson of 25, The Gables, Chesham, pootles into London to his job as a clerk in a City bank. "Good show, Mr Robinson," shouts the narrator in a received accent. "Good show!"

If you're not familiar with it, the sheer insanity of the Ringways plan is documented in detail at CBRD and is worth a read if you have a spare hour or so.

Fortunately the project was dumped in the face of massive protests from homeowners, with only a few small sections of the network ever being completed (one of them is that bit of dual carriageway connecting Shepherd's Bush to the A40 by Westfield). The outermost Ringway was later to become the M25, but that's another story.

This is a roundabout way of introducing our second whackjob of the day. This comes courtesy of Lord Wolfson, a mate of George Osborne and chief executive at Next, which obviously makes him COMPLETELY QUALIFIED to sound off about town planning.

Wolfson is proposing a new motorway, elevated flyovers and all, that would whisk lucky, lucky motorists from Croydon to Westminster in 12 minutes flat.

I assume the route would follow the proposed line of the M23 (part of the Ringway grid) into London, blighting most of Carshalton, Mitcham, Streatham and Brixton as it goes. The A23 is a horrible road - and I speak from experience here - but it's still a very bad idea.

Of course, it would be good for Croydon, in that it would allow people to flee Croydon, but it would be bad for the rest of London, in that it would allow people to flee Croydon.

And talking seriously for a second, once all these motorists from Croydon have emptied out into central London - and where, precisely, my dear Lord Wolfson, would you like this road to terminate, the lobby of the Palace of Westminster, maybe - where exactly would they go? Ah yes, of course, into central London's medieval streets which of course, will be completely clear because all the cyclists are riding along transparent plastic tubes in the sky. I understand, now.

*And look how lovely Los Angeles turned out.