It’s becoming tiring reading the same anti-cycling arguments again and again. After several decades of transport policy heavily favouring car usage, we have mass car usage. Who would have guessed? Driving has been designed to be convenient, requiring a vast amount of infrastructure to do so.

In contrast, cycling feels hellish on the roads, or very irritating on the current cycle lanes, so it’s no wonder practically no one cycles.

The Dutch also witnessed a huge drop in cycle journeys when car usage was prioritised. However, now it is safe and convenient. The idea that cycling requires helmets, hi-vis, and constant vigilance does not exist: it is simply get on a bike and go.

In spite of what some here believe, it is not possible to continue designing and building for more cars and hoping that it will solve the congestion issues. This ‘predict and provide’ strategy has completely failed. There are simply too many people and there is not enough space to realistically have the majority travel by car without creating gridlock.

It has also brought us a host of other problems. Air pollution killing thousands a year, splitting of communities with dual carriageways, and noise that is an annoyance at best, a cause of health problems at worst.

What cycling represents is the sensible solution. It is a far more space efficient form of transport. This is not only because bikes are smaller, but more importantly because the slower cruising speed means that distances between bikes need be nowhere near as large as those between cars. This is on top of the other benefits, such as not causing the problems cars cause, mentioned above.

Now it is true that you cannot cycle as far as you can drive, and that you cannot carry as heavy a load, but no one is suggesting that every journey by car be replaced by bicycle. To make cycling an attractive option for the very large remainder of journeys, we need a high-quality network of routes.

Tom Mellor

Langdale Gardens, Enfield