Coronavirus: towards a massive use of the bicycle in London, with a view to deconfinement

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The second most bereaved country in Europe, the United Kingdom crossed the 30,000 dead mark this week. Very criticized for his crisis management, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, promised a deconfinement in stages which should begin this Monday, May 11. In London, the authorities are betting on massive use of the bicycle.

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The coronavirus will have had a positive consequence: the bicycle is more and more popular in England. Normally in London, 4 million people take the underground every day and 5 million use the bus network. With confinement, the use of this transport has obviously dropped drastically, but bicycle sales have increased.

The United Kingdom is still far from resembling the Netherlands, but the hour of the return to work approaching, the inhabitants of the capital are worried to find themselves, again tightened, shoulder against shoulder, morning and evening. Indeed, the return to work raises fears of a second wave of contamination and a question arises: how to enforce social distancing in cramped public transport?

Quadruple the number of cycle paths

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has therefore announced that the streets of the capital will be transformed to expand the use of bicycles, in complete safety. He promised to quadruple the number of cycle paths, to enlarge them, and to ban many streets from cars. Pedestrians will not be harmed, since the sidewalks in the shopping streets will be widened to facilitate queuing in front of the stores.

Like New York or Berlin, London is starting to transform as ecological as it is practical. Because these measures are certainly temporary but could well be perpetuated according to the municipality.

The bicycle therefore comes back in force with an unstoppable argument: that of guaranteeing social distancing while allowing the exercise of a physical activity, in the open air, it is even better.

►Read also: Coronavirus: how the UK was slow to take the pandemic seriously

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• Coronavirus
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