If you are one of the 12,000 people who have already signed up to London’s shiny new Barclay’s Cycle Hire scheme I’d recommend a crash helmet is not the only bit of safety gear you invest in. You might want to think about picking up a gas mask too.

As thousands of novice cyclists join their more seasoned two wheeled travellers on the streets of London they are being exposed to a risk from traffic in more ways than one. Road congestion in the city is contributing to some of the worst air pollution levels in Europe, ready and waiting to be breathed in during all that puffing and panting on the saddle. London scores particularly badly on amounts of dangerous particulate matter (PM₁₀) and oxides of Nitrogen (NO_X), with levels of both breaching EU air quality laws.

The introduction of the free bicycle hire scheme would make you think that the mayor is doing his best to tackle this illegal health hazard. Getting more people onto bikes in the city centre will get them out of cars and air quality will improve. Pretty simple stuff. So it’s not surprising how this simple equation will end with quite a different result if you decide to add 30,000 extra cars to the mix. Basic arithmetic could show you that. But that’s exactly what the mayor has done when he pledged to remove the Western Extension Zone (WEZ) of the congestion charge as one of his key policies.  

The WEZ is the 2007 extension to the central congestion charge zone that has taken 30,000 cars off the streets in west London. Its removal is only supported by 41% of Londoners (and I’m guessing a lot of those drive gas guzzling motors in the WEZ). Yesterday marked the end of the consultation process on the mayor’s plans for the WEZ, which could be removed as soon as Christmas Eve. Funny how the consultation has ended a couple of days after all the fanfare of the new bike scheme. 

The reasons for opposing the removal of the WEZ are multitude. Transport for London (TfL) acknowledges that emissions of two of the worst air pollutants, PM₁₀ and NO_X would increase, on average across the whole WEZ area, by some 3.5% and 2.5% respectively if it was removed. Emissions of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, would go up by around 5%. If this isn’t reason enough to keep the WEZ, abolition would also mean the loss of £55 million of net income to TfL now used to support public transport, road safety, walking and cycling schemes.

Our CleanAir for London campaign is working hard with other groups to improve London’s illegal air quality in time for the Olympic games. Keeping the WEZ in place is an essential part of that. So, before you hop on your bike, learn more about our campain here.