Livingstone unveils cycling 'transformation'

London mayor Ken Livingstone has unveiled a £500m package of new cycling routes and a bike hire scheme for the capital.

In what City Hall called "the most ambitious programme to transform walking and cycling in London's history", about 6,000 bikes will be available to hire in a scheme similar to one in Paris.

Livingstone said the predicted expansion in cycling and walking would reduce traffic congestion and help combat climate change.

The plans include about 12 cycling "corridors" leading into central London, and a series of bike zones aimed at shoppers and schoolchildren with cycle priority streets and 20mph speed zones.

Livingstone also promised new signs to encourage people to make short journeys on foot, pointing out that more than 50 per cent of tube journeys in the centre of the city are quicker by walking.

"The aim of this programme is nothing short of a cycling and walking transformation in London," he said.

"We will spend something like £500m over the next decade on cycling - the biggest investment in cycling in London's history, which will mean that thousands more Londoners can cycle in confidence, on routes that take them quickly and safely where they want to go."

It forms part of an overall programme aiming to see five per cent of all daily trips made by bike by 2025, and 22 per cent on foot.

The cycle hire scheme will involve 6,000 bikes at docking stations every 300 metres, with their introduction scheduled from summer 2010 at the earliest.

The hire bikes will be free at first to encourage higher take-up, before a charge is made for rental.

The cycle corridors will be based on the 'Gemstone' network in Aylesbury. The mayor's office said clear signs would identify the corridors, which would deliver "improved safety for all cyclists due to large cycle flows along these corridors, delivering streams of bikes into central London".

The first corridor is set to be in place by 2009, when the other routes will have been identified.