
BBC U-turns on article blaming London’s ‘most congested city’ title on cycle lanes | road.cc
Ryan Mallon 4/1/22
Complaints about a BBC report which blamed London’s position as the world’s most congested city on an increase in cycle lanes have led the broadcaster to amend the article to “better reflect the range of factors impacting congestion in London”.
In early December traffic firm Inrix named the UK capital as the city in which motorists lost the most time stuck in traffic jams last year in its Global Traffic Scorecard (link is external). “Incredibly simplistic” to blame cycle lanes for London being named world’s most congested city
While Inrix operations director Peter Lees attributed the rise in congestion to the city’s rapid economic recovery from the pandemic, many mainstream media outlets, including the BBC, preferred to focus on Lees’ claim that the reallocation of road space for pedestrians and cyclists in response to the Covid crisis had a “negative impact” on traffic in the capital.