Under London Mayor Boris Johnson, Transport for London is looking to remove pedestrian crossings and traffic lights. Where he can’t remove them he’s having them reviewed to reduce the amount of pedestrian green time. At other sites he’s having a count down to rush pedestrians along. You never see countdowns for cars do you.

One set of traffic light removals that have a pedestrian phase will sever a designated cycle path – junction of Southwark Bridge Road with Union Street.

Three sets of pelican crossings along Tooley Street will be removed. Apparently he hates having to stop at these when he’s cycling to or from the Mayoral penthouse – people talk to him – so they’re going.

Why is this happening? Transport for London has stated they want to facilitate traffic movement. Perhaps they’ve forgotten anyone driving a vehicle has to get out and walk at some point.

Instead Transport for London should be putting the traffic signals data on the web. Bags of community spirited residents would then think how to squeeze more out of the existing lights for everyone. For example the junction of Denmark Hill with Coldbarbour Lane and Daneville. The Daneville arm is one -way east bound. It should be green for pedestrians whenever red for traffic. But no, only green once in a blue moon.

I suspect the root cause of all this comes from Boris being a headbanging cyclist. The short that charge around. I’ve seen him ignore red lights and cycling along one way streets the wrong way. Such cyclists are a tiny minority but boy do they give the majority a bad name and crucially they don’t respect people walking or see the need for special softer facilities for cyclists.

Hopefully Boris wont last beyond the next election and TfL can then work on what’s best for ALL Londoners.