‘Reckless disregard’ at Highbury Corner

From a letter to Islington councillor Rowena Champion, executive member for environment, air quality & transport

• I WELCOME the council’s decision to provide e-bike parking bays and will be even better pleased when these are made mandatory.

We’ve all been dismayed to see these bikes abandoned anywhere often blocking pavements.

What I find curious is why every local authority is playing catch-up here. The original scheme was for hire bikes to be returned to a bay so that they couldn’t be just dumped.

And why was no consideration given to whether hire bikes needed to be electric?

I suspect the assumption was that electric bikes would encourage more people to use them including the less fit. However we can all see that the majority of users are young and fit.

Even these users would benefit from pushing those pedals round; e-bikes have a greater carbon footprint too. They are heavier and need to be collected by vans to be recharged and redistributed.

Furthermore how many e-bike hire riders were previously car drivers? I suspect very few. In fact they were probably on public transport before, so where is the gain for the environment?

I also suspect that this decision was driven more by profit considerations of the hire companies than local environmental concerns.

A parallel issue is the widespread proliferation of short-order delivery e-bikes. We’ve all seen how they hurtle round the streets and pavements with little regard for traffic regulations and pedestrian safety or comfort.

The pedestrian area at Highbury Corner is a prime example of this with bikes of all types charging across the area with reckless disregard for others.

Wouldn’t it be better if more of us got up off our backsides and walked and or cycled to the shops and takeaways?

MICHAEL GRAHAM, N1