Thursday 7 March 2013

Kate Hoey MP is a complete disgrace

Given the news today (that was even lauded in the Daily Mail!!!) of how forward-thinking politicians like Boris Johnson (supported by his ever impressive 'Cycling Czar' Andrew Gilligan) are making ground-breaking advances in terms of cycling policy, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on those politicians that are at the other end of the spectrum.

Kate Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall, is an absolute disgrace, and I would urge anyone who is her constituent or has any contact with her to let her know this in writing.

Kate Hoey has been dangerously cycle-toxic for all of her 14 years as MP for Vauxhall

Danny from Cyclists in the City has previously written about her cretinous attitude towards cycling.

However, her latest piece of idiocy has been to block the installation of a large Cycle Hire Docking Station on Cornwall Road, SE1, in order to preserve car-parking bays.

It is completely ridiculous to block the installation of 35 bike hire racks that can be used by hundreds people during the course of a day in order to preserve 3 on-street car parking spaces.

Moreover, SE1 a part of London that, located so close to Waterloo and the South Bank, is already extremely congested and busy, and therefore unsuitable for heavy on-street car-use.

What especially annoys be about Kate Hoey's despicable actions is the amount of grief that TfL and the Mayor sustain for problems with the Boris Bike system, when it is politicians like Hoey (and the Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea councils that won't let TfL move Boris Bikes around in the early morning) that are actively preventing improvements to the Cycle Hire Scheme.

Mark Field, Conservative MP for Westminster, does exactly the same thing in his constituency.

Those who like cycling to get from A to B should be ever aware that often it is not TfL that are the problem, but idiotic politicians like Kate Hoey and Mark Field who are deliberately disrupting and retarding TfL's efforts to improve cycling in London.