Londoners have taken to two wheels in record numbers to beat the Tube strike – but a significant minority of cyclists have been blatantly riding through red lights.
An extraordinary two million trips are thought to have been made by bike on Monday, the first full day of an expected five-day Tube shutdown, according to London cycling commissioner Will Norman. Normally about 1.4m journeys are made by bike on weekdays.
With cycle lanes full of commuters throughout the week, some Londoners said the city had become “like Amsterdam”, while others suggested the strike may encourage more to get to work by bike more regularly.
But the number of cyclists ignoring the rules of the road has also increased – a fact confirmed by video evidence gathered by The Standard on Wednesday morning – raising concerns within City Hall about the risk this poses to safety.
We witnessed numerous occasions when cyclists paid little heed to red lights – or to pedestrians who were walking across their path with the “green man” illuminated.
We also saw many cases of cyclists mounting pavements - often to get round other cyclists patiently waiting at lights or to pass gridlocked traffic – and risking serious or potentially fatal injury by riding into moving traffic.
A high proportion of the riders we saw ignore red lights were riding hire e-bikes, such as Lime, Forest or TfL’s Santander “Boris bikes”.
However, the majority of cyclists did stop at the lights, in particular those using segregated cycle lanes such as those that run east-west through Bloomsbury and the north-south cycle superhighway on Blackfriars bridge.
The sheer volume of cyclists made it near impossible to count, but it appeared that at least 80 per cent stopped at traffic lights.
Mr Norman said the inconvenience of the Tube strike did not provide cyclists with a “free pass” to ride through red lights. “That is never the case,” he said.
“Every Tube strike, we see people using other forms of public transport, walking and cycling. It’s very noticeable that more people are making use of the network of cycleways that we put in.
🤔 Tube strike forcing you to rethink the commute?
— London Cycling Campaign (@London_Cycling) September 9, 2025
🚴 Don't put yourself through the painfully slow bus or the painfully overpacked train - make the most of the September sun and ride into work!
You never know, you might actually enjoy it... 👀 pic.twitter.com/sx0i795g2b
“I would encourage them all to keep an eye out for others because it’s busy out there and we want everybody to be safe.”
He added: “Nobody should be riding through red lights. Nobody should be riding on the pavement. Everybody who is riding a bike should obey the Highway Code.
“We have the police out there, enforcing against this. We want everybody to be safe as they get around London.”
Londoners love their bike lanes.
— Laura Parsons (@lawkas) September 10, 2025
In the five years I have been commuting to work by bike, I have never seen it so busy.
Thank you @willnorman for making this possible!
🚲🚴♀️🚴🚲@London_Cycling pic.twitter.com/KKDcH96nru
With the vast majority of the Tube network expected to be shut until Friday morning due to the RMT walkouts, Boris bike use was up 73 per cent, with 22,805 hires between midnight and 3pm on Tuesday.
Lime, which dominates the capital’s hire bike market with more than 30,000 e-bikes, did not release full data but said demand was up 58 per cent on Monday morning.
The Standard witnessed one collision on Wednesday morning, between two men both riding Forest e-bikes.
This happened near the Holborn gyratory – once the most dangerous area in the capital for cyclists but since comprehensively redesigned by Camden council. One of the riders fell to the ground but appeared not to be hurt.
No pedestrians were seen being hit by cyclists – however a not insignificant number of people walking to work did themselves ignore the lights and cross the road when cyclists had the right of way.
The Standard spent about two hours monitoring cycle flows at five key locations: Tavistock Place; Oxford Circus; Holborn; Blackfriars bridge; and Bishopsgate, adjacent to Liverpool Street station.
Oxford Circus had most red-light jumpers, most commonly when eastbound cyclists on Oxford Street knew the lights were about to change in their favour and set off a few seconds before they went green.
However there were at least a dozen occasions over a 30-minute period when cyclists on e-bikes who had been riding north on Regent Street then turned right into Oxford Street with little regard for pedestrians crossing on the green man.
At Blackfriars, hundreds of cyclists could be seen heading in both directions - north into the City of London and south to Southwark.
Many struggled for space on the segregated lanes and at junctions, with crowds of pedestrians forming at crossings.
Here too, a small minority of cyclists chose to ignore red lights and stormed through pedestrian crossings, but the majority of cyclists followed the rules.
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