People vs Big Business: Why you should oppose the proposed North South Cycle Route from Hackney to Canary Wharf

Below is an explanation why I am opposing the North South Cycle Route from Hackney to Canary Wharf. Disclaimer: I don’t own a car nor do I drive.

‘Cui Bono’ – To Whom it is a benefit?

On the face of it the new cycle route proposed by Transport for London is a good idea. A 7.5km route between Hackney and the Isle of Dogs, via Victoria Park, Mile End and Westferry. This route would also serve Hackney.

But on closer inspection of the plans the 1) make no mention of resorting the no right turn after over a thousand residents signed a petition. 2) the proposed cycle routes north and south of the Canary Wharf estate end at the edge of the estate and don’t run through it.

Therefore you have the perverse situation of ordinary residents, giving up their local amenities for the proposed cycle routes, tax payer funded investment, primarily for commuters to the Canary Wharf estate. But Big Business refusing to give their amenities on the Canary Wharf estate, by not allowing the Cycle Routes to join up.

Corporate Welfare in the face of rising inequality – Trickle Down Economics

Tower Hamlets is one of the richest Borough in England yet has the highest child poverty rates. The proposed Cycle Route is just another example of public investment for the benefit of Big Business and its beneficiaries, while little or no benefits for local residents.

Trickle down economics have not worked in the past and has proved a defunct policy. Trickle-down economics, also called trickle-down theory, refers to the economic proposition that public subsidies to businesses and the wealthy in society should be reduced as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term. A 2012 study by the Tax Justice Network indicates that wealth of the super-rich does not trickle down to improve the economy, but it instead tends to be amassed and sheltered in tax havens with a negative effect on the tax bases of the home economy

The economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted that “trickle-down economics” had been tried before in the United States in the 1890s under the name “horse and sparrow theory”. ‘If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

Basic Question of Democracy – Who runs Tower Hamlets?

Opposition to the proposed Cycle Route, encompasses a basic question who runs Tower Hamlets and who’s benefits are decisions made. Big Business or ordinary folks, the few or the many. As an elected Councillor for Mile End, with one of the highest poverty rates in some parts, I know which side I’m on. Therefore I ask you to oppose it and write to TFL, via guidance issued by the Mile End Community Forum (MCF) and oppose it. (LINK TO MCF)