Controversial bike markings painted in “door zones” along Central Street in Finsbury have been removed after campaigners said they put riders’ lives in danger.
The symbols sparked a row on Twitter between cyclists and town hall transport chief Cllr Claudia Webbe last week because they were positioned inches away from car parking spaces – leaving people vulnerable to being “doored”.
Cllr Webbe was accused of not understanding the risk of injury after she failed to address the markings directly in a series of replies.
But Cllr Webbe told the Gazette she had already known about the bike markings and it would have been stating the obvious to say they weren’t meant to be there, adding that the area had been pummeled by heavy construction traffic and that the markings had been incorrectly placed in the process of repeatedly digging up Central Street.
And it appears the message was relayed to officers as the bike markings had today been erased.
The mini-campaign was all the more poignant because of the death in 2011 of Crouch End cyclist Sam Harding.
Mr Harding, 25, was knocked into the path of an oncoming bus after a driver opened a car door into his path in the Holloway Road.
Cycling campaigner Jono Kenyon wrote on Twitter this afternoon: “They should never have been painted there in the first place, but it’s still welcome that Islington Council have listened to criticism and acted.”
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