I've seen a couple of people post on social media that they're a bit put out that their campaign against traffic reduction schemes has been taken over by extremists, but this whole thing has been a mess of desperate conspiracies for two years. An incomplete grab bag of examples I've seen:
- Local councils have been infiltrated by the London Cycling Campaign
- Local councils have been infiltrated by Sustrans
- Brown envelopes of cash have clearly been passed to make this happen
- It's a racist policy designed to move traffic away from areas where white people live
- The London Cycling Campaign is racist and is behind this policy therefore the policy is racist
- It's all about raising house prices/gentrification
- The councils are placing vehicle counters in places where they will get the results they need
- The vehicle counters are a hoax, the councils make the numbers up
- Cyclists go back and forth across the counters all day to get the numbers up
- The research behind these schemes is faulty because the researchers are/were members of the London Cycling Campaign
- The judge who ruled against a campaign against a scheme is married to a cyclist and therefore corrupt
- (With modal filters in place) They're closing off roads to emergency services and people will die
- (With modal filters replaced by cameras) It's a money making scheme
- (After a planter was vandalised by oil, signs sprayed over, cameras broken) Cyclists did it, it was a false flag operation
- Emergency services would complain but they don't because they've been threatened by the government
- A map of who is conspiring with who that looks like a parody of conspiracy theories:
- View attachment 364154
That's just off the top of my head. It was only a small step for this to evolve and for the big grifters to move in and start blaming "globalist puppeteers" or whatever their euphemism of the day is.