The Conservative party send no representative to The Big Ride, Richard Tracey AM sent a statement, here in audio and text. Audio courtesy cycleoptic

Richard Tracey – statement on behalf of Conservatives

In a minute to represent the mayor, I’m sure Andrew will talk about the vast sums that the mayor is investing in cycling and the great work that is going on to help London cyclists, so I’d like to address something slightly different.

I have always believed that the best reasons to cycle are because it is faster and cheaper than the alternatives and that the best way to encourage cycle[ing] should go with the grain of those those two facts. In April, my colleague Roger Evans provided a report for the GLA Conservatives entitled commuter payback, providing rebates for flexible commuting. In this report he made the case for giving rebates to commuters who have paid for an annual travelcard and then underused it.

The mayor has already committed to introducing some form of flexible ticketing in January 2015 and the GLA conservatives will be pushing him to introduce our system of rebates and help give those thinking of cycling, a push.