James May, the Top Gear presenter, has called for an end to “sectarianism” between drivers and cyclists on the roads and has given his support to The Times’s Cities Fit for Cycling campaign.

The presenter is best known for his motoring expertise and 15-year association with Top Gear, but he also owns three bicycles and uses a folding bike to make short journeys near his west London home.

The Times’s campaign calls on the government to create an annual budget for building safe cycle routes, to encourage more people to travel by bicycle.

“I’m all for bicycles in cities,” said May, who has never been without one since he was three. “We use bicycles to go around locally and also for fun occasionally. Typically, our bike rides would be three or four miles. I go to the shops on it.”

He said that even Jeremy Clarkson, his Top Gear co-presenter, uses a bicycle for short journeys near his Oxfordshire home.

Cyclists and motorists are often depicted as warring tribes, but May said this was a dangerous attitude.

“We need to get rid of road sectarianism,” he said. “Car drivers supposedly hate cyclists, cyclists hate taxi drivers, taxi drivers hate motorcyclists, bus drivers hate lorries. I just think if everybody was a little bit more pragmatic, that would do more for safety.”

May, 51, dismissed claims from some motorists that cyclists do not belong on the roads.

“I would say that the roads belong to everybody,” he said. “That old argument that ‘I pay road tax and the bicycle doesn’t’ often isn’t true. In any case, roads are funded centrally so the tax [from Vehicle Excise Duty] doesn’t actually go on roads, so no one has a greater right to the road than anybody else, that’s nonsense.”

May said that cycling was “not going to cure the world of all its ills” and was not ideal for long commutes, but he said that increasing the number of cyclists would help to free up Britain’s “ludicrously overcrowded” roads.

“The benefits to driving if people ride bicycles are that there is more space left for driving,” he said. “It’s a simple arithmetic truism.”

This week marks a year since David Cameron pledged a “cycling revolution”. British Cycling has criticised the prime minister for failing to create an annual cycling budget to deliver his promise.

The Commons transport committee called on the government last month to spend £600 million a year on cycling. This is also a demand of The Times’s Cities Fit for Cycling campaign, supported by the AA and British Cycling.

Asked if he agreed with calls for this annual budget, worth about 4 per cent of the transport budget, May said: “Yes, I think that is fair enough.”

He added, however, that many cycle lanes found on roads were “complete bollocks” and created confusion rather than improved safety. Urban planners should spend more time riding bikes to understand what was needed, he said.

Asked if he supported plans in London to build segregated cycle routes on major roads, he said: “That would take a lot of brains and thought, but it is an essentially good idea.” May said that the presence of cyclists on roads was now an accepted part of city life. “Cycling is becoming more popular in London, there are a lot of bikes and people are starting to recognise that they need to be accommodated.

“There are so many more bicycles now than there were, say, a decade ago, that people notice them and subconsciously we are modifying the way we drive around town.

“There are people who talk about wanting to make safety clothing mandatory, road tax for bicycles, registering them and insuring them,” he added. “I think all that stuff is utter nonsense. The whole point of the bike is that you get on it and you ride it and you can ride it when you’re a kid or when you’re absolutely flat broke and it’s so agile.”

May encouraged cyclists to find quiet backstreet routes to avoid dangerous roads and suggested that it was reasonable for cyclists to ride “slowly and carefully” on wide pavements

In a less practicable suggestion, he also joked that London Tube lines could be torn up, with the tunnels turned into “bicycle and moped superhighways”.

The Times’s Cities Fit for Cycling campaign includes calls for:

All parties to pledge to create a £600 million annual cycling budget — just 4 per cent of the transport budget.

More than £900 million has been pledged in London over the next decade. More than £300 million has been spent for the rest of UK since 2010, but this is only one eighth of the level recommended by the Commons transport committee and no annual budget has yet been created.

All roads to be made safe for cycling at the design stage and for dangerous junctions to be redesigned

The government is due to release its Cycling Delivery Plan this month, outlining “cycle-proofing” measures. More than 10,000 Times readers identified blackspots on a map which was passed to the government as a guide.

All lorries operating in urban areas to be fitted with sensors, cameras and extra mirrors

The capital will ban lorries without extra mirrors and side-guards. Some supermarkets and cement firms and contractors have already insisted on fleets of cycle-friendly lorries.

Cycle safety to be a core part of the National Curriculum and the driving test

Funding for Bikeability training in schools has been extended to 2016, but many schoolchildren still do not receive it. The AA and BSM have introduced cycle safety as a module for all instructors.

Follow the campaign at thetimes.co.uk/cyclesafety