In part 1 we looked at the change of attitude towards cycling. Attitude, however, is only part of the battle. London presents some unique challenges for cycle planners – from road layouts to royalty – all of which need to be overcome for cycling to prosper. Few things highlight this better than the planned East-West (and North-South) Cycle Superhighways, and so it is to their story that we turn next.
Crossrail for Bikes
With the usual Mayoral hyperbole, the proposed East-West Cycle Superhighway has been described as “Crossrail for Bikes”. On this occasion, however, the analogy may well be appropriate and indeed could even be extended. Like Crossrail, the planned route of the East-West Superhighway runs roughly east – west across London and there has been a lot of consultation and controversy involved with it. It will also be very expensive for what it is. As with Crossrail, it may even alter the nature of London and will certainly have a variety of knock-on effects and consequences (intended or otherwise).
If the proposed East-West Cycle Superhighway is the Crossrail for Bikes then the North-South Cycle Superhighway, which will run from Elephant & Castle to King’s Cross, must be the Thameslink Programme for Bikes. Appropriately, to continue the analogy, it can be considered more of an upgrade to an existing scheme rather than a completely new build. Where the two cycle routes cross at Blackfriars we will have the cycle equivalent of the interchange between the two lines at Farringdon.
North-South Cycle Superhighway
Visualisation of proposed segregated two-way cycle track and pedestrian improvements at Ludgate Circus
With the East-West route receiving the bulk of media attention, the North-South route has somewhat slipped in under the radar. There are a variety of reasons for this. For a start, much of the route already has some cycle priority and is well used by cyclists. TfL believe that bikes now make up around a quarter of rush hour traffic in central London (according to the central london cycle census) on average and clearly some routes (aligning with the North-South) are more popular with cyclists than others. One reason for this is probably gradients and, north of the Thames, the existing route from Blackfriars to King’s Cross roughly follows the route of the Fleet River meaning that this road is probably easier than most to cycle. With cycles estimated at up to 40% of all vehicles at Blackfriars and the outcry a couple of years back concerning the high number of deaths involving cyclists, it really would be hard to make a case against cycle improvements along the already busy North-South route if they led to increased safety.
The route from Blackfriars to King’s Cross
The North-South route has not been completely finalised yet, with some decisions to be made on the exact route between Farringdon Station and Kings Cross. Nevertheless, this has not stopped work beginning at the southern end and, in the inevitable blaze of publicity, the Mayor recently symbolically started work at Elephant and Castle. The TfL website already has a web page reporting on expected progress and disruption in the months ahead as a result of this work.
East-West – the fantasy and reality
In comparison to the North-South, the East-West is a far more complex beast. On the surface, the idea is a simple one – put in a segregated cycleway along the Thames between Westminster and Tower Bridge. Problems with junctions almost disappear. Furthermore, with the experience of the Olympics, TfL have a high level of confidence that they can manage traffic well along the Embankment route.
The confidence that TfL roads possess lies not in a belief that such a cycle route won’t cause congestion, but in the belief that in a worst-case scenario they can manage it in a controlled way without snarling up the rest of London. During the Olympics, Whitehall was closed to all motorised traffic except buses and approved Olympic vehicles displaying the appropriate sticker with other traffic diverted via Embankment. This was judged to have worked well, except possibly on the first (non-Olympic) day, due to the dynamic traffic management measures taken. One of the genuine Olympic benefits is confidence that traffic can be managed when necessary – with no claim that jams will be avoided but that a lot can be done to avoid complete gridlock.
Unfortunately, just like rail schemes that seem so obvious, when one looks into the details of the East-West Superhighway things get a lot more complicated than expected. There also appeared to be a further fundamental flaw in that, initially perhaps, TfL were rather too keen to showcase a segregated cycle superhighway without actually considering how useful it was in terms of where it went. In particular the original plan rather spectacularly dumped cyclists by Westminster tube station and then left them to the vagaries of mixing in with the rest of the London traffic. Parliament Square, it is fair to say, is not currently noted for its cycle friendliness.
Enter the Mayor’s advisor on cycling
It seems that it was the intervention of the Mayor’s cycling advisor, Andrew Gilligan, who highlighted the unsatisfactory nature of this abrupt end of the cycle superhighway at Westminster that helped kickstart better thinking here. Once the principle of taking things further had been established more options were sought. With one corner of St James’s Park less than 500m away from Westminster station and other Royal Parks beckoning beyond there must have seemed a very obvious solution. Accordingly the proposed route was extended to go through the Royal Parks and head off towards Paddington and beyond.
One must wonder if Mr Gilligan thought that going through the Royal Parks TfL would have a pleasant side-effect for TfL – removing the need to deal with the City of Westminster, sometimes regarded as one of London’s more awkward Boroughs. If so he was almost certainly in for a shock, but we will return to that later.
Tunnel Vision
Going back to the main proposal along the north bank of the Thames, one early concern – one with considerable potential implications – must have been the tunnel in Upper Thames Street. This currently has two lanes of (generally fast) traffic in both directions. Even assuming it was realistically possible to route cyclists through this tunnel it would not be a pleasant experience. One made worse by the unavoidable presence of exhaust emissions.
Likely because of this issue, the chosen route avoids this by going to the north of it. This has resulted in the segregated cycleway being located on the north side of Tower Hill at its easternmost extremity. Given that this was expected to be on the south side of Victoria Embankment there would be an obvious problem to come.
Squeezing in an extra lane
The original proposal was for a bi-directional segregated cycle lane. To accommodate this without compromise it was proposed that the remaining road part of the highway generally be reduced to a single lane in each direction from the two that are currently planned for the most part. Unfortunately when this option was modelled it was found that significant delays would accrue, with traffic affected including buses. Eventually a few compromises were made, including reducing the width of the cycle lane in places, which enabled a westbound lane to be included all the way from Tower Hill to Northumberland Avenue.
It is not entirely clear why this is more of a problem westbound than eastbound, but the need for motor vehicles already on the main Embankment route to turn right and head north into central London is probably a major factor. Obviously this right turn is generally not an issue with eastbound traffic with the only possible exceptions being the bridges. Both Waterloo Bridge and even Blackfriars Bridge are already difficult to access from the Victoria Embankment and in fact both involve negotiating a series of junctions and mean initially turning left off the Victoria Embankment, not right.
Tower Hill – the start
East-West Cycle Superhighway at Tower Hill showing link with CS3
The route starts relatively uncontroversially at Tower Hill. A nice touch is that it actually continues eastwards along Shorter Street and onto the western end of Royal Mint Street which is the western end of Cycle Superhighway 3. So one could regard the East-West Superhighway as just the logical extension of Cycle Superhighway 3.
At Southwark Bridge the route almost meets up with Cycle Superhighway 7, a blue paint on the road job, which terminates there. Shortly afterwards it diverts to the parallel Castle Barnard Street to avoid the Upper Thames Street tunnel.
The Blackfriars Challenge
The link between the North-South and East-West Superhighways
At Blackfriars there is the complication of connecting to the North-South Superhighway, which runs along Blackfriars Bridge above the East-West one. The solution to this is to reassign the westbound slip road from Blackfriars junction to Victoria Embankment exclusively to cycles (both ways) and redirect motor traffic onto a two way, previously eastbound only, slip road with an appropriate signalised junction on Victoria Embankment.
Mock Up showing link road between the North-South and East-West Superhighways
One of the most prominent mock up pictures of the proposed route features this link. In fact it is probably very misleading because the dominant cycling feature in it is neither the North-South nor the East-West superhighway, but the link between them. A slight danger for an eastbound cyclist not paying attention is that taking the obvious route and going straight on actually takes you off the main route – eastbound motorists wishing to stay on the M25 at the M25/M26 junction may actually have a bit of sympathy with the cyclist’s plight here.
Junction with Northumberland Avenue
Another of the critical junctions on the East-West superhighway is the junction of Victoria Embankment and Northumberland Avenue just to the west of Embankment Underground station. The proposed arrangements for this junction have been revised. This junction is critical as it needs to be able to accommodate traffic turning right from Victoria Embankment into Northumberland Avenue without delaying through traffic on the Embankment to such an extent that through capacity is reduced. To permit this traffic to turn right requires a dedicated right turn phase on the traffic lights there. Conveniently, at the same time, traffic can also turn left from Northumberland Avenue into Victoria Embankment.
Revised proposals for the junction of Northumberland Avenue and Embankment
To prevent problems at this pinch point it has been necessary to propose introducing a banned right turn from Northumberland Avenue to Victoria Embankment (except for cyclists who have their own signal phase). It has also been necessary to propose the removal of a pedestrian crossing underneath Hungerford Bridge. As the crossing outside Embankment tube station would remain and the steps accessing Hungerford footbridge (upstream side) are actually located on the west side of Victoria Embankment this should not be a major issue.
What is more interesting at this junction is what isn’t there and that missing thing is any kind of cycle provision for cyclists in Northumberland Avenue wishing to turn right off the cycle route at that point. Such provision does exist in the form of a segregated cycle lane already in Northumberland Avenue and wishing to join the superhighway. We will come back to this point later.
From the junction with Northumberland Avenue the route continues fairly uncontroversially to its junction with Westminster Bridge which was the originally proposed end of the route.
The symbolism of Parliament Square
The mock up of the cycle superhighway going through Parliament Square
The other great iconic mock up of the East-West cycle superhighway is that of Parliament Square, which the route needs to cross to reach the first of the Royal Parks it will use.
Parliament Square is absolutely full of symbolism when it comes to transport policy. The first traffic light in the United Kingdom (gas lit and manually operated) was installed there in 1868. Over a hundred years later, Margaret Thatcher was determined that eventually no London red bus (symbolising public ownership) would be routed through Parliament Square and was keen for the privately owned ones contracted to run on London routes to have a distinctive colour that was anything other than red. Once in power the first London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, was equally determined to banish these buses from Parliament Square as soon as possible and ensure that every bus going through Parliament Square was red once again.
When the Jubilee Line Extension was scrutinised by Parliament it gave most of the project the nod without objecting. It did, however, reject proposals to locate the new tube station at the centre of Parliament Square itself. In doing so it caused considerable problems and delay by demanding the station be relocated – not an easy task given the buildings in the area, many of which are designated world heritage sites.
Another policy of Ken Livingstone was to support partially pedestrianising Parliament Square at the first opportunity to follow on from his success with doing the same with Trafalgar Square. When Boris Johnson replaced him, determined to have a policy of “keeping the traffic moving” and supporting business, he cancelled the project. Somewhat implausibly he claimed that the scheme was impractical because of the need to take into account the increased future traffic due to Crossrail construction.
Parliament Square then always had the potential to be a hot potato for those planning the East-West superhighway. Fortunately for supporters of the scheme the highway on the northern side of Parliament Square is actually particularly wide and it is relatively easy to install a segregated cycle way and incorporate it into the traffic light sequence. Perhaps more important still, it did not require the approval of Parliament – just that of a Mayor almost certain to be shortly needing to cycle to the Houses of Parliament regularly once again. It probably also suited him that this iconic world famous site will now show London with a cycle lane outside Parliament, sending a continuing message about how the city has reinvented itself during the period that he is Mayor.
The route through St James’s Park and Constitution Hill
The next section of route enters new territory as it clearly is dependent on the co-operation of the Royal Parks.
The Royal Parks Agency is a curious historical anomaly. Famously it used to have its own police force. Its officers are now fully integrated into the Metropolitan Police but parks officers still have a distinctive RO (for ROyal) shoulder number prefix and a local headquarters in the centre of Hyde Park. Since 1993 it has been administered as a Government Agency. Indeed a specific Act of Parliament lays down what is permitted within the parks and what isn’t – The Royal Parks and Other Open Spaces Regulations 1997. Despite this national status, however, in many ways as an organisation it relies on functions provided by the Mayor.
If Gilligan (and indeed TfL) had hoped for an easy ride here though (pun most definitely intended) then their illusions were quickly dispelled. The Royal Parks has its own agenda and TfL have very little leverage to get them around to their way of thinking – even if the Parks’ board members are actually appointed by the Mayor of London.
This is why there are no less than six maps in the consultation document for this section, despite it only being a short one.
There was always going to be conflict – both in terms of planning and actual usage – for a variety of reasons. The first major conflict is going to be with other users of these two parks. As coaches and lorries are not permitted within the Parks, the transport groups using them are basically pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, and everything else – which essentially amounts to cars and taxis. One would have thought that cyclists would be treated more favourably than general motorists, given that arguably they are probably appreciating the park more and not disturbing the ambience as much as a motorist, but this presents challenges nonetheless.
There are also a couple of problems presented by St James’s Park – issues on which the Royal Parks clearly have strong opinions and really have no reason to alter their stance. The first is that the view from the Mall to Buckingham Palace is one that the Royal Parks probably want to preserve at all costs and they probably don’t feel too comfortable about a cycle way crossing it – especially if significantly upsets the symmetry of the vista.
Here at LR Towers we believe that there was (and is) a second problem, however. One that, it must be said, is unique.
Guards! Guards!
This is the problem of the Changing of the Guard ceremony. As with the issue of Tower Bridge being raised, this problem probably isn’t covered in standard reference books and courses on highway planning and consequently there is no textbook approach as to how to overcome it.
It is a well-known fact that that most Londoners do not regularly visit the same places that tourists do. A bit like understanding London’s night time economy, it is a bit difficult to comprehend the disruptive impact on normal life of the Changing of the Guard ceremony if you haven’t seen it for yourself. The ceremony goes on, intermittently, for roughly an hour and is very popular with visitors from all over the world who arrive in great numbers well before the ceremony is due to start.
Just about every guide book to London will mention the free spectacle of the Changing of the Guard in an approving tone. It takes place daily in summer and every other day in winter. During times when the marching bands appear or disappear the traffic is stopped and pedestrians are not allowed to cross the roads by Buckingham Palace. It is hard to imagine any conceivable way one can have a functioning cycle lane through the melée that is present. On top of everything else, many tourists do not understand, or choose not to understand, what they are told to do and will do almost anything to place themselves in a position where they can get better photograph. The chances of them respecting any signs not to block a cycle lane are probably very close to zero.
TfL mock up of the route they would have liked the cycle highway to take outside Buckingham Palace
Once you bear all the above in mind, the route of the superhighway through St James’s Park suddenly makes a great deal more sense. For one must look at how to resolve the issue of getting past Buckingham Palace and then work back to the entrance to St James’s Park near Parliament Square.
The route around Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial that TfL have had to accept
There is probably only one way around the problem of the Changing of The Guard – at least if one operates on the presumption that the Queen wouldn’t be too happy with a cycle superhighway through her back garden. This is to go to the north of the Mall and Constitution Hill, which is what the planned East-West route would do by proposing that the little used horse ride along Constitution Hill be replaced with a pedestrian and cycle path. Near the Victoria Memorial at the front of Buckingham Palace there is a short section that will be shared cycle and pedestrian space. To keep well clear of the crowds by Buckingham Palace the cycle route then needs to continue along the Mall towards Trafalgar Square.
Horse Guards Road
General overview of cycle proposals for St Jamess Park.
Coming from the south east corner of St James’s Park, cycles will have to use Horse Guards Road along the eastern side of the park. This then presents two issues.
Having come from Tower Hill to arrive at St James’s Park, a cyclist entering St James’s Park could follow the official route and go up Horse Guards Road. Horse Guards Road will effectively become a no through road off the Mall except for cycles which will be free to use the junction with Birdcage Walk. More likely, regular users would continue down Birdcage Walk (unless they knew that the Changing of the Guard ceremony was about to take place) and take their chances with the rest of the traffic outside Buckingham Palace. It seems that this is tacitly accepted as there will be segregated cycle lane along Birdcage Walk to Buckingham Gate and a suitable cycle crossing to enable cyclists to get to the northern side of Constitution Hill and rejoin the superhighway route there.
The other issue with the use of Horse Guards Road is that this then puts the route within around 250m of the roundabout featuring the King Charles Statue located just south of Trafalgar Square. Beyond that is Northumberland Avenue – a relatively short road about 350m long. So from the junction of Victoria Embankment and Northumberland Avenue to the junction of the Mall and Horse Guards Road is only around 600m by the shortest route. Alternatively, by taking the cycle superhighway route, you can make the same point to point journey but it involves three times the distance. That is fine if you are using the route for leisure purposes and want to take in the sights of Westminster, but it is hard to imagine a daily commuter travelling over a kilometre further than necessary just because the traffic isn’t segregated around the base of Trafalgar Square.
It has to be said at this point that it would be very difficult to arrange a segregated cycle route that went from Northumberland Avenue to the Mall without causing a major disruption to other traffic. Nevertheless this would seem to be a very popular potential future route and one that will be taken by cyclists. Indeed one wonders how much modelling has been done on the basis that many cyclists will take this short cut anyway.
Hyde Park
It has been mentioned before on this site that London’s Royal Parks have speed limits which do apply to bikes. At first sight this restriction as to how fast a cycle can be ridden in a Royal Park would appear to be a simple drafting mistake by virtue of the fact that the Parliamentary Act linked to earlier in this article refers to “vehicles” and not “motor vehicles”. However it is apparent that this was deliberately intended because the relevant paragraph in the legislation is headed Speeds at which vehicles may be driven or ridden on a Park road. Presumably a horse is not regarded as a vehicle.
The Royal Parks also has a cycling policy and from that it is clear it is already concerned about cycling in Hyde Park. To quote from their policy:
The cycle routes in Hyde Park have been in place for over 10 years and there is concern that they are not able to cope with the numbers of cyclists using them – particularly in the peak. Their segregated nature is an issue as there is the fear that young children and dogs, not aware of the segregation, are likely to be involved in cycle related accidents on these routes. There is an aspiration to move to more shared-use spaces where people can behave in a considerate manner to one another.
They also state that “We generally keep cycle routes in the park (other than those on park roads) to the perimeters of the London Royal Parks.”
The problem with Hyde Park is thus similar to St James’s Park in that the ideal cycle route (from a cyclists or TfL’s perpective) will probably not be favourably received by park management.
Proposals for Hyde Park
After crossing from Constitution Hill to Hyde Park via existing cycle infrastructure TfL’s desire is for the cycle route to exit Hyde Park at Lancaster Gate. The ideal route is the shortest one along Serpentine Road but, apart from everything else, this has a 15mph speed limit for the benefit of all park users and one can see the Royal Parks being reluctant for this route to be the cycle superhighway. Similarly they are probably reluctant to allow cyclists to use the next shortest route involving the traffic-free Broad Walk, parallel to Park Lane. As a consequence the proposed route takes cyclists along South Carriage Drive and West Carriage Drive though it is hard to see what incentive there will be to stick to the official route rather than use Serpentine Road instead.
…And Beyond
Beyond Hyde Park the route is only currently well defined as as far as Westbourne Park near Paddington. This involves some changes to the one way system at Lancaster Gate. Many of these changes, such as reversion of Bayswater Road to two-way traffic, were long overdue anyway.
After that comes a proposal that history will judge either to be genius or madness – closing one lane inbound of the Westway to provide an elevated section to take the route onward to Acton. This will hardly create a pleasant environment for cycling in, but the advantage of a speedy direct route will likely more than compensate. One concern could be the effects of winds at such an exposed location. Of course these could sometimes work in the cyclists favour.
Cycling on the Westway
What will likely happen is that the outside world will make the mistake of judging the success (or not) of this idea entirely by the number of cyclists using it. Future hyperbolic articles from the mainstream media (and the odd bit of political grandstanding) accompanied by images of congested traffic alongside an empty cycleway seem sadly inevitable.
One wonders though if a section of TfL’s road force has realised that traffic management could greatly be improved in central London if one reduced the number of lanes of traffic coming into the central London area via Westway from 3 to 2 lanes. Maybe they were looking for is an opportunity to do this and that opportunity has now come.
Alternatively, the idea could be as much about symbolism as anything else. “We are prepared to turn a lane of what was once an urban motorway into a cycle route” sends out a very powerful message about what one intends to do and how determined one is to do it.
Regardless of the reasons for it, one cannot but think of Norman Foster’s idea of cycleways on top of railways (which we have previously looked upon with a rather cynical eye). So perhaps it is time to take a leaf out of Private Eye magazine.
Lookalikes
Dear Sir,
I couldn’t help noticing the similarity between Norman Foster’s railway cycleway and TfL’s proposal for a cycleway along the elevated section of Westway. Perhaps they are related?
Yours faithfully,
E.J. Thribb
Successful or not, both the Westway segregation and the East-West route itself show some of the unique challenges that cycle planning in London presents. In part 3 we hope to finally get around to looking at how well (or badly) these proposals went down at the relevant TfL board meeting.
“Indeed a specific Act of Parliament lays down what is permitted within the praks”!
[Fixed. Thanks. PoP]
Mrs Thatcher had wished to go further and ban traffic from both the east and south sides of Parliament square (and if possible from the other two as well). The then Director General Highways used her inquiry of him as a candidate question at my promotion board. I recall giving an oblique answer about the availability of alternate routes (clearly the right answer as I got the promotion…)
More generally, one might regret the effect of cutting off S James’s Park for pedestrians with a dedicated cycle route. One of the minor pleasures as a pedestrian is the ability to walk from Whitehall or Broadway straight into the Park without facing too much of a barrier.
And – and we have had this out before in Part 1 – cyclists may constitute 40% of vehicles at any one specific point but only a small fraction of total road users at the same point. Lies, damn lies and statistics…
“Constitutional Hill” should be “Constitution Hill” (occurs twice I think). The map is correct.
[Don’t know how I did that. Yes, it is definitely Constitution Hill as it is where the monarch went for a walk for his constitution – nothing to do with constitutional at all. PoP]
A good summary of a fascinating story.
I predict that the Westminster “Great Way Round”, and the Hyde Park “Empty Carriage Road” will each get very little use. Unless serious steps are taken to make the respective short cuts take longer (trained pigeons in Trafalgar Square, amphibious piranhas in the Serpentine?).
Curiously, it was announced back in 2011 that responsibility for the Royal Parks would pass from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to the Greater London Authority, but this doesn’t seem to have happened yet.
I wonder whether this would have made a difference?
Further research shows that the idea of transferring the Royal Parks agency to the GLA was scrapped in July 2011, in favour of the Mayor-appointed Board mentioned in the article.
The Westway section, with no access to the local area underneath, is unlikely to be as popular except by very long distance cyclists. And it will be a long way to walk if you get a puncture, or to get shelter if it starts to rain.
The Royal Parks are indeed a law unto themselves when it comes to traffic. They don’t even use standard road signs. This appears to be warning of a cul de sac to the right, but is actually their version of a “No right turn” sign. And this, which appears to be a prohibition on pushing your cycle across the road but I suspect is supposed to be an instruction to do just that!
https://goo.gl/maps/64xkh
Clearly using the TSRGD is beneath their dignity. Makes Moto’s signs at service stations look sensible!
The “three sides of a square” seems to be a desire to get to Parliament Square at all costs. Surely a direct route via Northumberland Avenue plus a spur to Parliament Square would serve the purpose better? Not everyone will want to go all the way from one end to ‘tother and access to and from the Embankment side route will be crucial. As similar issue affects the north-south route, since it is on the west side of the A201, cyclists going to and from the Square Mile will all have to cross that road somewhere.
CS7 actually has some very good examples of cycling provision.
https://goo.gl/maps/8oP7y
(Just turn through 180 degrees to see some of the worst!)
I predict that the Westminster “Great Way Round”, and the Hyde Park “Empty Carriage Road” will each get very little use. Unless serious steps are taken to make the respective short cuts take longer (trained pigeons in Trafalgar Square, amphibious piranhas in the Serpentine?).
By commuters, I’d be inclined to agree. Possibly bringing the Serpentine Road speed limit down to 10mph would have some effect.
Tourists on Boris Bikes? Quite a different matter. This route will be be a whole new era for the Cycle Hire Scheme. £30 for a ride on an open top bus, or less than £5 for a couple of hours cycling from Hyde Park to Tower Bridge? You can’t enjoy the sights when staying alive on the road demands 100% attention, but with this cycleway – why not?
If I’m right about the latter, where this all may get a little, ah, interesting, is 5:30pm on a summer evening – tourists still out en masse, West London city-workers headed for home on rather quicker bikes. Hopefully the route will be plenty wide enough for everyone to get along fine.
Constitution Hill – The Mall – Trafalgar Square – Northumberland Avenue is on my commuting route and in the morning (about 8am) before traffic has built up, it is a very pleasant ride and positively glorious on a fine day. In the evening, Northumberland Avenue is often choked with traffic but the Mall is never too bad.
I remain to be convinced about the proposed route for this section as it is longer for me and I doubt I will change my morning route but might consider it in the evening.
The other issue with this route is crossing Hyde Park corner. There are currently 4 sets of lights to make the crossing and the current phasing of the lights is such that there is a mad sprint through Wellington Arch to make green. Not good if there are pedestrians in the area. There is also a bottleneck at the entrance to Hyde Park and the numbers of bikes crossing there in the evening must be very intimidating for pedestrians using the same crossing.
I’m not sure why the Royal Parks are so precious about bikes in Hyde Park as they don’t seem to have a problem with West Carriage Drive being a car-choked traffic sewer.
Of course, the official route in Hyde Park heads north west but there are a considerable number of cyclists heading due west towards Kensington, Hammersmith and beyond.
This westbound route, originally intended to be CS9, is a classic example of cycle routes falling victim to objections. The Royal Parks shut South Carriage Drive by the Albert Memorial after dark so it is currently no use as a year round commuting route, and then you are into the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea who have a pathological aversion to any cycle infrastructure.
It will be interesting to see what happens if the routes are extremely popular and if the pressure will mount on the Royal Parks and RBKC to do something better here.
TSRGD – UK Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions
Having being forced to go around Hyde Park Corner in my wheelchair many times (yes, I mean the road system that many drivers fear), I welcome the changes (for the Olympics) to the crossing from Knightsbridge to Constitution Hill. There’s still no link to Piccadilly though, neccessitating a hair-raising journey.
Until someone is killed, nothing will be done.
There aren’t even any buses from Park Lane to Piccadilly.
Close the northbound Park Lane. Return it to parkland while retaining a small amount for segregated cycle and pedestrian use.
@Graham H: Common ground at last between Ken Livingstone and Margaret Thatcher! Maybe when full pedestrianisation eventually happens, twin statues could be erected to glower at each other in celebration?
@Anonymous Wheelchair User – I think the Royal Parks gave up land in the 1960s to widen Park Lane and turn it into a mini-motorway so it would be very fitting to return the lane to the park.
Speaking as an observer of the cycle lanes, as I stand no chance of every using them, might it be possible to guide cycling onto the chosen park routes by blocking the line of sight at the Critical points?
If there was some nice public art – something in the Barbara Hepworth style at cyclist eye height – and nice, obvious “come hither” junction and cycleway design, the vast majority of users could use the “right” route.
Because the Royal parks do have a fair point about not having young kids mixing with pusgbikes.
TfL believe that bikes now make up around a quarter of rush hour traffic in central London
That’s number of vehicles, I assume, not number of people, which will give you a very different answer. ( See also Graham H’s similar remark )
Agree that the idea of cycling along Westway gives me the ‘orrors if there is any wind at all, above about 15 mph & especially if gusty, or wet or icy.
A definite no-no. You certainly would not catch me there, except on a very fine day….
LURVE the “Private Eye” comparison, oh dear.
AWU
Now there (closing the W side of “Park Lane”) is a really sensible idea.
This is of interest, because, many years ago, I regularly cycled Walthamstow – Raynes Park on Sundays.
Through the centre, I followed the line of least resistance (i.e. flattish + less, but not necessarily least) traffic:
Lea Bridge Rd / canal bank / S side of Victoria Park / Cambridge Heath Rd / Bethnal Grn Rd / Bishopsgate / Q Victoria St / Vic Embankment / Parliament Sq / Lambeth Bdg / 9 Elms Rd / Battersea Pk Rd / York Rd / Wimbledon Pk Side …
I echo Reynolds 953, that the round-the-houses route from Charing Cross Bridge to Constitution Hill is probably not “on” – at least for those in the know.
@Ian J 🙂
My understanding from a friend living locally, says that a cyclist has been successfully prosecuted for speeding in Richmond Park in the last few weeks, allegedly having clocked up 41 mph
Indeed. Timbeau provided local report on this story in part 1.
@Castlebar
I live locally, and I hope you can count me as a friend!
http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/11844876.Cyclist_clocked_at_41mph_admits_speeding_through_Richmond_Park/
The Westminster Bridge route is a bit peculiar when viewing the route as purely linear E-W route. Lets not forget that more desirable and probably being aimed for is a net of routes through London. As such this ‘spur’ connects quite nicely with the Millbank route of CS3(?) down towards Vauxhall Bridge for those travelling from the SW.
An often remark I find myself saying is `Why not both?’ As in a Northumberland spur into Trafalgar square onwards to to Tottenham Court Road and a spur to Parliament Square and SW. If we could get just a cycle ring around central London linking trafalgar to Tottenham Court Road, East along the Tavistock route and then South down Blackfriars we would have an almost usable network!
I can’t resist (Opposition cries of “Shame!”) adding afootnote on the impact of changing the Guard,which I have now seen in all three Scandinavian monarchies:
– Norway – a dozen uniformed soldiers appear briefly in front of the palace and then disappear into what appears to be a tea house
-Denmark – about forty soldiers march through a shopping centre preceded by a policewoman
-Sweden – about five minutes before parade time, a number of Volvo estates appear with uniforms hung from coat hangers inthe back; after changing and marching around in front of the palace, the process is reversed and the Volvos depart once more with their coat hangers.
How unlike the homelife of our own dear Queen.
BTW – a word of warning: some years ago,I was doing some work for the Palace on the Royal Train and the only entrance available for anything that isn’t groceries is through the front, across the parade ground.Wanting to leave, one of the footpeople (they really are that politically correct) cautioned – “I’d wait here, Sir,the Guards are marking out the ground – ie parading”. And so they were. “It’s fine to go now Sir” So I proceeded. Only it wasn’t fine; the footman hadn’t noticed the squad coming the other way. A quick risk assessment suggested fast movement in the other direction was the best mitigation measure, so this is what I did,thus ruining large numbers of photos to be shown in Osaka and Beijing.
I had not quite appreciated the diversionary effect of some of these plans. I can’t see commuter cyclists going the long way round when a dash up Northumberland Avenue will be much quicker. I understand the concerns but are we going to end up with cyclists being criticised if they do not use a dedicated route? I note the Met Police are apparently saying that if you are involved in a collision and are not wearing a hivi and helmet then they won’t seek to prosecute the person who collided with the cyclist. Since when was that the law of the land? It doesn’t take much imagination to see the same thought process being applied to cyclists who don’t use the dedicated facilities.
http://road.cc/content/news/146173-incomprehensibly-callous-met-slammed-michael-mason%E2%80%99s-family-plan-private
When I used to cycle commute to 55 Broadway I used to do Trafalgar Square (old layout), the Mall, Horse Guards Av and Birdcage Walk twice a day. It wasn’t too horrible although going north through T Square was often fairly hairy because of the gyratory nature of the flows. When I motorcycle commuted I often used the Embankment plus going through Farringdon Road at the east end and Parliament Square / Victoria St to the west. It’s going to be interesting to see how road traffic copes with the loss of capacity on these routes. I know the example of the Olympics is cited but a lot of people made special efforts to accommodate that special event plus there were legislative tools available to enforce compliance. I think much of that “willingness” to cope with restrictions has gone so I’m a bit doubtful about how the modelling has dealt with today’s reality rather than 2012’s.
I trust that Westway proposal is a joke. I could never use a route at height like that and others have cited things like the weather and lack of “escape routes” or refuge space. Can you imagine using it in pouring rain or in fog? There must also be significant issues about a road accident breaching the boundary and invading the cycle lane space. I also struggle to see how it could be maintained or repaired without having to close the route in its entirety (not sure how many junctions there are on the route). Steep access ramps are likely to be needed and would not be terribly safe or easy to use for some cyclists. The alternative is shallower but much longer ramps which probably have land issues associated with them (i.e. is it available?).
Park Lane – I believe it was all originally east of the trees, buses started being diverted northbound through the park from 23rd October 1960 using what was then the East Carriage Road, after much rebuilding this became the northbound carriageway of Park Lane.
This was all part of a bigger scheme which was never completed – bit like Archway – although the underpass at Hype Park Corner was done.
I trust that Westway proposal is a joke. I could never use a route at height like that and others have cited things like the weather and lack of “escape routes” or refuge space.
IIRC there are plans for a new exit at around half way – but the whole elevated section of the Superhighway is in any case only a mile and a half (Westbourne Terrace to West Cross roundabout) – it’ll be over in under 5 minutes at fast-commuter pace, 8 if you take it easy (bearing in mind no junctions or traffic lights – steady pace the whole way). There are plenty of paths, towpaths etc. which run for a mile or so with no way out.. they’re not ideal by any means, but certainly tolerable. At least this one won’t be a mugger hideout.
Can you imagine using it in pouring rain or in fog?
Wind likely more of a problem than either. Fog’s rarely bad enough in London to be much of an issue when cycling – at 10mph you’ve usually got enough visibility; being open to the elements, you’re much more aware of how much visibility you don’t have – there’s not that dangerous false sense of security people get driving on foggy motorways. Cycling in the pouring rain, well, I’m not the biggest fan, but it’s actually fairly infrequent. I do occasionally get soaked on my cycle commute, but less than once a month.
There must also be significant issues about a road accident breaching the boundary and invading the cycle lane space.
Armco barriers are pretty tough; Westway is 40? mph limit; similar things have been done elsewhere (along part of the A2 near Bluewater, to give you an example) & while they’re not particularly pleasant to use, seem to be reasonably safe. After all, in the whole history of the Westway, while quite a few have come to grief, has anyone managed to drive off the side of it?
I also struggle to see how it could be maintained or repaired without having to close the route in its entirety (not sure how many junctions there are on the route). Steep access ramps are likely to be needed and would not be terribly safe or easy to use for some cyclists.
Fortunately cycles don’t put much wear and tear on the roads – light maintenance can probably be done at night or over the weekend. The gradient up to Westway would be fairly hard work on a handcycle or utility cargobike, but it’s only the height of a three-storey building – not much more than 60ft surely?
Actually just as some roads are “for access only” for motor vehicles it makes sense that the “shortcuts” should be similarly restricted for cyclists which would, in theory, prevent their use. Likewise there needs to be new speed limits – eg max 5mph under the arch at Hyde Park Corner – to protect pedestrians.
I don’t think the route past Buckingham Palace will work. There are too many days such as the State Opening of Parliament when roads in the area are shut.
@WW
“I understand the concerns but are we going to end up with cyclists being criticised if they do not use a dedicated route?”
@Theban
” it makes sense that the “shortcuts” should be similarly restricted for cyclists which would, in theory, prevent their use.”
And how do the cyclists get to or from their place of work if it happens to be on the shortcut?
@ Timbeau – if their destination is on the short cut then it’s not an issue (AFAIAC). My comment was in the context of another issue – that of random and inappropriate interpretations of the law by the police (see the link I provided). It also takes little imagination to see that taxi drivers, van drivers, directors of Canary Wharf etc will be ranting and yelling if some cyclists don’t, for whatever reason, use the newly provided segregated facilities and continue to ride on the road.
It’s also unclear to me, at this point in the process, whether segregated lanes will be mandatory for cyclists regardless of the journey being made or other prevailing circumstances. Are the Police going to be standing on Farringdon Road and booking any cyclist riding on a traffic lane and not the cycle lane? That’s a legitimate question surely? It may be entirely sensible for, say, cycle couriers or people using delivery bikes to use the highway if the building they need to reach is away from the CSH lane.
@ww
” segregated lanes will be mandatory for cyclists”
My understanding is that the laws of the road protect everyone from pedestrians up to cyclists and horse drawn-carriages and everyone in between at the expense of motor vehicles.
As a wheelchair user, I am regarded as a pedestrian. So if I am unable to use the pavement – e.g. most of the pavements in the Cities of London and Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, I am forced to use the right hand side of the road and be abused by Jeremy Clarkson types and Black taxi drivers.
I have occassionally been stopped by police, but only to make sure that I know what I’m doing.
If you’re forced to use the roadway – through lack of pavement for example, the Highway Code is definite – go against the grain in single file.
Forcing cyclists or any other manually powered wheeled vehicles off the public highway (motorways excepted) would be impossible.
Kids’ scooters, skateboards, roller-skates etc..
How did cyclists cross Hyde Park Corner before the Olympics?
How do they get to Piccadilly now?
I really want to know.
I don’t believe that most would be as foolhardy as I was. If I (and presumably others) hadn’t regularly “done” Hyde Park to Green Park, would we be talking about this now?
There are other crossings in London that require flights of steps up and down or miles around.
The Westway route is not ideal, but it is partly the result of outright opposition by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. TfL’s response to RBKC not wanting to have the route on their roads at all was to find a route that goes over them…
Al_S
Does anyone know what RBK&C’s “reason” for opposing cycle routes is?
Or is it like Bromley’s opposition to trams in the street: – 150% irrational, based on no evidence – or indeed contrary to all the evidence … (?)
WW
I must say I really don’t like this: the Met Police are apparently saying that if you are involved in a collision and are not wearing a hivi and helmet then they won’t seek to prosecute the person who collided with the cyclist.
I often wear a hi-vis, but I point-blank refuse to wear a hot helmet – I do wear a cap in winter.
Especially of said cyclist was wearing a hi-vis, then helmet is irrelevant, as any motorist should have SEEN them, should they not?
Nasty.
Suggest you add a ‘share’ button to this most excellent blog.
@WW”if their destination is on the short cut then it’s not an issue”
How can you tell where their destination is if you stop them en route?
“It also takes little imagination to see that taxi drivers, van drivers, directors of Canary Wharf etc will be ranting and yelling if some cyclists don’t, for whatever reason, use the newly provided segregated facilities and continue to ride on the road.”
Nothing new about that – I frequently get lip from van drivers about not being in the cycle lane on Blackfriars Bridge – despite it going straight on and me signalling my intention to turn right. (A manoeuvre that will be made more awkward by the planned segregated facilities). Or for that matter for moving out of a cycle lane to overtake a slower cyclist.
I used to wonder why so many of the lycra end of the cycling spectrum use the roads in Richmond Park rather than the bespoke Tamsin Trail – until I changed from cross-country tyres to narrower road tyres – quite unsuited to the loose surface of the Trail.
@ Anon W U – to be accurate I posed the question as to whether segregated lanes would be mandatory or not. I was not making a statement. I do not know what status the new CSHs will have but we already have a legal distinction between advisory and mandatory cycle lanes but I see that applies to motorists not cyclists. I’ve learnt something having double checked. I hadn’t quite appreciated your issue with HPC but thinking about how the dreadful subways “work” (ahem) I now understand your concerns. On reflection it’s a truly dreadful bit of the road / pedestriam network. I think in the past cyclists had to take their life in their hands at HPC and cycle round it. I have a distinct memory of being in a huge coach and a lady on a Raleigh Shopper cycling alongside us as we went round HPC heading north. How she summoned up enough courage I know not – it was one junction I routinely avoided when I cycled regularly because of the multiple lanes, frequent criss crossing and relatively high speeds that can be reached.
@ Timbeau – I was not suggesting there is no “abuse” now. I was pondering whether it will get worse once the segregated infrastructure is there and a cyclist chooses not to use it. You can readily imagine that some groups who will consider *their* road space has been stolen and given to a group they already dislike. People are sometimes a bit irrational (!) as I’m sure you’ll know.
The thing about the longer route via Parliament Square, is that you’re assuming everyone will cycle the route from east to west/vice versa along its full way. But actually, many cyclists will join coming across Westminster Bridge, or from the west of Parliament. So, as someone says above, makes sense to have two options.
I see this whole scheme very much as a proof of principle. It’s got flaws but what’s more important is that it’s happening. If it proves to be a success, as many believe/hope it will be, then the indisputable evidence from the increase in the number of cyclists attracted by safer routes, will be a stick to beat boroughs such as Westminster, and the Royal Parks with. They’ll then find it much harder to oppose, as would other groups that claim to represent business – though as @CyclingWorks showed, many businesses support the proposals.
So, see this as an iterative process. If it works anywhere near as well as many of us hope, it may well be a game-changer in terms of future cycling provision and making London a much more liveable, people-friendly city.
@Paul – “it may well be a game-changer in terms of future cycling provision”. Possibly, although this route is in many ways the easiest to do, given the nature of the Embankment. The next round will involve streets that are less wide and where segregation is trickier.
Graham H,
Indeed – and junctions as well as streets. Perhaps the best example is indeed the fact that TfL deliberately steered clear of Trafalgar Square. I understand that there are recognised no go areas where they know that provision is just too tricky.
WW
Re “HPC” & On reflection it’s a truly dreadful bit of the road / pedestrian network.
QUOTE: “Trillian, how on earth did you learn to fly a starship like THAT?”
T; “Going round Hyde Park Corner on my moped …”
Thank-you Douglas Adams ….
I enjoyed this post so much I look forward to reading the one on the north-south route. I couldn’t for the life of me find LR’s article on the Norman Foster cycle way proposals tho.
Finally, I’m interested to read the comments on the non-use of the cycle way. Seems logical per Walthamstow Writer’s comment to use the road when u need to reach something not on the cycle way or similar, but what about if you are simply running on the road alongside the cycle way? I agree with the argument that cyclists have a right to use the road like others, but interested in the *reason* one would choose it over the presumably safer cycle way.
Is it because one might be able to in some circumstances ride faster on the road than on the cycle way – or perhaps simply because because riding on the road is what you’ve become used to from cycling in London, give the lack of decent cycling infrastructure 😉
I see in the latest Local Transport Today that fell through my letter box today that it seems unlikely that Canary Wharf group will trigger a Judicial Review on the E-W CSH. I wonder if some “pressure” has been applied in the background? In the same article is a comment that Westminster City Council have said they will withhold approval of the plans for Parliament Square until their “views” are taken fully into account. Some things don’t change.
PoP can axe this comment if he wishes if it cuts across what is in Part 3 of this series of articles.
Guy,
Sorry if you were misled as to an article on the Norman Foster cycle way proposals. In fact it was referenced in our opening question in our 2014 Christmas Quiz.
I wasn’t planning an article on the North-South cycle superhighway. It is why it is briefly covered here. I don’t think that there is much I can add that isn’t on the TfL website. From the point of view a background which sheds light on things I don’t think there is anything I can contribute.
Of course, if someone else wants to do one …
Walthamstow Writer,
I always thought that the threat of a judicial review was a load of hot air. It was hard to see on what grounds it could be made other than the scheme hadn’t been fully analysed and finalised. To counter that, there were valid reasons to press ahead before that was completed.
I get the impression that, with some exceptions (Chiltern Evergreen III springs to mind), judges are starting to take a dim view of applications for judicial review that are unlikely to succeed but used as a delaying tactic.
I also think that TfL always have judicial review at the back of their mind and are careful not to put themselves in a position where one might succeed. The ghost of Fares Fair (pre TfL) lives on. Putting it another way, TfL can eat judicial reviews for breakfast.
@Pedantic of Purley: the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association were also making noises about a Judicial Review of the new Tottenham Court Road scheme (covered previously on LR) but they seem to be missing the point that a Judicial Review may be applicable when the consultation process is seriously flawed, but isn’t applicable when you just don’t like the results of the consultation.
@Greg Tingey – there’s a bit of background on RBK&C attitude to cycle lanes here: http://hfcyclists.org.uk/2014/03/hope-now-superhighway-9/
I was going to provide my own opinion on them but I suspect it would only be snipped so I won’t bother… 😉
Apparently elements of what was meant to be CS9 will still be going ahead through LB Hounslow and LB Hammersmith and Fulham but there will be a gap in RBK&C where CS9 was meant to join up with the EW route. I hope the route is wildly successful and RBK&C will be eventually shamed into doing something.
Reynolds 953,
Yes, my point entirely. You have to look primarily at how the decision was made and not the decision itself. I often feel that the people who shout “judicial review” don’t understand this. I would treat it more seriously if they said they were seeing a judicial review on the grounds of …
A favourite choice for seeking a review do seem to be “flawed consultation process” – but there are others. It is almost inevitable that there will be some flaw in the consultation process. See in particular the issues around the Northern Line Extension to Battersea. Here objectors seem to think if they have found one tiny flaw they are on to a winner but the judges clearly look at the consultation process as a whole. They almost certainly take into account whether or not the outcome would have been any different had the alleged deficiency in the process not have happened.
A good review of the E-W Cycleway by PoP, but he omits specific reference to the Westminster Bridge / Embankment junction. There the changes give preference to cyclists and will severely inconvenience motorists travelling along the Embankment, as a result of abolishing of the left turn from Embankment onto Westminster Bridge, and the right turn from the bridge onto Embankment. All traffic using Embankment will be required to go around Parliament Square, adding to congestion there and significantly extending journey times for this part of taxi, car and coach journeys. The next accessible way to get between south of the river and the Embankment is via Blackfriars Bridge, as Waterloo Bridge gives access to Strand and Aldwych only.
The removal of lanes for general traffic and the admission in the East – West Cycleway consultation report that many journeys will be longer due to longer routes, banned turns and extended traffic light sequences will increase the aggravation of motorists and bus passengers. Extended journey times of buses will require an increase in the number of buses to maintain the capacity on each route, leading to increased costs for bus companies. Whilst the majority of road users accepted some inconvenience with little complaint during the 2012 Games, this may not be the case on a permanent basis.
WW
OK so what have the Canary Wharf group got against the cycleway, then?
Reynolds 953
Kensington and Chelsea’s original objection to the superhighway was to blue paint on aesthetic grounds Really? That’s IT? Something smells very odd, to me, but actual information seems to be thin on the ground – & not being “my patch” I have no more clue than anyone else. [Usual snip. PoP]
Agree with AA on the apparently counterproductive proposals for the Westminster Bridge North bank junction, though. Could not something more practical/better be devised with appropriate signal phasing?
Another Alan,
I had completely overlooked this. Thats why it did not get a mention. When I get around to part 3 I will make up for this.
Greg,
OK so what have the Canary Wharf group got against the cycleway, then?
A very pertinent point. I will try and cover this in part 3 as well but don’t expect any definitive answers!
Another Alan
One of the many ways in which the EW route may not be a good precedent for wider route design is that it is pretty much the only major road in central London which doesn’t have any buses running along it. That not only means that buses won’t be delayed, because there won’t be any, it also avoids the problem of how to manage bus stops across the dedicated cycling space.
That’s not to say that you are wrong about Parliament Square – though my impression is that only a very small proportion of traffic going west across Westminster Bridge makes the right turn onto the Embankment, and a larger, but still small, proportion of the soutbound trafffic on the Embankment turns onto Westminster Bridge (two of the three lanes turn right to Bridge Street and Parliament Square).
Traffic which would otherwise have gone across Westminster Bridge will presumably head down Millbank, which is the simplest possible movement in Parliament Square. Traffic which would otherwise have wanted to head north on the Embankment will presumably aim for Whitehall instead. One possible way of resolving that would be to open the right turn from Bridge Street to Whitehall, which is currently bus only to general traffic, which in terms of signal phasing could be linked with the need to move the flow of cycles from the south side of Bridge Street to the north side of Great George Street.
@ AA – your point about extra costs for bus operators needs expanding slightly. The bus operators won’t just sit there and absorb the cost because it’s not due to anything in their control / risk profile. It is the direct consequence of a TfL / Mayoral policy. Therefore they will rightly claim the extra costs from TfL which then reduces the money available for the rest of the bus network. I know there is something of a belief amongst some here that the Zone 1 bus network isn’t worth spending money on but the indirect consequence is that money *has* to be spent on it to keep it broadly where it is all the while reducing the scope for improvements elsewhere.
We do, though, have something of a “stealth” policy of curtailing routes short of their usual destinations for many months in a row and then magically the route is never re-extended. Routes 3, 7, 8, 15, 53, 98, 159 and 390 have all been affected in different ways and it remains to be seen if they return to former termini or not. We have the possibility of the 23 being axed east of Aldwych at weekends and then we have the Finchley Road changes out for consultation at present. Not everyone can afford or is able to use the tube in Zone 1 so quite why the bus network is being worsened is anyone’s guess. I know road works are a factor but I remain sceptical that we will see routes restored to former termini when the works complete.
When the 388 was extended to Embankment, was this done with the intention that it would always return to terminating at Blackfriars when the station rebuilding was complete?
@ JA – yes that was always the plan. There was a campaign by some Assembly Members to retain the link but TfL cut the route back anyway. IMLE of using it it was never well loaded on that section despite there being some logic to having a bus route along there and it being much faster than running via the Strand, Aldwych and Fleet Street. I suspect that people at T Square were simply unaware of its existence as there was no promotion of the service. In the absence of any publicity effort you are left with time being the thing that raises attention and the route simply didn’t last long enough for awareness of its existence to grow.
If I was to indulge my box of felt pens I’d extend the RV1 down from Aldwych to Temple and run it along to Westminster and through to Victoria, possibly via the Tate Museum (just to emphasise the tourist nature of the RV1’s links). That would need a lot of extra buses and given the RV1 is hydrogen bus operated that would be immensely expensive.
Re Greg T et al.,
Sounds about right for Kensington and Chelsea – they objected to the appearance of the standard green BT boxes used for fibre to box (aka infinity etc.) so BT decided to focus elsewhere…
See here:
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/workspace/bt-fibre-broadband-kensington-chelsea-80708
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are nothing if not consistent: see this FoI response:
[How much of their road network has segregated cycle routes?]
This has not been calculated but will be between 100m and 200m
-Since the 6th of May 2010, how much money… has been spent from your borough’s transport budget on creating further fully, hard segregated cycle routes?
£0
-For the period between the 1st of April 2014 and the 31st of March 2015, how much total money in pounds sterling from your borough’s transport budget has been or will be allocated to creating further fully, hard segregated cycle routes?
£0
Ian J says RBKC says “.. between 100m and 200m”
I know what the international standard meaning of the abbreviation “m” is, but use of this unit is illegal on British road signs, where the little m is still supposed to mean “miles”. Sadly an FoI response is not a road sign!
I’m surprised there is even between 100 and 200 metres!
I’m sure there is an ideological factor behind RBK&C’s attitude (in additional to the obvious one, that they don’t want to annoy their rich, car owning residents) RBK&C spent £30M turning Exhibition Road into “shared space” while separated infrastructure with footways and cycle lanes are an admission that people on foot and on bikes don’t actually like sharing space.
@ Reynolds 953 – RBKC may be an extreme example at one end of the spectrum but many local authorities have their own version of highway engineering ideology. Isn’t Hackney Council’s approach to cycle lanes criticised by part of the London cycling lobby? As someone looking in from the sidelines I find all of this “ideology” depressing and pointless. I know there may be local pressure from voters on some things but do we really need money being frittered away on the perpetuation of differences of opinion about how to design bits of tarmac, kerbs, paving slabs and highway paint? It can’t be helpful to road users (in the very widest sense) to have so many different ways of doing things.
“OK so what have the Canary Wharf group got against the cycleway, then?”
A fascinating question, which C Wharf group haven’t really explained.
One of the cycle campaign bloggers noted that the head man (Sir George Iobescu, sp from memory on ipad so apologies if mis spelled) lives in W1 and is chauffeured to work along the Embankment / Upper Thames Street. I would have said that one man can’t drive an entire policy decision like that, but then I remember the wonderful anecdotes that GrahamH has shared about how strong willed individuals have driven some “unusual” past transport policy decisions…
We should note that many tenants of C Wharf disagreed with what was going on – some of them have publicly supported the east-west cycle improvements.
I don’t think C Wharf group helped their case by the way they did this. They funded anonymous lobbying – but were unmasked when an email was released from the Freight Transport Association which inadvertently included an email trail showing the origin of the anti East-west scheme briefing paper as coming from C Wharf group.
Fascinating as ever. Im a reminded of the opening point in the initial article which talked of the magnitude of the cultural change to our streetscape, to observe that for one brief heady moment, it would appear that at Blackfriars, the amount of road width allocated to cycle lanes appears more than that for cars. I realize this is due the lane-filtering, but even so, it is a symbol of intent I never thought I would see.
Back in early 80’s there was a brief promotion of cycling in London and some MP’s were invited to take a short ride around Partliament Square to see for themselves, and it made the “and finally…” piece on the evening news. As the news commentator waggishly observed “In the end, the MPs did 3 circuits, instead of one, possibly because they were too frightened at the first attempt, to work out how to exit the square again”. It is hard to understate the cultural shift which has taken place, to move the danger of death and injury while cycling from an amusing curio, to a dedicated piece of infrastructure to resolve the matter.
I think the RBKC is very uncomfortable about being in London, and appears to be uncomfortable about anything that would connect it better to the rest of London. I would therefore suggest:
– Divest the RBKC of territory north of Holland Park Avenue. Only commoners live there anyway – these belong in Hammersmith and Fulham.
– Extend the Hyde Park Corner underpass to just west of the junction of Cromwell Road and Finborough Road. Then fence off all road exits to and from the borough, except for a few gates. Issue strict permit system for access to outsiders.
– Ban any form of transport except private cars and black cabs (no minicabs!) from entering the borough. Tube stations to be closed and utilised for freight deliveries (no white vans or lorries clogging the roads!).
– TfL to institute toll booths and charge £20 to RBKC residents for each vehicular exit from the borough.
Think of the benefits:
– Far fewer problems with security: burglars can’t drive in with vans, muggers have to run to the nearest gate – the fence around the borough would have a strip of no man’s land with machine guns like in Berlin.
– Servants working in the RBKC would have to be paid the living wage or above – they would not be able to reach many locations in the borough other than by car.
– Rest of London would have far more money to spend on transport thanks to the lowering of the bus requirement and the entry/exit charges at the gates.
– The cost of Crossrail 2 would be greatly reduced by not having to ‘swing by’ the station at King’s Road that nobody wants anyway.
But seriously now: Thank you once again PoP for yet another informative article. I fully agree that the ‘kink’ in the Superhighway around Parliament Square is pointless and will not be used much: the connection into Parliament Square should serve as a means of connecting up to CS8 (Millbank – Battersea – Wandsworth). It could also provide a useful route through to Victoria, via Tothill Street, Petty France, Castle Lane and Palace Street.
The trunk of the E-W Superhighway should not skirt through St James’s Park. That is not the desire line that commuters (and bear in mind commuters constitute and will continue to constitute the majority of the cycle traffic!) want – they want the West End and possibly Bayswater. If we are to avoid Trafalgar Square, can I suggest a fun little shortcut: Savoy Place, John Robert Street (private road through a building but publicly accessible) then York Buildings, John Adam Street and out onto the Strand. The route could then continue on smaller streets north through to Soho or west towards Mayfair and Hyde Park. This means you have to climb the hill to the Strand, but you do so reasonably gently.
The whole route is Google-Street-Viewable:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=john+adam+street+london&hl=en&ll=51.508805,-0.123279&spn=0.000003,0.003473&sll=52.038138,-0.757644&sspn=0.04472,0.111151&t=h&hnear=John+Adam+St,+London,+United+Kingdom&z=19&layer=c&cbll=51.508805,-0.123279&panoid=05VrZH0sJ1fxiwy-Fzllzg&cbp=12,79.44,,0,0
@Walthamstow Writer – Indeed. Following to-ing and fro-ing in Hackney should dispel any notion there is some sort of all-powerful cycling lobby “hive mind”. The Hackney branch of the London Cycling Campaign is anti- separated infrastructure so others have set up a new pro- separated infrastructure lobby group called “Hackney People on Bikes”. People’s Front of Judea, anyone?
You can trace the anti-separation tendency within cyclists way back to the 1930s when organisations like the Cycling Tourist Club argued against separated facilities for bikes as they feared this would remove the right to ride on the roads. In effect, the sheer volume of motor traffic forced the vast majority of bikes off the road anyway.
(As an aside, I found an interesting interview about this subject on this podcast http://thebikeshow.net/cycling-and-modernity/ with the author of the book “How Private Transport Changed Interwar London” )
One reason for all the bickering in the UK is there isn’t a generally accepted set of design standards equivalent to the Dutch CROW manual. TfL have tried to advance this by publishing their London Cycle Design Standards but I understand it isn’t as rigorous as CROW (and maybe it can’t be, given the stage London is at)
One idea for dissuading commuter-cyclists from the more direct cross-park routes rather than the “recommended” routes would be to use different surfaces (as alluded to by timbeau in relation to Richmond Park). The “recommended” routes would have surfaces optimised for the road bike tyres that most regular London cycle commuters use (and absolutely fine for Boris bikes too) whereas the more direct routes would use a looser surface that is less condusive (or at least, appears less appealing) to speedy cycling but is easily navigable by the traffic that is being encouraged on such routes: pedestrians, wheelchairs and small children on bikes/toys.
@Straphan
“I fully agree that the ‘kink’ in the Superhighway around Parliament Square is pointless and will not be used much: the connection into Parliament Square should serve as a means of connecting up to CS8 (Millbank – Battersea – Wandsworth). ”
Quite – it will effectively be two cycleways, one through St James park and one along the Embankment, and both feeding into/out of Westminster Bridge/Millbank . The fact that no-one is likely to use both branches doesn’t mean that the branches are not, individually, useful.
@timbeau: But that is not – in my view – what is needed. To my mind, the ‘desire lines’ that the Superhighway should serve (as these are the most demand-rich) are:
– City via Embankment and Parliament Square towards Battersea and Wandsworth
– East London via Embankment and Parliament Square towards Victoria
– East London via Embankment to the West End (Soho, Mayfair, Marylebone) and beyond (Paddington, Bayswater, Notting Hill)
None of these is best-served by a superhighway with a kink from the Embankment via Parliament Square, St James’s Park and Hyde Park. That route will no doubt be popular amongst tourists in due course, however, bear in mind tourists are unlikely to form the bulk of cycle traffic any time soon.
Just to reinforce my point: I will soon be commuting into Central London from the West, and was thinking about buying a season ticket without Zone 1, getting off at the boundary – Notting Hill Gate – and cycling to my office at Chancery Lane. Not only would the planned superhighway be utterly useless to me (why would I ever go towards the City through Parliament Square?), I would still be left without an adequate cycle route which does not run through death traps like Marble Arch, Oxford Street or Hyde Park Corner. Which is why I will probably choose to focus on saving money on season tickets at the ‘country end’ of my commute, and will haul my sweaty, lycra-clad behind on the Central Line from Ealing Broadway onwards. I believe TfL are trying to entice me not to do this with all this investment in cycling infrastructure?
WW & R953
Indeed, some councils are even schizoid themselves about how they approach transport/road infrastructure.
I currently have an enquiry to 2 of my local councillors as to why the proposed “improvements” &”mini-holland” in LBWF are not actually going to (IMHO) do anything for cycling in the borough & why measures that they have taken (which I mustn’t name right now) have merely inconvenienced everyone & done no good.
I will be interested to see what sort of reply I get.
The “split” over separate facilities (or not) is one I’m familiar with.
The political lobbying & infighting was the principal reason for my membership of the London Cycling Campaign lapsing over 20 ears ago.
Nothing appears to have changed or improved since them. Sigh.
@ Greg – regarding ideological battles within cycling lobbyists, I would say the shift has been very much in favour of the Dutch model, where infrastructure is used to address the perception of risk that discourages many from cycling. The alternative “vehicular cycling” approach that treats bikes like cars is looking increasingly dated.
@Reynolds 953: Indeed. The current policy of ‘dump ’em into bus lanes and hope for the best’ has attracted all those it could to cycling. To achieve proper modal shift you need to improve at least the perception of how safe cycling is. The only way to achieve it – in my opinion – is through segregated facilities.
@straphan there’s a route avoiding Marble Arch – through Hyde Park, along Upper Brook Street & Great Marlborough Street. Much preferable to riding the length of Oxford Street, though the diesel fumes there will probably take more years off your life than the buses themselves. Once you hit Noel St or so though, there’s no real alternative to Oxford St / Theobalds Rd unless you want to get caught in a rat’s nest of one way systems.
Given the state of the street grid around Soho, I’m not sure how you’d significantly improve on that without either removing the buses and taxis from Oxford Street (huge knock on effects which have been discussed elsewhere) or building a Cycle Superhighway along Wigmore Street, Gower Street & Theobalds Road (the latter still having substantial knock on effects on the bus network).
– City via Embankment and Parliament Square towards Battersea and Wandsworth
Upgrading Superhighway 8 to the standard of the new East/West route, and extending it as far as Lots Road on the north bank, seems like an obvious move indeed. CS8 along Millbank has a reasonably good safety record with its existing demographic, but it doesn’t offer the kind of subjective safety that will encourage newcomers.
@Hilltopper “unless you want to get caught in a rat’s nest of one way systems.”
Here in the Netherlands one-way systems generally do not apply to cyclists. In my home town Ede, a few narrow one-way roads only have a cycle path for those cycling against the flow of traffic, segregated near crossings with busy roads.
@Hilltopper: Thanks – I was focusing my planning on bypassing Oxford Street from the North – i.e. via Seymour St, Wigmore St, Goodge St, hadn’t noticed Brook St/Grosvenor St. Will work on it.
Regarding Oxford Street: having worked next to Oxford Circus for nearly 3 years, I really don’t see the point of having a perpetual red and double-deck traffic jam in the middle of a crowded shopping street that would be made so much more pleasant if it were pedestrianised.
Regarding getting through Soho from the west: I think it should not be terribly difficult as long as you signpost it properly. I’d suggest Grosvenor St/Brook St, then Gt Marlborough St and either Berwick, Dean or Wardour Streets to link up with Trafalgar Square and the Embankment.
@Albert J. P.: The Cities of London and Westminster and the Borough of Camden (the three local authorities that cover most of Central London) have already allowed two-way cycle traffic on many otherwise one-way streets. There is still a long way to go, though, before you end up with something like Paris, where almost all ‘no entry’ (red round sign with white bar) street signs have ‘SAUF VELO’ (except bicycles) written underneath.
@straphan
Relating to perception of safety, I read an interesting article recently by Dr Rachel Aldred about her research on near misses: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/mar/24/cycling-near-miss-close-pass-road-rage
In summary, near misses are very common, and very intimidating. (Not a surprise, I think!)
That unpleasant experience probably accounts for the lack of cycling much more than actual injury statistics. If the segregated facilities remove the intimidation factor, they will hopefully, as you say, help convince more people to give it a go.
@Ollyver: Near misses are common – especially in London – for a few reasons:
– Lanes have deliberately been painted narrow, as narrower lanes tend to lead to people driving slower (for fear of not ‘fitting into’ the lane). As a result, most vehicles larger than a small car are used to straddling lanes, including cycle lanes.
– Previous – and indeed current – TfL policy in many places has been to encourage all vehicles (including bicycles) to ‘share the road’ (search Google for TfL’s latest public service announcement heavily featuring cyclists), which understandably frustrates drivers and makes them do things that scares cyclists once their anger blows over.
– TfL’s concept of making cyclists do right turns at junctions is that cyclists nicely stop on the left hand side of the road , wait for the lights to go red, then slide across the box at the junction (which is already taken up by a minicab or someone else who forgot where the stop line is). As a result cyclists have to swerve across a number of lanes to turn right – guaranteed to peeve car drivers off.
Segregated (or at least halfway-segregated) cycle lanes will go a long way to prevent these near-misses from happening. It is thanks to them that everybody cycles in places like Holland or northern Germany.
straphan says “TfL’s concept of making cyclists do right turns at junctions is …. guaranteed to peeve car drivers off
I like your description of the role of these advanced stop lines [ASLs] for a right-turning cyclist.
However, this is one thing for which TfL is not really to blame. These things appear all over the UK. They are part of the “cyclists are special” movement, which I think I slightly prefer to “cyclists should act like any other vehicle driver”. Of course ASLs are problematic, and proper arrangements for cyclists to turn right would be much better. But in the absence of “proper arrangements”, ASLs have a role to play. Just painting them out (not that you suggested that) would be no kind of improvement.
The trouble with “share the road” campaigns is that people have completely different ideas of what it means:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeyface/15599556407
On near misses, I’d like to think that an experienced and careful cyclist can anticipate and avoid a lot of the most common types of collision – such as being caught alongside a left turning vehicle or being doored.
However one collision you generally can’t do anything about is being hit from behind and this is the one that frightens me most. Over the last number of years, I’ve been hit 3 times by car wing mirrors as they passed (all during daytime) and dread to think what would have happened if I’d altered my path to avoid a pothole or something just as the car was passing.
@Reynolds 953 “Over the last number of years, I’ve been hit 3 times by car wing mirrors as they passed ”
I’ve been hit twice in the past week. And the first time I was waiting in a cycle box at the time.
The problem with narrow cycle lanes is that other road users get a sense of entitlement to the rest of the width of the road, and take umbrage if you move across the line, for example to avoid a pothole or to pass a slower cyclist or parked car.
There also seems to be some confusion about “mandatory” cycle lanes. It doesn’t mean cyclist must use them – it means you must not use them unless you are a cyclist.
@Malcolm: ASLs are definitely not part of a ‘cyclists are special’ movement, more like a ‘cyclists should get out of the way of cars’ movement.
@Reynolds953: My key issues are close overtaking (which is why I cycle closer to the centre than others would like me to) and cutting off, typically by vans, taxis (particularly if someone is waving at them – pound signs in their eyes) and other groups of vehicles whose drivers think they are in more of a hurry than others.
Having said that, my two actual collisions were with a pedestrian (who thought a flashing green man on a pelican crossing means ‘walk in headphones without looking’) and with another cyclist (after dark, no lights, failed to stop at a pedestrian crossing when in use by a pedestrian).
@timbeau: I will reiterate: in London the problem is that ALL lanes are too narrow and vary in width, meaning most drivers – and particularly drivers of large vehicles – choose to ignore markings altogether. From experience, I also find drivers wildly optimistic about the chances of safely passing a cyclist on narrow residential roads where on-street parking is designed to reduce the passable width of the road to one lane.
PS – did I mention ‘cycle boxes’ at junctions are exactly the same shape and size as a lorry blind spot?
http://lbhf.gov.uk/Directory/Transport_and_Streets/Road_Safety/Road_safety_-_traffic_schemes/149931_NEVER_CYCLE_ON_THE_INSIDE_OF_A_LORRY.asp
(Scroll down to the photo of the CONWAY tipper lorry)
straphan says “@Malcolm: ASLs are definitely not part of a ‘cyclists are special’ movement, more like a ‘cyclists should get out of the way of cars’ movement.”
If ASLs are trying to get cyclists out of the way of cars, they are going a very strange way about it! When I (while cycling) see one of them ahead, I have difficulty choosing whether to (a) use it and put myself in front of many motor vehicles which will then be limited to my cycling-acceleration-rate across the junction (which is not wonderful), or (b) to take my normal place in the normal queue, hindering only those motor vehicles which were already behind me on the approach. I generally opt for (b), hopefully with a beneficial effect on anxiety levels, both mine and those of other road users.
As a further point of interest, drivers of large vehicles are actually taught, if their vehicle will not fit in one lane, to evenly straddle two lanes (rather than almost squeezing into one). Of course, whether they later follow that teaching, and whether they ought to, are two interesting questions with no clear right answer.
@Malcolm: What I meant by my comment was that ASLs get bikes out of the way of cars when bikes wish to turn right they are meant to get out of the way of cars, stop, wait for a red, stumble over to the ASL and then turn. I tend to not bother and behave like a car and just get onto the right hand side of the road (using hand signals).*
Large vehicles are indeed taught to straddle lanes, however, lanes in London are such that most vehicles need to straddle lanes or cut across lanes, meaning that they are more likely to ignore all markings.
*The other issue with sharing roadspace is that drivers often get annoyed cyclists don’t sign turning or changing lanes. When pedalling fast and having to operate gears and brakes with your hands there often is not enough time… Yet another thing that segregated cycling infrastructure will hopefully resolve. Either that, or you make indicators mandatory for bikes…
@Straphan
“did I mention ‘cycle boxes’ at junctions are exactly the same shape and size as a lorry blind spot
The Advanced Stop Line should be far enough ahead of the main stop line that a cycle at the former is out of the blind spot of a lorry driver standing at the latter.
@Malcolm
“put myself in front of many motor vehicles which will then be limited to my cycling-acceleration-rate across the junction ”
Given the headstart afforded by the ASL, even on a Boris Bike I can out-drag most cars over the first five yards or so, which is enough distance to get over far enough to leave room to be overtaken.
@Malcolm
“to take my normal place in the normal queue, ”
If there is no ASL, or reaching it would require too much of the wing-mirror slalom, this is what you are supposed to do – but I would be very wary of doing so if the driver’s eye line of the vehicle immediately behind you is well above your head.
The boxes are only supposed to be associated with a cycle lane, to avoid the conflict where the cycle lane comes into conflict with left-turning traffic. At least when the lights are red, the box should only be entered from that lane – that is why the normal stop line does not extend across the cycle lane. Its purpose is too often defeated by thoughtless cyclists blocking the exit from the lane into the box, leaving later arrivals stuck in the worst position possible.
A new convert to cycling?
http://i.guim.co.uk/media/w-620/h–/q-95/7e95ee85bb6de87eb4012dada6af825017787a15/0_0_3600_2365/1000.jpg
…..and on that bombshell………….
timbeau
LURVE the gormless expression!
Who is it, btw? [ I assume it’s some TV “personality” or other, ]
@ Greg – it’s Jeremy Clarkson. He was shown riding his bike while being pursued by paparazzi photographers who kept running in his way. One of the more comical things on the news this week.
@Greg
Perhaps I should have used this picture
http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article5405456.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/Jeremy-Clarkson.jpg
(Although I’d have thought the “bombshell” catchphrase would have been enough of a clue – or have you never watched the programme?)
timbeau
I do not have a TV – gave it up in about 1975.
[I removed this comment as it appeared to be a plug to encourage a visit to another website. The particular relevance to cycling and cycle highways was lost on me. PoP]
@Greg
“I do not have a TV – gave it up in about 1975.”
….in brief , then:
a vacancy has unexpectedly arisen at the BBC for a presenter with strong opinions on transport-related topics. One of the other presenters on the programme has a penchant for old Land Rovers.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/01/jeremy-clarkson-joins-guardian-drive-for-fossil-fuel-divestment
(posted before mid-day)
RE: ‘I removed this comment as it appeared to be a plug to encourage a visit to another website. The particular relevance to cycling and cycle highways was lost on me.’ PoP
Suffice to say the (Daily Mail) article mentions a forecast increase in traffic in both London and most of Britain’s major cities.
Therefore the reduction in road capacity due to the East-West superhighway is only going to add to congestion/gridlock.
Very relevant indeed.
Therefore the reduction in road capacity due to the East-West superhighway is only going to add to congestion/gridlock
This is not an inevitable consequence but a supposition. At the risk of begin accused of making a cheap dig, the sort of supposition taken for granted to be true by the Daily Mail which is why tend not to read it. It is all a lot more complicated than that. Taking a trivial extreme example, if you close a road completely then, far from the traffic getting worse, it disappears.
The link originally provided was this one to the thisismoney website which I am happy to provide. As a whole it it all just seemed like an obvious plug for the Daily Mail whereas a simple link to the article and an explanation as to what it was about would have been acceptable.
J
Suffice to say the (Daily Mail) article mentions a forecast increase in traffic in both London and most of Britain’s major cities.
Given the source of this article, then one can assume the opposite much more likely to be the case, then, can’t we?
timbeau
I know it is now April 2nd, but, if I can get Photobucket to post the correct URL, I would recommend the following, in riposte:
http://i463.photobucket.com/albums/qq356/Greg_Tingey/PA090219.jpg
[ Taken about 4 miles from the nearest tarmac …. ]
DfT road traffic forecasts are consistently optimistic (or pessimistic depending on your starting point) about future trends, see the graph here for instance: http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/roads/170412-phil-goodwin-ltt
@ Jonathan – the latest TfL roads report is here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/street-performance-report-quarter2-2014-2015.pdf
Traffic volumes in central London are continuing to decline. The increase in London traffic is in outer London.
You can’t assume that the cycle superhighways scheme will lead to increased congestion. “Traffic evaporation” through modal shift or peak spreading is often seen when highway capacity is reduced. In New York, journey times actually improved on the streets with cycle lanes.
I see that the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association has decided not to ask for a Judicial Review of the Superhighway scheme although their general secretary said they were confident it would have succeeded…
However the Licensed Taxis have lodged a Judicial Review in the High Court against LB Camden for the Tottenham Court Road scheme covered in another LR article.
Just to pick up again on the Royal Guards aspect of the article, TfL and the Royal Parks have agreed new plans for the route going past Buckingham Palace and these have gone out to consultation (plans available on the consultation section of the TfL website)
Also, my comment from May was the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association had decided not to ask for a Judicial Review for the Cycle Superhighway scheme.
However it now appears they have changed their mind and have lodged an application for a Judicial Review on the grounds that “TfL should have sought planning permission before beginning construction”, according to the Standard.
I know that the diggers have been out for a while on the Superhighway routes and although I haven’t been past there recently, I think there may even be some short sections already open with people cycling on them.
I really don’t know where the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association are coming from.
Their application for a Judicial Review for the Tottenham Court Road scheme was knocked back by the courts. They then they do a volte-face on the superhighways. For an organisation who are trying to appeal to the public against the threat presented by Uber, they don’t seem to be trying very hard to make friends.
[Wasn’t sure which of the cycle articles is the most appropriate for this comment]
Something that I don’t think we have discussed so far – keeping the segregated cycle infrastructure actually segregated during roadworks. On that issue – looks like a bit of a storm is brewing in Cable Street (CS3). This section (from Tower Hill towards Limehouse) is one of the earliest examples of fully segregated infrastructure, and gets really busy with bikes at rush hour. TFL and LBTH have closed this section of CS3 for three months – with no segregated diversion. This seems to (1) defeat the whole point of the CS routes and (2) be in contravention of TFL’s own advice on how roadworks should be managed.
The London Cycling Campaign are (understandably) not impressed.
http://lcc.org.uk/articles/chaos-on-the-cycle-superhighway-cs3
I noticed the same thing on the embankment when I cycled down there a few weeks ago – first thing they had done was to paint out the cycle lane.
@Reynolds953
I suspect LTDA might be out of time for this challenge. They would certainly be expected to explain why they had not raised this issue earlier, and ‘we didn’t think of it’ is not often convincing.
I find the LTDA position over the JR request somewhat mind boggling. I also wonder what on earth Mr Oddy, dep Gen Sec of the LTDA, is doing still sitting on the TfL Board. If there is such a fundamental objection to Mayoral / TfL policy shouldn’t he do the decent thing and quit?
Reynolds 953
Such is the labyrinthine obscurity of the TfL web-site, could I ask you to post a direct link to the consultation you mention in your post of: 17.45 hrs 19th August?
@Greg
I think this is the new consultation on a route past Buck House
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/east-west-spur-road
@Greg Tingey – here you go
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/east-west-spur-road/consult_view
I thought about posting the link but wasn’t sure how long TfL maintain them after consultations finish (4 October in this case) and it can be a bit annoying coming across “dead” links.
Thanks!
It’s interesting to note that the ES story on the new route past Buckingham Palace specifically (presumably as prompted by TfL) names the old Chief Executive of Royal Parks as the fundamental reason why an agreement could not have been reached previously.
Proposed changes to the areas around Vauxhall & the centre of Wandsworth….
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2015/november/delivering-safer-streets-in-wandsworth-and-vauxhall