Category Archives: Subjective safety

Westminster’s cycling strategy – how bad is it?

There was a flutter of excitement at the Cycle City Expo in Birmingham last Friday when Andrew Gilligan mentioned that the important (in many senses) London borough of Westminster would shortly publish a very ambitious cycling strategy, and not just … Continue reading

Posted in 20 mph limits, Andrew Gilligan, Boris Johnson, Car dependence, Cycling policy, Infrastructure, London, Subjective safety, Transport for London | 27 Comments

We don’t need ‘innovative’ solutions – just copy what works

We saw yesterday what Transport for London have been asking the Transport Research Laboratory to test for them. It is an almost exact copy of a conventional Dutch roundabout with perimeter cycle tracks. They have even copied across the Dutch … Continue reading

Posted in Absurd transport solutions, Andrew Gilligan, Infrastructure, Safety, Subjective safety, The Netherlands, Transport for London | 23 Comments

Bollards

After writing recently about gryatories and one-way systems – and how they can actually be beneficial for cycling, if applied judiciously – I thought I’d turn my attention to another piece of much-maligned urban infrastructure, the humble bollard. Frequently impugned … Continue reading

Posted in Bollards, Cycling policy, Infrastructure, London, Permeability, Subjective safety, The Netherlands | 7 Comments

Who is dying while riding a bike?

Some interesting statistics have just been released by the Dutch statistics bureau – their road deaths for 2012 [Translated here – thanks to Mark Wagenbuur]. I’ve presented here in chart form the age range of those dying while riding a bike … Continue reading

Posted in Infrastructure, Road safety, Subjective safety, The Netherlands | 9 Comments

Conflict between lorries and bicycles

To add to the distressing news of the death of the climatologist Kat Giles on Victoria Street two weeks ago, a young man on a Boris Bike was seriously injured in London last Friday in what seem to be very … Continue reading

Posted in Go Dutch, Infrastructure, Junction Review, London, Road safety, Subjective safety, Transport for London | 15 Comments

A failure at Aldgate

I recently attended the first seminar in a new LCC Policy series, at which the Cycling Commissioner Andrew Gilligan addressed an audience of about a hundred people, discussing in detail the future plans for cycling in London. Gilligan made it … Continue reading

Posted in Andrew Gilligan, Boris Johnson, Gyratories, Infrastructure, Junction Review, LCC, London, Subjective safety, Transport for London | 8 Comments

Pointless infighting

I spent an interesting hour or so yesterday discussing cycling in London, and the potential implications of the new strategy appearing from Transport for London, with Jack Thurston of the Bike Show, Bill Chidley, and Trevor Parsons of Hackney Cycling … Continue reading

Posted in CTC, Cycling Embassy Of Great Britain, Cycling policy, Hackney, Hierarchy of Provision, History, Infrastructure, LCC, London, Promotion, Subjective safety, The Netherlands, Transport for London | 10 Comments

Sustrans’ “Connect London”

There was some excellent news over the weekend, with the opening of the Two Tunnels route in Bath. The huge turnout, with people bikes and on foot eager to use this excellent new route into the centre of Bath, demonstrates … Continue reading

Posted in Boris Johnson, Cycle Superhighways, Cycling in parks, Go Dutch, Infrastructure, LCC, London, Subjective safety, Sustrans, The Netherlands, Transport for London | 8 Comments

Would you walk here?

The recent discussion on the ibikelondon and City Cyclists blogs about carriageway narrowing, and how it can be dreadfully unpleasant for cycling, started me thinking about precisely why these new arrangements are so awful. Beyond the fact that it makes … Continue reading

Posted in Infrastructure, London, Subjective safety | 11 Comments