With an hour or so to kill before visiting friends in London over the weekend, I decided to take a quick look at Stratford High Street, and what the promising plans from Transport for London for a kerb-separated track, running from the Stratford gyratory to Bow roundabout, might look like in practice. The consultation closes next Monday, the 11th of February, so if you do want to get your comments in (and I urge you to do so), I hope this picture-heavy post may be of some use to you.
Starting from the Stratford gyatory, and heading west, the TfL plan is for a 1.8 metre wide mandatory cycle lane.
Looking at the enormous amount of space available here, this doesn’t seem like the best solution.The wide area to the left is purely for left turns onto Tramway Avenue (West Ham Lane). Given the boldness of the main section of this scheme (about which more later) this does seem to be a bit of a cop-out. No bus stop bypasses, no cycle track, and no traffic lanes taken away from the gyratory. The cycle lane will be painted between this bus and three lanes of traffic. Not a nice place to cycle.
A little further on, there is another bus stop.
All that will change here is that the cycle lane will be painted blue, and made ‘mandatory’; the same arrangement as for the previous bus stop. It is not clear to me why Transport for London have not chosen to employ a cycle track passing behind the bus stops on this section of the Superhighway, like they have on the remainder of the route to and from Bow.
As we leave the gyratory and progress down Stratford High Street, however, we start to see the substantial improvements; those that will make this currently rather terrifying road somewhere suitable for anyone of any age or ability to ride a bike.
The nearside lane here will disappear, and be converted into a 2 metre wide track, separated by a kerb from the carriageway (but will the railings be removed too?)
It’s a fantastically bold step from Transport for London. This whole vehicle lane will become a safe, protected cycle track, all the way to Bow Roundabout (just visible in the distance).
At the junction with Cam Road, there is a slightly confusing proposal for an Advanced Stop Line, which doesn’t strike me as being necessary.
You can’t turn right directly at this point – so I’m not sure why the ASL is being suggested. It seems entirely pointless. As we shall see, these single-lane ASLs reappear elsewhere on Stratford High Street, and are potentially quite dangerous in these other locations.
A little further, we come to the first of the bus stop bypasses.
Here’s the location –
As you can see from the plans, when a bus stops, it will do so in the approximate position of the silver car (leaving just one lane free for motor vehicles). The bus stop will be in lane 1, and the cycle track will pass behind it, leaving a very large amount of pavement free for pedestrian movement.
In principle, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this arrangement. Of course, there will need to be clarity, and ease of crossing the track for more vulnerable pedestrians. But I cannot foresee any problems once both people on bikes and pedestrians in the area get used to the design.
Next we have a reasonably major junction, with Wise Road and Carpenters Road.
This is a bit of a bodge, unfortunately. If you wish to turn right, notice how the kerb separation finishes only a few tens of metres from the junction itself. There is no way that you can safely make your way across to the right hand part of the ASL in that distance, with traffic progressing straight ahead in both lanes. A sensible option would be to wait for a red light, then position yourself in the ASL. Or, fiddle your way around the junction on the shared pavements (in yellow), using the pedestrian crossings.
To be fair, you can’t really blame Transport for London here. We do not have any precedent for a cycle track design that allows right turns at junctions. It simply hasn’t been done. What should really happen is that you should progress beyond Wise Road, then wait to cross Stratford High Street on a cycle track aligned with a single-stage pedestrian crossing. But we’ve never done a design like this –
Image taken from Mark Wagenbuur’s excellent explanatory video here
in the UK. So to an extent TfL are fumbling around in the dark a bit, and making the best of a bad job.
Here’s the next bus stop –
Again, the bus will be stopping one lane further out, and the shelter will be approximately where the bus is. There is, as you can see, acres of space to the left of the bus for a track and a separate pavement.
Now to the biggest junction on Stratford High Street, that with Rick Roberts Way.
To make a right turn here, you’re either going to have to get into lane 3 (again, a dangerous near-impossibility from the track itself) or, more sensibly, progress through the junction, mount the pavement on the south-west side, and then enter the ASL at the mouth of Rick Roberts Way to the south, and wait for a green light. This will work, but it is far from ideal. TfL are constrained, I think, by the lack of a precedent for cycle track design at large junctions, but plonking cyclists on the pavement is not the way forward.
I would also stress here that the ASLs planned at this junction look to me to be incredibly dangerous, given that they may encourage cyclists to make right turns from lane 1, when there will almost certainly be motor vehicles heading straight on from lane 2. A recipe for conflict.
From here on to the Bow flyover, it’s fairly plain sailing. The protected track continues all the way to the roundabout, again replacing this traffic lane.
There’s another bus stop bypass, and another curious ASL, which doesn’t seem to serve any purpose at all.
There are some good details; for instance Hunts Lane will have a speed table installed (good for pedestrians crossing the road, as well as for reducing vehicle speeds).
Now heading east, back along Stratford High Street from Bow roundabout. At present, the exit from the roundabout is effectively a two-way road, with fairly thin cycle lanes on either side. The reason this cycle lane (and traffic lane) is here is because if you want to head west from the buildings on the north of the road (on the left in the photograph), the flyover means you can’t do so without travelling a good distance east.
The plan seems to be to remove the west-bound cycle lane (on the right in the picture above), and to move all the markings right to make room for a wider (mandatory) cycle lane.
If you want to cycle west, you will now do so on a shared use pavement (marked in cream). Another bodge, I have to say. A better solution would be a wide, two-way cycle track. As you can see from the photograph below, there is plenty of space between the building frontage and the flyover for such a track. A shared use pavement does not strike me as especially ‘Dutch’; more ‘will this do?’
There’s a bus stop a little further along –
Unfortunately, despite the good bypass plans elsewhere along this route, the proposals at this location are a bit rubbish.
The bus stop and the cycle lane are sort of wedged in together so motor vehicles can pass stopped buses on the outside, with cyclists having to do exactly the same thing (the very thing the designs elsewhere on the Superhighway avoid). Meanwhile westbound cyclists will be using the pavement past the rear of bus stop, which is not a great idea. It’s messy, and it’s come about because TfL apparently don’t want buses to stop eastbound motor vehicles, even momentarily. (These vehicles will, of course, only be arriving at the next inevitable queue at a red traffic light slightly more early). If the bus stop was moved out to the double white line, then there would be plenty of space available for a decent solution. This needs to happen.
There’s not much else to comment on regarding the return journey; it’s broadly similar to the westbound cycle track. At the junction of Rick Roberts Way (already referred to) this eastbound sea of cars
will be reduced from five queuing lanes to three.
Right turns should safely be made by the method described above; progress through the junction, then use the shared use pavement to enter the ASL, and wait for a green light. The blue ASLs on Stratford High Street itself however are – to repeat – bizarre and potentially very dangerous.
Another bus stop bypass will be located here, with buses stopping in the position of the Mercedes –
And then we arrive at Stratford gyratory.
Here the cycle track (which will be in the bus lane) comes to an end, and if you don’t wish to cycle around the gyratory, you will have to go up onto the pavement, and use the two crossings, to then continue in the contraflow bus lane on the southern side of the gyratory.
The bus lane contraflow –
It’s certainly preferable to cycling on the gyratory itself, but again, hardly ‘Dutch’ in approach. With a bit more boldness it would be easy, in principle, to implement an eastbound cycle track here, separated from buses, given the enormous width available (this is the same stretch of road where there will be merely a cycle lane for those heading west, as referenced at the start of this post).
This is where TfL’s ambition appears to have run out.
Further round the contraflow, there’s even evidence of a former attempt to provide for cycling away from buses – some faded hieroglyphs on the pavement.
And of course the pavement on the other side is ‘shared use’.This area really needs the same continuity and quality of design as the cycle track being proposed on Stratford High Street; a clear, smooth and direct route, away from buses and pedestrians. It’s entirely possible; but TfL seem to have given up on the gyratory itself. A pity.
So, in summary. This is a really fantastic step change in approach from Transport for London; reallocating road space, and creating safe, comfortable tracks that people can cycle in, away from motor traffic. Unfortunately it has been let down slightly by an unsatisfactory approach to large junctions (TfL can’t entirely be blamed here; they don’t really have a toolkit to work with), a strange ASL obsession which may create danger, and an inadequate solution for the Stratford gyratory, in both directions, particularly heading west, and also for the eastbound section by Bow roundabout. Nevertheless the proposals do deserve (qualified) support; it’s quite remarkable how far TfL have come in just a year. Please send your comments to them.
I thought I’d impart a little bit of advice on an aspect of bike maintenance that was slightly foreign to me, and hopefully that I can explain with the aid of pictures. If you are an expert bike mechanic, then this probably isn’t the post for you, as I expect you know all this already. If not, then I hope it is of some use, if you have a gear set-up similar to mine.
The joy of a solidly built Dutch bike is that it is almost entirely maintenance-free, so these kinds of maintenance issues are something that you don’t really have to deal with. To put this into perspective, I’ve had my Workcycles Omafiets for about nine months now, and cycled with it in some pretty awful weather.
But apart from mending one puncture (a hawthorn spike went straight through my rear tyre), pumping up the tyres every month or so, and wiping down the frame and wheels with a cloth, what I am about to describe is the only bit of ‘servicing’ I’ve had to do. No chain cleaning, no brake maintenance – nothing else. (By contrast, my previous bike did require a fair amount of regular cleaning and maintenance of the transmission in particular, because it was exposed to the elements.)
After a few months of riding, I started to experience some small issues with my gears. Nothing too serious – just that they wouldn’t engage in the gear I wanted, or would jump from one to another. The problem results from the gear cable stretching with use, meaning that it is no longer pulling the parts of the hub gear into the proper position for smooth gear changes.
Anyway, here’s what you need to do to address this problem if you have a similar Shimano Nexus hub. The first thing to do is to set your gear adjuster in number 4 – it is marked with a small dot on the display, for clarity (mine is an eight speed, with a coaster brake – but the same principle applies for other Shimano hub gears; select the ‘marked’ gear).
Next, you need to remove the chain case. Mine has a simple detachable rear section, that pulls off smoothly. Just squeeze in at the top to release –
then move back to detach.
This will expose the chain, and (for our purposes) the relevant part of the rear hub.
You will be able to see, by looking down on it, two yellow markings, just outside the chain – visible in the picture above.
If you want to eliminate clunky and uncertain gear changes, the two yellow markings have to line up (they represent the ‘fixed’ part of the hub itself, and the rotating adjusting section, that actually shifts the gears inside the hub – but that’s not too important).
It’s very easy to do this – you just need to fiddle with the gear adjustment knurl back up on the handlebars. It lies on the cable coming out of the gear shifter.
Rotating the knurl will allow you to line up the yellow markings. I was going to go into a description of which way you need to rotate it, but on reflection it’s much easier if you just turn it a little bit and see which way the yellow marking has moved. If it’s got closer, keep rotating in that direction; if not, you need to rotate it the other way.
Once they’re lined up, you’re all set. All you need to do is replace the end of the chain case (slot it in at the bottom first, then click the top bit in) and you’re ready to go. Done!
do not base policies about cycling on the views and experiences of existing committed cyclists. These are a minority who have, against all the odds, successfully negotiated a hostile urban environment to incorporate cycling into their everyday routines. It is necessary to talk – as we have done – to non-cyclists, potential cyclists, former cyclists, and recreational cyclists to determine what would encourage them to make more use of this transport mode.
The Report investigated the barriers to cycling (and also to walking) in Great Britain. It did so, quite reasonably, by asking people who didn’t cycle why they didn’t, and what would need to change for them to consider a bicycle as an everyday mode of transport. One of their major conclusions – alongside the problems of the perceived abnormality of cycling, and of inconvenience – was that cycling in and amongst motor traffic was a deeply unappealing prospect to most people.
To summarise, from our analysis of the influence of the physical environment on cycling it is clear that traffic is a major deterrent for all but the most committed cyclists. Potential cyclists, recreational (off-road) cyclists and occasional cyclists are discouraged from using their bicycles for everyday urban journeys because of their fear of cars and heavy goods vehicles.
Also
it is essential that the urban environment is made safe for cyclists. This requires the provision of fully segregated cycle routes on all arterial and other busy roads in urban areas. It is clear from the research that most non-cyclists and recreational cyclists will only consider cycling regularly if they are segregated from traffic.
The word ‘segregated’ is, I think, slightly unhelpful, with its negative connotations. A better word to use might be ‘separated’; separated by tracks on those roads with heavier traffic flows, and the use of filtered permeability and one-way systems to create a ‘separated’ cycling experience on other streets (see David Hembrow’s excellent explanation of how the Dutch employ these principles to create ‘100% separation’).
This is a point the Understanding Walking & Cycling Report makes, in a slightly less direct fashion –
there need to be effective restrictions on traffic speeds, parking and access on all residential roads and other routes without segregated cycle paths so that cyclists feel that they have a safe and convenient environment in which to travel. This could include 20mph speed limits and resident-only access by car in some areas.
The emphasis, throughout the Report, is on creating a subjectively safe environment for cycling, one in which people on bikes rarely have to mix with motor traffic. This is because, as the Report established, the people we need to get cycling do not want to mix with motor traffic. And it’s not just the Understanding Walking and Cycling Report that has found this; survey after survey [pdf] repeatedly demonstrates the basic unwillingness of the vast majority of the British population to cycle amongst motor vehicles.
I hope that the current All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group inquiry, Get Britain Cycling, will pay heed to this lesson, and engage seriously with the opinions of those who cycle occasionally (for instance, while on holiday, or on trails away from roads), or those who do not cycle, but would like to do so (my partner, and several other of my acquaintances), or those who do not cycle, and have not even considered doing so. These are the very people we need to be listening to.
Unfortunately, a serious historical problem in this country has been the formulation of cycling policy around the opinions of existing cyclists. This is not to say that their opinions are worthless, far from it; people who currently cycle have invaluable first-hand experience of the problems and difficulties that face those who choose to use a bicycle as a basic mode of transport.
However – and at the risk of stating the obvious – existing cyclists are far more likely to be satisfied with conditions for cycling than those that currently do not cycle. Most of the people who cycle for transport in Britain are reasonably happy cycling on roads that are in reality extraordinarily unappealing as a cycling environment for the vast majority of the population.
To take just one example, existing cyclists in Horsham will probably use the road pictured above quite often; it connects the town centre to the train station, and to much of the north of the town. However, I can vividly remember avoiding it like the plague when, as a teenager, I was forced to use a bicycle (my parents were away) to cycle to the Post Office to pick up a parcel. I meandered all over town using back streets, hugging kerbs, because the prospect of cycling on a road with heavy traffic, and buses and lorries, was deeply unnerving.
Through a series of happy coincidences, I kept cycling into adulthood, but I am a statistical outlier. Most people wouldn’t even bother getting on a bike in the first place, or they would have given up once they gained the ability to drive (perversely, driving in British towns and cities is a much easier and more pleasant experience than cycling in them).
It is surely the opinions of the people who are put off by the notion of cycling on this kind of road that we should be seeking out as a first priority, if we are to establish why cycling levels in Britain remain so pitifully low, and what needs to change. This is because seeking out the opinions of existing cyclists will most probably get you very different answers; answers that do not correspond to the opinions of those deterred from ever cycling on these roads in the first place.
Existing cyclists will (understandably) tend to come up with policies that will focus on improving their own subjective experience of cycling, rather than addressing the specific reasons non-cyclists give for their reluctance to cycle. Indeed, the attitudes and opinions of non-cyclists will often be completely overlooked. This is not a criticism; it would unreasonable to expect otherwise. But it is a problem.
For one thing, existing cyclists tend to be fixated on ameliorating the behaviour of the vehicles around them. They will often argue that it is cheaper and more sensible to focus on ‘changing attitudes’, and to force drivers to behave better. To impose stiffer penalties for dangerous driving; to make the driving test harder, or to incorporate cycling knowledge into it; or a system of presumed liability; and so on.
These attitudes are entirely understandable, of course; badly driven vehicles are the most pressing concern of day-to-day cyclists. If all vehicles were driven perfectly, then the cycling experience of existing cyclists would be something approaching a pleasure.
Unfortunately this approach – while reasonable and a worthy goal to aim at – ignores the overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of the population does not want to cycle in motor traffic, full stop. It is the experience of cycling in motor traffic itself that is intimidating and unpleasant; not the fact that some of those motor vehicles may be badly driven (although it is worth emphasizing that a bad experience with one of those substandard drivers can discourage people from cycling for a considerable period).
Calls for presumed liability also fall into this category. As someone who rides a bike on Britain’s roads on a daily basis, I am, as it happens, very keen to see drivers held more accountable. Presumed liability would have saved me the cost of repairing my bike after I was driven into by a motorist in 2011, for instance. However, the idea that people who currently don’t cycle are holding out for subtle changes to the insurance claim system is completely fanciful. Presumed liability will not ‘Get Britain Cycling.’
Likewise, existing cyclists are keen on 20 mph limits as a ‘solution’ on busier roads to get more people cycling. Reducing the speed differential between themselves and motor vehicles makes cycling easier, and less hazardous. But again, just as with attempting to get drivers to behave better, it fails to engage with the reasons why people don’t cycle; that they simply find the idea of using a bicycle amongst motor vehicles unpleasant. When I cycle in London, I doubt motor traffic around me will often exceed 20 mph by a great deal; however, that low speed does little to lessen the impression of a deeply hostile cycling environment.
Likewise, there are 20 mph limits in Horsham (indeed, one of the first 20 mph limits in the country). One of these roads with a 20 mph limit, however, is not a pleasant place to cycle at all, even for me, because it is regularly choked with motor vehicles, and you have to ‘share’ and ‘negotiate’ with lorries and buses; (usually) well-driven lorries and buses.
Many existing cyclists also state a preference for bus lanes over cycle tracks. Indeed, this has even been formalised into Department for Transport guidance, LTN 2/08 –
Bus lanes are generally popular with cyclists… They are often preferred over offroad facilities as a result of the advantage of remaining in the carriageway and therefore having priority at side roads
Unlike substandard off-carriageway British cycling ‘provision’, bus lanes are continuous, smooth and coherent – everything cycle tracks should be, and indeed are in certain European countries. (The idea that cycle tracks could be as good as bus lanes is something that does not appear to have occurred to the writers of LTN 2/08.)
However, you also have to share bus lanes with buses; buses have to come past you between stops, and you have to cycle out and around them when buses are stopped. Bus lanes also don’t really help you to make right turns at busy junctions. This is to say nothing of taxis, motorcycles, and other vehicles you may have to share bus lanes with outside of peak hours.
For all these reasons, bus lanes are quite scary places to be for those who don’t currently cycle; they are certainly not an appealing prospect. Dutch and Danish cycling advocates would regard it as ‘inhumane’ to put cyclists into the same space as buses, for instance. Bus lanes will not ‘Get Britain Cycling’. But unfortunately some existing cyclists cannot understand the reluctance of the general public to cycle in bus lanes, and fail to see the rationale behind cycle tracks that bypass bus stops, arguing that wider bus lanes will be sufficient. These cyclists insist that ‘they are traffic’ when the idea of being forced to become ‘traffic’ is precisely what discourages most ordinary people from cycling.
Another favourite of some existing cyclists is the employment of training as a means of bringing about cycling in the general population. Now I think training is important; it should almost certainly form a part of the school curriculum, as it does in the Netherlands. If children aregoing to end up cycling in large numbers, we should provide them with some instruction on how to do so.
However, some existing cyclists – some influential ones – seem to view training (or ‘confidence’) as a substitute for the infrastructure that provides a subjective impression of safety. These are people who view cycle tracks as a place for the less able, or for those who wish to build up their confidence before progressing to their natural home on the road itself. These cyclists argue that, rather than providing cycle tracks – which they see as places for the less confident, places where they can ‘spend months practising’ – the same ‘results’ can be achieved in just a few hours of training. Astoundingly, these arguments may even be presented to the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group inquiry this week.
I’m not quite sure why these individuals hold this opinion. Perhaps it is because they themselves cycle confidently, and get into less difficulty than those who are unable or unwilling to cycle confidently. So, in their minds, they have made a connection between confidence and the smoothness of the cycling experience. More confidence = less problematic cycling.
Unfortunately, such an attitude fails to appreciate that cycling amongst or in front of motor vehicles is simply not an activity that most people want to engage in, regardless of how much ‘confidence’ we can instil in them. It is nowhere near as pleasant as cycling away from motor vehicles, and consequently, because cycling away from motor vehicles is not available as an option, these people walk, drive or use public transport. They will not be brow-beaten into finding this kind of cycling a pleasant experience.
I could go on. Some existing cyclists are advocates of the creation of ‘shared space’ instead of cycle tracks on busier urban thoroughfares (even, bizarrely, in the context of the Superhighway extension on Stratford High Street). Others think bicycle crime is a serious barrier to mass cycling (it isn’t). I even heard showers at work being raised as an issue at the first session of the Inquiry last week.
These are all problems that existing cyclists want addressed; they get sweaty cycling to work; or their bike is stolen; or they get overtaken closely by a motorist; or a motorist took a slightly unnecessary risk. But they are not even on the radar of the people who might want to cycle to school with their children, or might want to cycle to the shops, but have no option to do so because of hostile, car-oriented street design, that force them to cycle amongst motor traffic.
I would desperately like to see these kinds of people giving evidence to the Get Britain Cycling Inquiry; people like this 50+ year old lady in Richmond, or the lady mostly confined to pavements on her trike, or the schoolchildren who love to ride their bikes, but never cycle to school. In many ways their views would be of far more relevance and importance than the well-meaning usual suspects, who seemingly continue to miss the elephant in the room – the general reluctance to cycle around motor vehicles.
I really hope this Inquiry does not spend an inordinate amount of time discussing issues and policies that would have, at best, only a marginal influence on bringing about mass cycling, and pays attention instead to the factors that the Understand Walking and Cycling Report identified, by actually talking to the people we need to be talking to.
A couple of weeks ago, Transport Xtra magazine received a letter on the subject of ‘bus stop bypasses’ – specifically related to Transport for London’s plans to run the cycle tracks they are proposing on Stratford High Street behind a ‘waiting island’, where bus passengers could embark and disembark from buses without crossing the cycle track.
The letter writer, Brian Dalton – while obviously sympathetic to the cause of cycling – didn’t really seem to ‘get’ the concept, which is a pity. His letter is below.
Transport for London’s cycle superhighway plan for bus stops is a good idea, in theory, but has implications in operation (“Bus stop ‘bypasses’ feature in cycle superhighway to Stratford” LTT 21 Dec 12). The cyclist, going along approaches a bus stop, what does he do? If there is no bus stopped, he doesn’t divert into a conflict area with pedestrians, he merely continues going on. But when the bus is stopped and potential passengers are making their way to get on the bus, the cyclist is pitched among boarding passengers just when their minds are elsewhere. This is not a good idea.
Bus stop lay-bys were removed for operational reasons which still hold good and I’m not suggesting they should be reintroduced. However, an inset area would allow the cyclists to pass the stationary bus within the confines of the nearside lane without the need for the use of the outer lane or, indeed, the opposing flow lane.
I know this might appear to be tickling at the design, but a cycle lane round the rear of bus stops would require a mass of safety fencing and tactile paving, that no-one understands, which would be expensive and unsightly and prevent free flow of pedestrians. The idea also shows that traffic engineers are still lumping together cyclists with pedestrians instead of keeping cycles where they belong, in the carriageway.
Sustrans’ Connect London is a project I would wholeheartedly recommend. At present the old London Cycle Network+, which provided about a third of the LCN, is a disjointed mishmash of provision. Although in the most part well-designed and built, there are massive gaps in the network combined with barriers to safer use that need to be addressed and tied together in a structured way. Sustrans is the organisation that, by providing an overview, successfully completed the enormous National Cycle Network and followed it up with the successful nationwide Connect 2 concept. They appear to be bringing that expertise to the rescue of London cyclists, which may be just what we need.
My response – which Transport Xtra have kindly published – is also not available without a subscription, so I reproduce it here –
Brian Dalton’s letter on the subject of Transport for London’s design for bus stop bypasses along Cycle Superhighway 2 to Stratford (Letters LTT 11 Jan) is confused in several respects.
Mr Dalton assumes that such a bypass would present anyone on a bicycle with an ‘option’ to duck behind a bus stop, instead of using the carriageway. He claims that, when a bus is not stopped, cyclists would naturally continue using the carriageway, as there would be no impediment to their progress.
But this is not how the Transport for London design works at all. The bypass is simply one small section of a continuous off-carriageway cycle track, physically separated from the carriageway. Anyone progressing along this cycle track would continue to use it regardless of whether a bus is halted in a stop or not; it would not make sense to divert from a cycle track into the carriageway even if a bus is absent.
Mr Dalton also claims that “a cycle lane round the rear of bus stops would require a mass of safety fencing and tactile paving”. While there will certainly be a requirement for defined kerb separation between the track and the pavement areas, and for tactile paving to indicate defined crossing points, I fail to see the need for a ‘mass’ of safety fencing. Guardrailing between pedestrians and motor vehicles along the edges of pavements is (thankfully) increasingly rare; it certainly should not be required in these cycle track designs.
Finally, the TfL plans do not “lump cyclists together with pedestrians”, as Mr Dalton suggests. Cyclists are to be given their own clearly defined space, a two-metre wide track that will be built on the existing carriageway, and separated from the pavement by kerbs. The bypass arrangement is the best way of allowing these continuous cycle tracks to pass the bus stop, while minimising conflict.
While there are some minor problems with the design, it is imperative to recognise that similar bus stop bypasses are standard practice in countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark – countries that have very high cycling levels as a consequence of well-designed infrastructure.
I’m glad that TfL has started paying attention.
I suspect much of the confusion might have stemmed from the fact that the design is being referred to as a ‘bypass’, which implies giving people on bikes an ‘option’ to swerve behind buses – and also from the fact that we don’t generally seem to know anything about continental-style design for cycling in this country (witness Mr Dalton’s assumption that cyclists would be proceeding ‘in the carriageway’ both before and after the bus stop).
A cycle track like this provides an environment where people on bikes don’t feel the need to race along; they can cycle calmly, and in a civilised manner, which renders the need for the ‘protective fencing’ referred to by Mr Dalton completely unnecessary.
Furthermore such a design also means that buses and cyclists are not continually overlapping each other; buses having to overtake bikes between stops, and cyclists having to negotiate their way out around the bus while it is stopped. It works for both bus users and cyclists.
Another example from the Alternative Department for Transport –
Those children don’t look at all out of place on this kind of design. By complete contrast, I have yet to see any children cycling like that on that road, under its current configuration. It would be a startling and unusual sight.
If we’re really going to have a ‘cycling revolution’ in London, good design that works for all potential users of bikes is essential. Transport for London seem to be starting to head in the right direction (witness also their trialling of a Dutch-style roundabout with segregated tracks, for implementation at Lambeth Bridge), and we should welcome their boldness.
This post has been mouldering in my drafts folder for several months as I pondered the relevance of banging on about Exhibition Road, and shared space, once again, but it’s probably worth releasing, even if much of what I say has already been said before.
It’s unlikely that a road as expensive as Exhibition Road will be proposed in the near future. At £35,000 per metre (£29 million for 820 metres), it is most definitely a very costly experiment in street design. The cost of the street may prove to be immensely valuable, however, in demonstrating some of the limits of the application of ‘shared space’ philosophy.
It is important to stress that I do not dislike, or detest, the redesign of Exhibition Road – indeed, it is better than what was there before. Nor do I argue that the environment for cyclists and pedestrians has not been improved – I think it has. I also believe that a small degree of uncertainty introduced by the new arrangement does, in general, lead to slightly more careful driving than would be the case under the previous arrangement, and also that the road might be safer.
What concerns me is that the benefits of this new arrangement – and indeed of a number of other shared space redesigns in London that have in common a particularly high volume of motor traffic continuing to pass through them – are being wildly overstated. Claims for what these new layouts have achieved in terms of user behaviour often bear little relation to reality. Worse still, the alleged achievements are being used to belittle other approaches; approaches with proven success.
I have already written two lengthypieces detailing how shared space is erroneously being presented as something of a universal solution to the improvement of our streets and roads by a number of urban designers and transport planners, as well as by a good portion of the media.
A case in point is Simon Jenkins, perhaps one of the most vocal journalists in favour of shared space, whose output on the topic is fairly prodigious – two articles last year on the topic, in short succession, and media appearances in which he disparages the separation of motor vehicles from people, and overstates the advantages of shared space.
Both of his newspaper articles contained a number of canards, half-truths and outright delusions that are repeated as fact. In the first, published nearly a year ago on the 31st January, and entitled Shared Space is The Future For London’s Roads, he writes
It is 20 years since towns and cities across Europe began redesigning their streets, moving from the traffic – circulating zones festooned with railings and traffic lights beloved of British town planners. Some 400 European towns have converted thoroughfares to spaces adapted for all to use, with redesigns that respect rather than abuse the buildings facing onto them.
London has, over the years, pedestrianised some of its shopping streets, such as South Molton and Carnaby and Leicester Square. It has attempted a few, highly dangerous, bus lanes and contraflows, such as in Oxford Street and Piccadilly, the latter now abandoned. The boldest council was Tory Kensington and Chelsea, first dipping a toe in the water at Kensington High Street.
This was partly stripped of signs, railings and clutter. Bike refuges were put down the centre to encourage people to linger in the roadway and junctions were raised. Pedestrians now wander at will, slowing the traffic and rendering the neighbourhood people-friendly. There has been a 60 per cent drop in accidents and a relative pick-up in retail lettings.
Kensington High Street – the redesign that Jenkins considers the most bold of this period – has been improved, it is true. The pavements are wider, and much of the guardrailing has been removed. But it is simply incorrect to say that pedestrians ‘wander at will’ in the carriageway, ‘slowing the traffic.’ Try this – attempt to just meander about at leisure in the road on Kensington High Street – and you will be honked at, driven at, or possibly even run over.
Now of course people will be crossing the road here at places (largely) of their choosing, but to suggest that they are doing so ‘at will’, or that they are capable of slowing the traffic in doing so, is dishonest. They will be crossing when motor vehicles are not approaching – crossing, that is, in ways rather similar to how they crossed before, prior to the removal of clutter. The claims Jenkins is making for the new civility of Kensington High Street are exaggerated.
Note also the false dichotomy Jenkins presents in this passage between ‘traffic-circulating zones festooned with railings and traffic lights’ and shared space; a dichotomy that gets repeated later in the piece –
Shared space, or “naked streets”, is a concept still little understood by a British public steeped in the old religion of urban traffic. This holds that road space is for vehicles alone, their drivers being, by definition, irresponsible, stupid, selfish zombies whose safe driving can be assured only by physical barriers, lights, signs, road marks and highway codes. Potential victims – that is, other road users – must be corralled and caged along congested sidewalks in what is an iniquitous allocation of space.
That is, segregation represents the ugly, failed 1960s approach to road design, in which pedestrians and vulnerable users are ‘corralled’ and ‘caged’ away in small areas of road space, for the convenience of motor vehicles. The only alternative we have to this bankrupt approach, it seems, is that of shared space, tried and tested across the continent, which ceases to keep vulnerable users tucked out of the way, and acknowledges that our streets and roads are not just for cars.
But as I have said before, this is a false choice, in that it presents shared space as the only alternative to the pedestrian- and cyclist-hostile segregation of the 1960s and 70s. It glosses over – indeed ignores outright – the potential we have to improve our streetscape for vulnerable users, by methods different to those employed by shared space; namely by segregation itself. The concept of ‘segregation’ – so evidently detested by shared space devotees like Jenkins – canbe used to ameliorate our urban environment for vulnerable users. Not, obviously, in the ways it has been employed in this country over the last 50 years, but in ways seen on the continent (the same continent which Jenkins seems to think is covered in shared space), in which, rather than segregating the vulnerable user away from the car, the car is segregated away from the vulnerable user.
Segregation, in other words, works for the convenience of pedestrians and bicycle users, rather than for the convenience of the motor vehicle. The streets and roads are designed preferentially for people on foot and on bicycle. This could mean, for instance, roads closed to motor vehicles, entirely; it could, elsewhere, mean a drastic reduction in the amount of space given to motor vehicles. But in all cases ‘sharing’ between motor vehicle and pedestrians is not assumed; the streets are physically given over to bicycles and walkers.
This approach – what you might call ‘benign segregation’ – gives over more space to vulnerable users, just like shared space is supposed to do – but, crucially, without that extra space being shared with motor vehicles. Most Dutch towns and cities are now benignly segregated, with motor vehicle journeys in their centres being made either impossible, or inconvenient by comparison with other modes.
To lump in that kind of segregation, achieved over the last 40 years, with the horrible UK forms of segregation – a genuine surrender to the motor vehicle – would be intellectually dishonest; yet this kind of benign segregation features nowhere in Jenkins’ analysis, or indeed in the analyses of Daniel Moylan (no longer Deputy Chair of Transport for London, having been appointed to lead Boris Johnson’s airport review), or of Ben Hamilton-Baillie. Reading what they write, you would form the impression that segregation is simply bad, no matter what form it takes. (As I have noted before, Moylan thinks shared space is appropriate on the vast majority of London’s roads, even those that carry large volumes of motor traffic.)
This is the essence of Jenkins’ second piece, which lays into the Times’ Cities Fit for Cycling Campaign (then just launched) on the basis that it overstated the danger on London’s roads, which Jenkins argued was declining all the time (a trend that has gone into reverse, even at the time Jenkins was writing), and also because it failed to mention or take into account the way shared space is transforming London, and making it safer for all. He writes
Nothing in the [Times’] campaign indicates familiarity with new traffic theory as applied to cyclists, which is strange when its best exemplar, Exhibition Road, has just opened in South Kensington. The theory holds that the safety of lesser urban streets lies not in traffic segregation but in its opposite, sharing, since that is most effective in reducing speed. The much-vaunted Dutch approach to cycling relies on drivers getting used to negotiating with other road users through eye contact, especially at natural speed calmers such as crossroads.
Jenkins plainly has no idea what the ‘much-vaunted Dutch approach to cycling’ actually involves – namely, sustainable safety, and separation of bicycle traffic as much as is possible from motor traffic. He instead prefers to pontificate about ‘new traffic theory’, completely ignorant, it seems, of the fact that ‘shared space’ is disliked by Dutch cyclists and their representative bodies, and forms only a miniscule part of the Dutch urban realm. As Cycalogical wrote in response to this piece
If Jenkins had bothered to read the shared space literature, he would know that space only gets shared where motor traffic volumes are low enough. And if he knew anything about the Dutch experience, it’s not about less control. On the contrary, there are lots of controls both to keep motor vehicles away from cycles, and to keep motor vehicles out of residential areas – the shared spaces that he seems to think are free-for-alls. In fact, as I write this I’m realising it will simply take too long to refute and correct all the nonsense in this article – it’s like trying to review an article about brain surgery written by Katie Price.
Quite. The most striking bit of nonsense comes towards the end of Jenkins’ article –
The ability of road engineering and regulating to make London cycling less dangerous must be exhausted. Cycling on traffic-filled streets is inherently risky.
A passage in which Jenkins, in the second sentence, accidentally grasps the real safety problem, while in the first sentence amazingly assumes that all solutions to that problem, other than shared space, have already been ‘exhausted’.
The issue is motor traffic; if your streets remain ‘traffic-filled’ then of course cycling will remain inherently risky, simply by virtue of a greater number of interactions. The solution is to separate; not by pushing cyclists and pedestrians into underpasses, or behind barriers, or making them wait together on pavements using toucan crossings, but to reclaim urban space for both these groups.
And now, after that circuitous introduction, I can turn to the subject of this post – Exhibition Road, and what we can learn from its redesign. Setting aside the eye-watering cost, if you can, the redesign has been greatly valuable in a way that was probably unintended, because it has served to demonstrate the conditions under which shared space works quite well, and those under which it doesn’t work in anything like the way intended (or – how it functions less optimally for pedestrians and bicycle users than other possible street arrangements). This is because there are two distinct sections of Exhibition Road which, while virtually identical in design, function in completely different ways in practice.
The southern section, south of the A4 Cromwell Road is rather splendid, and works as shared space should – with plenty of actual… sharing. There is nearly always mingling across the full width of the street by pedestrians.
People are still prepared to mingle and linger even when the occasional motor vehicle approaches.
This ‘innate’ sharing is only partially a function of the design. Indeed, it has to be due to something else beyond the design, because (as we shall see) the layout of Exhibition Road north of Cromwell Road is identical, yet pedestrian behaviour is very different there.
Now it is probably true that people would be less likely to mill across the street if, instead of a uniform surface, there was clear demarcation between pavements and a tarmac road. But far more important in enabling ‘sharing’ is the fact there is actually a large degree of ‘separation’ on this section of Exhibition Road; the separation of people and motor vehicles.
There is very little motor traffic travelling through here – you can see this from the photographs above – principally because the road does not go anywhere. It only sends you around a one-way system, leaving you right back where you started – as this coach driver is finding out, as he goes into reverse.
Very little motor traffic means that people are happy to take their time crossing this space.
And the scarcity of motor traffic means that when a motor vehicle does pass through here, it is most definitely on the pedestrians’ terms. A car or a van is almost always on its own, and has to abide by the behaviour of the pedestrians surrounding it.
In effect, this is a pavement, on which motor vehicles have permission to drive. But the overriding factor governing the sharing seen on this section of the road must be the small amount of motor traffic, in comparison to relatively high pedestrian footfall. We know this because people are very happy to linger in roads that look conventionally like a road, if motor traffic is sufficiently low and slow, and there are sufficient numbers of pedestrians. For instance, the very conventional Narrow Quay in Bristol –
We were even able to stand in the middle of the road and have a discussion – despite this being a fairly ordinary looking tarmac road with double yellow lines.
Why? Because there are very few motor vehicles driving along here, and when they do, they are forced to share by virtue of the numbers of pedestrians. There isn’t really any need at all for a ‘shared space’ treatment here in order to encourage sharing – because it is happening naturally.
Equally, we also know that it can’t be the uniform surface that is solely responsible for encouraging pedestrians to mingle and share because on the northern section of Exhibition Road, identical in design to the southern portion, and with just as many, if not more, pedestrians on it, mingling is completely absent.
Indeed, this contrast between the southern area, and the northern section on the other side of the A4 serves to demonstrate precisely what is wrong with the application of these theories to roads that still carry high volumes of motor traffic. I wrote back in June last year that expecting pedestrians to share space on this kind of road amounts to
in effect, asking them to play chicken with fast and often heavy traffic. Nobody wants to play, and pedestrians have separated themselves, despite the ‘pattern’ of the street inviting them to do so.
This isn’t just true of pedestrians. I’ve seen people on bicycles creating their own cycle paths, away from the ‘vehicle space’ – effectively cycling on ‘the pavement’, precisely the same kind of behaviour we see on other roads where people using bikes don’t want to cycle among motor vehicles.
These are supposed to be ‘pavements’, of a sort – divided by the ridged markings to denote to blind people where the ‘road’ starts, but as this is a shared space, you can technically cycle anywhere, and some people are choosing to cycle where it feels most safe. This is a reflection of a lack of subjective safety.
And pedestrians don’t want to ‘share’, either. Unlike the mingling in evidence in the southern section of the street, the users are split very markedly, by mode, in the northern section.
Some bollards have been installed to keep motor vehicles off the ‘virtual’ pavements, but what this seems to have achieved in practice is the creation of an actual pavement, behind which pedestrians keep at all times, unless they are trying to cross the road. This ‘pavement’ is also a natural consequence of the straight guttering, the trees, and the parking at the northern end of the road.
Precisely the way that pedestrians would behave on an ordinary road, in other words.
And when you want to try to cross Exhibition Road? There were, in the very early days of the road being opened, plenty of signs informing drivers that they should give way to pedestrians –
but those have all disappeared, as has any inclination of almost every driver to yield, even if it existed in the first place.
To cross the road in a way that involves ‘sharing’ necessitates walking in front of vehicles that are bearing down on you; something that few people are willing to do. Take a look at this video of a lady trying to cross the road, while carrying her child.
For about 45 seconds (she may have been waiting longer, before I chanced upon her) she doesn’t attempt cross. You can see why; to do so would involve stepping into the path of motor vehicles. When she does start to cross the road, it is only when a gap has emerged in the traffic.
She was not aware of the car approaching from the southern end of the street, and halts, uncertainly, in the middle of the road, when sees it. Confronted with the sight of a stranded mother carrying her child, the driver yields and lets her cross.
The behaviour here is instructive. Yes, yielding occurred, but only when the mother had quite literally put her body on the line. As we see for the first 45 seconds of the video, she wasn’t prepared to do so voluntarily. This is not ‘sharing’ in any conventional sense of the word.
To me, this represents the biggest flaw in what I would call the ‘total shared space’ philosophy; the belief that we can calm and civilise practically any street or road by removing distinctions and making surfaces uniform. The philosophy is holed below the waterline by the fact that the vast majority of people, just like the mother in this video, are not prepared to force motor vehicles to share. Another example below.
That reluctance means that streets like Exhibition Road – with significant volumes of motor traffic – will continue to function in more or less the same way they did before. The inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that what marginal improvements do result are simply not worth the expense of rebuilding the road, if motor traffic is not greatly reduced, or removed entirely.
The wonderful descriptions of this redesign from its advocates sadly do not match the reality. A Daily Mail article from around the time of the official opening contains this nugget –
Even before the road was officially opened today by London Mayor Boris Johnson, Sir Jeremy noted people’s behaviour had changed:
‘You see people promenading down the street, sometimes ten abreast. It’s marvellous.’
If anyone is ‘promenading ten abreast’ on Exhibition Road, they’re certainly not doing it in the road itself, or if they are, they are doing it on the southern section of Exhibition Road, which has practically no motor traffic whatsoever. Sir Jeremy Dixon’s comments are misleading. Likewise in the very same Daily Mail article Boris Johnson is quoted as saying that the new design makes it
much easier and even more pleasurable for families visiting these unique attractions with space to wander unhindered in an area that puts people first.
There is no ‘unhindered wandering’ on Exhibition Road, especially by families with children (I have on several occasions witnessed parents telling their children to behave and to ‘stay out of the road’).
Likewise this segment from the Smart Streetsprogramme broadcast on Radio 4 last January is more than slightly misleading –
PresenterIt’s quite liberating walking down Exhibition Road, because we can go wherever we want.
Ben Hamilton-Baillie It feels quite different, doesn’t it. And interestingly traffic is still flowing up and down here.
Presenter There are benches in the middle of the street!
Ben Hamilton-Baillie We’re walking where once was you would have felt crazy to be walking up the carriageway. And yet a street of this kind can cope with a huge volume of visitors from all over the world. It can cope with taxis and buses and bicycles and couriers without having to install complicated barriers and different levels and different traffic signals and so forth. There is a degree of uncertainty, intrigue, and as soon as the driver’s brain is engaged, the speeds drop, and the responses to the unusual, the unexpected, the individual, become immediate and responsive, rather than assumed.
There aren’t any benches in the middle of the street; they are only found in the explicitly pedestrianised western section, by the Science Museum.
The benches can be seen on the right, in the pedestrianised area well away from the ‘road’
This suggests that the presenter and Hamilton-Baillie are walking in that area (which admittedly was formerly part of the road, hinted at in Hamilton-Baillie’s comment), rather than in the carriageway. But the impression given to any casual listener is that the two of them are wandering aimlessly all over the street, which is misrepresentative of actual behaviour.
Whether this talk about people meandering ten abreast, or wandering at will in the carriageway, is deliberate sleight of hand or merely an accidental fusing of very different areas of Exhibition Road, is hard to say. But we should be very clear that the behaviour in the section of shared surface that still carries plenty of motor traffic is almost identical to that on an ordinary road. The claim, in an official pamphlet for the street, that
pedestrian priority [is] created by the kerb-less carriageway
is not founded. Simply creating a uniform street has not been enough. Groups representing blind people know this especially well.
And the amenity of the street is suffering due to the traffic volume too. Despite the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s Official Decision Report [pdf] stating that
the road is clogged, all too often, with motor vehicles. Heavy traffic still exists.
It is this very same traffic that is rendering the expensive rebuilding of Exhibition Road somewhat redundant. If the road is to start working as a genuine ‘shared’ space, it has to be removed, or greatly reduced.
The other week I got into some online discussion (I shouldn’t have, but it happened) with a handful of people who were in favour of mandatory helmet laws – laws which would make it compulsory to wear a helmet whenever anyone happens to ride a bicycle.
One of these individuals told me that I was ‘daft’ for cycling along Lancing seafront without a helmet, like this –
were ‘idiots’ because of their baggy clothing, and lack of helmets.
Maybe we might see a day when trundling along a path by a beach, a hundred yards from the nearest road, and where the greatest risk of injury might come from a low-flying seagull, I would be compelled to wear a thin polystyrene hat on my head. Maybe.
But if that day does arrive, then surely it is only a matter of time before we would logically be compelled to wear polystyrene hats for the simple act of crossing the road – which statistically is almost certainly far more dangerous than cycling along a path away from a road.
You may scoff, but the groundwork is already being prepared. I remarked last year about the unfortunate case of Joshua Dale, who was killed while crossing a road in Nottingham when a driver crashed into him. He wasn’t crossing the road on foot; he happened to be crossing it on his bicycle, which prompted the coroner at the inquest in his death to remark that
It’s imperative if we are to learn anything that children must be educated further and become more aware of the safety aspects of wearing helmets.
Not ‘cyclists’, note – children. Children crossing roads – presumably on foot, as well on a bicycle – should become more aware of the safety aspects of wearing helmets.
And more recently we have this news item from Eastbourne –
A cyclist who suffered serious brain injuries when she was knocked down on a crossing believes her cycle helmet saved her life.
Fifty-nine-year-old mother and grandmother Linda Groomes spent two years in hospital after being knocked down while pushing her bike across the crossing in Eastbourne Road at the junction with Church Street in September 2008.
Contrary to the headline of the article, Linda Groomes was not ‘a cyclist’ at the moment she was struck. She was a pedestrian, crossing the road on foot; she just happened to have a bicycle with her, and happened to be wearing a helmet, a device which she feels saved her life.
So there is an emerging precedent for the matter of helmet-wearing to be discussed in the context of crossing roads; either while crossing them like a pedestrian, but on a bicycle, or crossing them on foot, but with a bicycle.
My question for those who would like to see helmet-wearing made compulsory is – are you also in favour of mandatory helmets for people crossing roads? After all, apparently no one died because they wore a helmet but plenty have because they haven’t. What harm would it do to make people wear helmets when crossing roads? They might even help to save the lives of people like Joshua Dale, or Linda Groomes.
Amidst all the attention being drawn by the extension to Superhighway 2 along Stratford High Street, announced on Monday, I thought I’d write about another consultation in London, one which closes this Friday – the changes to Royal College Street in Camden.
This street already has a cycle track running along it; a two-way one on the western side, kerb separated from the main carriageway. The design, while adequate, is far from brilliant. It’s a little too narrow for a two-way track, and it’s not really a good idea to have a bi-directional track running across multiple side streets, even if the main road itself is one-way (this makes the track a little safer than the one in Tavistock Place, which is two-way with a two-way road, a recipe for confusion). It also peters out at the northern end, abandoning you if you wish to continue north towards Kentish Town, rather than towards Camden itself.
Nevertheless, I do find it one of the most relaxing roads to cycle on in London. Free from the hassle and stress of jostling for space with motor vehicles, I can idly pedal on my way without having to worry about taking primary, or assuming a good position, or staying out of the door zone.
The great news is that Camden are proposing to make this street even better for cycling; what looks to me like the best scheme in the UK, and getting close to best practice. In essence, the existing two-way cycle track will be turned into a wide one-way track northbound, two metres wide.
The existing two-way track on the west side of the street
A corresponding two-metre track will be installed on the opposite side of the road, heading south. This will be achieved by narrowing the carriageway (currently approximately two vehicles wide, although there are no markings on it) down to just one lane. Parking on the street will be maintained, but placed on the outside of the cycle track.
These parking bays to be moved out, approximately next to the bus stop markings, to create a 2m southbound track on the right
The bus stops will remain in the road. That means when a bus is halted, motor traffic will come to a complete halt too, while bicycles and pedestrians can continue.
The proposed bus stop, sandwiched between the track, and parking. No way through when bus is stopped
The other bit of good news is that this arrangement will run right through to the junction with Camden Road. At present, as I mentioned earlier, the cycle track just peters out at Georgiana Street, heading off towards Camden Town itself. Not much use if you wish to continue straight on towards Kentish Town.
Cycle track currently heading away from Royal College Street at Georgiana Street junction
If you do want to continue north on Royal College Street, you currently have to jostle for space on the road itself –
And then run the gauntlet of a two lane road, with parking on the left, as vehicles jostle for position heading up to the lights at the Camden Road junction.
This isn’t very pleasant, certainly compared to the serenity of the cycle track you have just left.
The good news is that the parking on the left will be moved over to the right, and those 2 metre wide cycle tracks will be built on both sides of the road, leaving just one bus-wide lane in the middle of the road.
The proposed new arrangement at this location, just south of the Baynes Street junction
The signal-controlled crossings at the junction with Georgiana Street, seen below –
will go, to be replaced by zebras across both arms of the junction, on a raised table. This is a considerably better arrangement, for both pedestrians and cyclists.
The segregation of the track from the carriageway will be achieved by ‘light segregation’ – what looks like planters, boxes and trees, from this mock-up.
This will provide a good degree of separation from motor vehicles, along with the parking bays, and will bring some extra greenery to the streetscape. The existing zebra crossings on the road will be maintained, and will continue to pass straight across the street, and the cycle tracks.
I have only a few minor concerns. Firstly, that there no details for what happens when the cycle track meets Camden Road, at a major junction at the north end of the street. This must be because Camden Road is a TfL-controlled road (and part of the TLRN), and so it would be up to them to bring about changes to that junction. Camden Council’s remit presumably runs out just short of the junction, and they’ve been forced to leave it as it currently stands.
Secondly, at the southern end of the street, a way has been found to get the southbound track across Crowndale Road, and into the continuation of the route towards King’s Cross and St Pancras. It looks – to me at least – a little fiddly, and could do with some tidying up.
‘New route for southbound cyclists’ – but does it have to be so wiggly and tight?
The existing induction loops on the track will be moved to the new southbound track; I have to say these currently work quite well, and if you position your bike over the loop, the lights change in your favour reasonably quickly. I hope this continues to happen.
Thirdly, the tracks – while running behind the bus stop itself – will continue to run in front of the bus shelter (see the artist’s illustration above). It might have made more sense to route the track behind the shelter, where there is space, than to have cyclists passing between the shelter and the bus stop itself (this is what TfL are now proposing on Superhighway 2). In mitigation, only one bus route runs along Royal College Street, and there is not a great deal of bus passenger movement here, so this may not be the greatest problem, at least on this street.
Finally, a very minor quibble – I’d like see 45° kerbs between the pavement and the cycle track. These are better for pedestrians – particularly those with mobility problems – and for cyclists. It’s much more difficult to crash your bike if you hit a 45° kerb, and you’re also much less likely to trip over one if you’re walking.
All in all, though, this looks like a fantastic scheme, and I would urge you to write to Camden Council to support it, even if (like me) you are only an occasional user of the street. They’ve done a fantastic job.
Full details of the consultation are here [pdf]. You can fill in the form and post it, but it must be received by Friday. The better alternative is to email your comments to brian.deegan@camden.gov.uk.
More on the ongoing saga of East Street in Horsham.
I wrote back in October about opposition to the pedestrianisation of this increasingly popular and thriving street in the town centre during the main hours of the day. That article is a useful summary of the history of the street over the last couple of years, and also about the main issues – principally that a handful of people still want to continue driving and parking on the street, at all times.
In December another article appeared in the local paper setting out the opinions of one of these opponents.
A disabled man with severe mobility issues feels the council has effectively segregated a Horsham street by forcing through pedestrianisation.
When the barriers are up at the end of East Street, disabled drivers are unable to access the parking bay outside Ask specifically designated for blue-badge holders, such as Mr Owles, who takes 26 tablets a day, including 18 painkillers, and cannot walk long distances.
“What they have done is segregated people out of East Street,” he said. “They’re just riding roughshod over everybody, with no consideration for the disabled.”
Just as with the article that appeared in the paper in October, the opponent of pedestrianisation is claiming that it is unfair to disabled people to prevent them parking in the bays in East Street (and in Market Square, which is only accessible from East Street). I won’t re-hash the reasons why I think this is incorrect; refer to my previous piece if you so wish.
What I would say here is that there are many, many streets and areas of Horsham that are not accessible by car. People who are disabled – and quite clearly their needs should be taken very seriously indeed – still manage to access these shops, by means other than the private motor vehicle. Here are some of those areas.
The large Swan Walk shopping centre. Around 40 shops here, none of which can be parked outside.
A section of the pedestrianised Bishopric. You can’t park here.
Springfield Road. Despite the security van, it’s not legal to park here either.
The north end of Worthing Road. Pedestrianised.
The Forum, with access to Beales Department store, TK Maxx, and a coffee shop. No driving or parking here.
West Street – probably Horsham’s busiest street. Pedestrianised.
Middle Street. No parking here either.
A handful of shops on Medwin Walk. No parking.
The western section of the Carfax. Pedestrianised.
Stan’s Way. Pedestrianised.
Pirie’s Place. A dozen or so shops here, including a supermarket. Again, no parking.
East Mews.
And finally, East Street and Market Square – the areas that are now pedestrianised during the day, a pedestrianisation which is being opposed.As you can see, there are huge areas of the town that are already completely inaccessible by motor vehicle. Indeed, the vast majority of the town’s shops are in fully pedestrianised areas.
Disabled people are not ‘banned’ or ‘segregated’ from these shops. They simply have to access them by means other than the private motor car. While cars are plainly a very important way of allowing disabled people to make longer trips into town, they cannot be the sole mode of transport for disabled people. If it was, we could have to completely redesign almost every aspect of our streets, our buildings, and our infrastructure to make them accessible by motor vehicle, which is obviously completely absurd.
Great steps have been made in recent years towards making public transport and public buildings much more accessible for disabled people. Train stations increasingly have step-free access. Buses and trains are now accessible in wheelchairs – something that even 20 years ago was quite rare, at least where I live. These are obviously necessary improvements. However, these changes have been made to allow wheelchair access, and not private car access. You can’t drive into public buildings. You can’t drive through airports. These parts of journeys have to be made by other means.
I don’t think it would be reasonable for the people objecting to the part-pedestrianisation of East Street to claim they have been ‘banned’ from airports, or from train stations, or from office blocks, or ‘segregated’ from large department stores, simply because they can’t drive into them or around them. The private car is an unwieldy way for disabled people to convey themselves in these kinds of spaces, and we quite rightly expect them to use smaller motorised vehicles, like mobility scooters, or powered wheelchairs. Precisely the same logic applies (or should apply) on pedestrianised streets.
David Moore of the Horsham Society has made much the same argument I have been making for some time about East Street in a comment piece in the latest West Sussex County Times – namely that parking is available nearby, and that other more ‘inaccessible’ (by car, of course) streets in Horsham are not subject to these kinds of complaints.
The pedestrianisation of East Street between 10.30 and 16.30 has been an unmitigated success. It’s been wonderful to be able to walk down the street without being hooted at by a lorry or a car. It’s been terrific not to have to inhale the exhaust fumes from passing or parked vehicles. The vast majority of the people of Horsham continue to support the exclusion of vehicles from the street.
[Obviously] … we have to consider access for people with disabilities. Fortunately, there are significant numbers of parking spaces for Blue Badge holders in the vicinity of East Street, such as in the Denne Road and Piries Place car parks. Parking is also usually available on single or double yellow lines for up to three hours and this can be seen, for example, in the regular use of the Causeway during the day by Blue Badge holders.
So it’s difficult to understand why there should be a need for parking by Blue Badge holders in a relatively short street such as East Street when there’s no such facility available to them in the pedestrianised and much longer West Street.
I am pleased to see that the council are also resistant to calls to reopen the street to motor vehicles. They can see what a difference it has made to businesses on the street, and to the experience of pedestrians.
The East Street matter is now going to a public inquiry, costing the council some £25,000. I am sad that it is taking this much money to settle what is quite obviously a bogus issue; the only hope is that the inquiry will finally put an end to these complaints.
UPDATE – I forgot to include this wonderful video from Mark Wagenbuur, showing how Dutch towns and cities are highly accessible for those with disabilities, without using private motor cars. (His post on the subject is here).
The latest figures for cycling levels on the Transport for London Route Network (TLRN), London’s TfL-controlled main roads, are given in the depths of a paper to the TfL board… They show that the previously stellar growth of cycling in London under both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson has ended, maybe even gone into reverse. Cycling on TLRN roads is actually forecast to fall this financial year for the first time since 2001/2.
The document Gilligan refers to is a rather dry TfL quarterly progress report, for the second quarter of the 2012/13 year. The previous quarterly progress reports (also referred to by Gilligan) can be found here. The most important point is that TfL are now predicting that the cycling levels on the TLRN for the current year, from April 2012 to March 2013, will actually be lower than the previous 12 month period.
Obviously the weather last summer – rather wetter than usual – may have played a part in suppressing demand. This is a point Gilligan makes, while also arguing that this is unlikely to be the only explanation. It is particularly noteworthy that the Olympics saw the highest ever numbers of people cycling to work (19% higher than the equivalent 2 week period in 2011), suggesting that the decline outside of the Olympic period over 2012 may be even more marked than these figures imply.
The GLA have a detailed month-by-month breakdown of cycle flows on the TLRN since the year 2000, which might give some more context to what’s going on. Here’s the familiar (and increasingly spiky) pattern since 2000, showing the yearly fluctuations in cycling, and the general upward trend.
This is an indexed graph – all figures are presented relative to March 2000, as 100. I’ve added a trendline to this same graph.
I wouldn’t place too much faith on this line – I think there’s too much noise in the seasonal variation for it to really stand up to scrutiny – but it does correspond to some things we already know, particularly a steeper rate of uptake in 2005 in response to the 7/7 attacks. It also shows the tailing off in 2012, referenced by Gilligan.
We can also present this data relative to the same monthly period in the previous year (this particular GLA data only starts in 2004, for some reason).
Obviously if cycling is growing year on year, the red line will be above 0%. This was generally the case until 2012. Adding a trendline again (with the previous caveat) –
That drop-off to the right is why Transport for London are predicting the cycling rates on the TLRN will be lower than in 2011/12.
In more detail, focusing on just the last few years (01_09/10 is the first month of the 09/10 year, i.e. April 2009) –
Something is plainly happening to growth in cycling on the TLRN, close to or below zero since the start of 2012, with a brief spike in the autumn. The picture is certainly far more complicated than the steady year-on-year growth of nearly 10% that was occurring during the first decade of the millennium. This can’t be put down entirely to weather, not just because of the Olympic boom, but also because previous summers were also relatively wet. The year 2007, for instance, was a washout, and this doesn’t appear to have affected the rate of growth at that time.
Are we reaching the limit of the number of people willing to cycle on the roads that tend to have heavier and faster volumes of motor traffic – the roads controlled by Transport for London? That might explain why growth is tailing off, and I think it’s a plausible explanation, among others. It certainly corresponds with TfL evidence unearthed by Jim at Drawing Rings Around the World, who wrote yesterday that
only 28% of occasional cyclists in London think busy roads are safe, compared to a majority who think quiet roads are safe. That may sound obvious to some, but to me it shows illustrates two important points:
– Most people don’t think cycling itself is unsafe, just cycling in heavy traffic.
– Busy roads are more likely to have cycling ‘infrastructure’ such as advisory cycle lanes, but they don’t seem to have much impact on safety perceptions. This suggests we need better infrastructure, a la the Netherlands.
The TfL Travel in London report that contains this evidence also shows that people are lengthening their cycle trips to avoid busy roads like the TLRN, as Jim points out. Perhaps more people newer to cycling are just avoiding the TLRN as much as they can, and the numbers of people confident enough to cycle on these roads is staying relatively constant, or even falling. The picture will obviously become clearer with more data – I think it’s too early to start making definitive statements – but it does appear that growth on these roads can no longer be relied upon, or taken for granted.
While digesting over the Christmas period, I’ve also been rummaging around in the latest Travel in London Report [pdf] from Transport for London, published last week.
There are some interesting trends emerging with regard to cycling. First of all, it’s worth taking a look at that much touted ‘boom’ in cycling in London.
As you can see, the rise in the number of cycling stages [1] has actually been more or less continuous since 2000. There doesn’t appear to have been any significant change in the rate of increase; only a blip, then tailing off, in 2005/2006 (possibly related to people avoiding public transport in the wake of the 7/7 terrorist attacks). The Superhighways and hire bikes – Boris Johnson’s big initiatives – don’t appear to have had a significant effect on the rate of increase.
The graph does show that, impressively, the number of stages being made by bicycle in London has very nearly doubled over this period, from 0.29 million per day in 2000, to 0.57 million per day last year. But this rise needs to be placed in context – firstly, against the fact that nearly 30 million journey stages are made across London every day, by all modes of transport. Those 0.57 million bicycle journey stages don’t add up to much in the context of overall transport in London.
Secondly, it’s worth stressing that the rise in cycling has been built on a very low base indeed; it’s much easier to double the number of journeys made by bike when the numbers cycling are very small in the first place, than to go from, say 10% to 20% of all journeys – that would involve getting many, many more people onto bikes than is the case in going from 1% to 2%, which are much easier pickings.
It’s also worth noting that, as you can see on the graph above, the overall number of journey stages made per day in London since 2000 has also increased substantially, by around 5 million. This overall rise in journeys made by all modes of transport will obviously dilute that doubling in the number of cycling stages, which would be more realistically expressed as a percentage of all stages –
Expressed like this, we can see that the rise is less impressive; from about 1.2% of all trip stages in 2000, to 1.9% of all trips stages year. This is going in the right direction, but hardly dramatic. Assuming that cycling continues to rise at this rate (a 0.75% increase over 11 years), then by 2026 cycling’s modal share in London may have risen by about 1% on current levels. That is, we might just be scraping a 3% modal share, which will obviously mean that Boris’s much-quoted (and unambitious, according to the GLA) target of a 5 per cent mode share for cycling by 2026 [pdf] will be missed, and missed by some distance.
Further, at this rate of progress, it will also take about 340 years – more than three centuries – to reach a 25% cycling modal share, the current level in Rotterdam, one of the Netherlands’ worst-performing cities for cycling.
This should cause those who proclaim that we have reached the promised land to pause for thought. While it might be impressive to see 45 cyclists at one traffic light during the morning rush hour, this is by no means a revolution. The reason it might appear to be so is because we’ve gone from seeing practically no cyclists at all to quite concentrated pockets of fit, male 25-44 year olds commuting into work on certain routes in central London.
The overall picture, however, is one of very slow change, or no change at all. This is hardly surprising, given that London’s roads have hardly changed in character over the intervening period. They are still hostile and intimidating places to cycle for the vast majority of Londoners. There may even be good reason to suppose that, without continental-style infrastructure, the rate of uptake of cycling in London will decrease, or even come to a halt, as we exhaust the supply of people willing to cycle on the roads as they currently exist. Food for thought.
The other pattern emerging from the data in the Travel in London report (and from another TFL report) involves cycling casualties.
The number of cycling deaths and serious injuries rose steeply to 571 last year, an enormous rise of 22% on 2010, and continuing the upward trend seen since 2009.
It’s worth mentioning here that in 2001 Transport for London were set a stringent target of a 40% decrease in the absolute numbers of people killed or seriously injured while cycling by 2010, against a 1994-98 average baseline of 567 deaths or serious injuries per year – in effect, a target of 340 cyclist KSIs per year. That target wasn’t met in 2010, and in 2011 the number of KSIs actually exceeded the 1994-98 figure; not even a decrease at all. Of course, the amount of cycling has increased substantially since 2001, but that shouldn’t matter. The 2001 Road Safety Action Plan set an absolute target while fully aware that cycling would increase.
The picture for all cycling casualties isn’t much prettier.
The slow pattern of decline from 2000 has gone into reverse; just as with KSIs, the absolute number of casualties has risen sharply over the last couple of years.
Of course, increases in both KSIs and all casualties are, as I have already hinted, attributable in part to the growth in cycling over the last decade. It makes more sense, then, to express these as rate-based figures. Unfortunately, the best we can do from the TfL data is to express casualties per million cycling stages.
This isn’t a perfect method; it only captures the number of journeys being made, not the total length of trips, or amount of time spent cycling, either of which would give a more precise measure of exposure. However, I don’t see much reason for supposing that typical trip distances will have changed much over the years in question. And we can’t do much else. So here are all cycling casualties, rate-based –
And cycling KSIs, rate-based.
The most obvious feature is that the relative risk of cycling, in decline for the first years of the millennium, now appears to be increasing, both for KSIs and overall casualties, over the last few years. The upward trend in casualties starts in about 2006; that for KSIs, about 2009. Things are clearly getting worse, rather than better, despite more people cycling. There is no ‘safety in numbers’ effect apparent over the last five years; quite the opposite, in fact.
I would hazard a guess that it is graphs like this, alongside awful tragedies like the deaths at Bow roundabout, that have spurred the Mayor and Transport for London into taking London Cycling Campaign’s Go Dutch agenda quite seriously. There is an emerging safety problem with cycling in London, with the rise in casualties now consistently outstripping the rise in cycling numbers; it is no longer possible to pretend that a growth in casualties is simply the result of more people cycling.
Why cycling is becoming relatively more dangerous, I don’t know. If I were to idly speculate, it might be because some of the people new to cycling on London’s roads are unprepared for the quite real dangers they face, lulled into a false sense of security by advertising campaigns like this
which are not at all representative of the actual experience of cycling on roads in London. But this is speculation. The real issue is a serious safety problem, that I suspect will only get worse if more and more people are encouraged onto the roads before necessary changes are made, and conflict between motor vehicles and bicycles is reduced.
[1] A ‘stage’ is simply a component of a ‘trip’. A trip to work might be made up of a cycling stage, a train stage, then a walking stage, for instance.
RT @OxonCyclingNet: No consultation and against national standard LTN 1/20, Oxford's only central traffic-free cycle lane (Parks Rd) has be… 3 days ago
The wide area to the left is purely for left turns onto Tramway Avenue (West Ham Lane). Given the boldness of the main section of this scheme (about which more later) this does seem to be a bit of a cop-out. No bus stop bypasses, no cycle track, and no traffic lanes taken away from the gyratory. The cycle lane will be painted between this bus and three lanes of traffic. Not a nice place to cycle.
A little further on, there is another bus stop.
All that will change here is that the cycle lane will be painted blue, and made ‘mandatory’; the same arrangement as for the previous bus stop. It is not clear to me why Transport for London have not chosen to employ a cycle track passing behind the bus stops on this section of the Superhighway, like they have on the remainder of the route to and from Bow.
The nearside lane here will disappear, and be converted into a 2 metre wide track, separated by a kerb from the carriageway (but will the railings be removed too?)
It’s a fantastically bold step from Transport for London. This whole vehicle lane will become a safe, protected cycle track, all the way to Bow Roundabout (just visible in the distance).
At the junction with Cam Road, there is a slightly confusing proposal for an Advanced Stop Line, which doesn’t strike me as being necessary.
Here’s the location –
As you can see from the plans, when a bus stops, it will do so in the approximate position of the silver car (leaving just one lane free for motor vehicles). The bus stop will be in lane 1, and the cycle track will pass behind it, leaving a very large amount of pavement free for pedestrian movement.
Again, the bus will be stopping one lane further out, and the shelter will be approximately where the bus is. There is, as you can see, acres of space to the left of the bus for a track and a separate pavement.
To make a right turn here, you’re either going to have to get into lane 3 (again, a dangerous near-impossibility from the track itself) or, more sensibly, progress through the junction, mount the pavement on the south-west side, and then enter the ASL at the mouth of Rick Roberts Way to the south, and wait for a green light. This will work, but it is far from ideal. TfL are constrained, I think, by the lack of a precedent for cycle track design at large junctions, but plonking cyclists on the pavement is not the way forward.
There’s another bus stop bypass, and another curious ASL, which doesn’t seem to serve any purpose at all.
There are some good details; for instance Hunts Lane will have a speed table installed (good for pedestrians crossing the road, as well as for reducing vehicle speeds).
Now heading east, back along Stratford High Street from Bow roundabout. At present, the exit from the roundabout is effectively a two-way road, with fairly thin cycle lanes on either side. The reason this cycle lane (and traffic lane) is here is because if you want to head west from the buildings on the north of the road (on the left in the photograph), the flyover means you can’t do so without travelling a good distance east.
The plan seems to be to remove the west-bound cycle lane (on the right in the picture above), and to move all the markings right to make room for a wider (mandatory) cycle lane.
If you want to cycle west, you will now do so on a shared use pavement (marked in cream). Another bodge, I have to say. A better solution would be a wide, two-way cycle track. As you can see from the photograph below, there is plenty of space between the building frontage and the flyover for such a track. A shared use pavement does not strike me as especially ‘Dutch’; more ‘will this do?’
Unfortunately, despite the good bypass plans elsewhere along this route, the proposals at this location are a bit rubbish.
The bus stop and the cycle lane are sort of wedged in together so motor vehicles can pass stopped buses on the outside, with cyclists having to do exactly the same thing (the very thing the designs elsewhere on the Superhighway avoid). Meanwhile westbound cyclists will be using the pavement past the rear of bus stop, which is not a great idea. It’s messy, and it’s come about because TfL apparently don’t want buses to stop eastbound motor vehicles, even momentarily. (These vehicles will, of course, only be arriving at the next inevitable queue at a red traffic light slightly more early). If the bus stop was moved out to the double white line, then there would be plenty of space available for a decent solution. This needs to happen.
will be reduced from five queuing lanes to three.
And then we arrive at Stratford gyratory.
It’s certainly preferable to cycling on the gyratory itself, but again, hardly ‘Dutch’ in approach. With a bit more boldness it would be easy, in principle, to implement an eastbound cycle track here, separated from buses, given the enormous width available (this is the same stretch of road where there will be merely a cycle lane for those heading west, as referenced at the start of this post).
This is where TfL’s ambition appears to have run out.
This area really needs the same continuity and quality of design as the cycle track being proposed on Stratford High Street; a clear, smooth and direct route, away from buses and pedestrians. It’s entirely possible; but TfL seem to have given up on the gyratory itself. A pity.
