Bradley Wiggins selling onions

Posted on July 25, 2012 by aseasyasriding

A cartoon from the current edition of Private Eye, that made me smile.

The joke, of course, lies in the new dominance of British cycling in a French race, and an extension of that dominance, beyond cycle sport, to a stereotypically traditional use of the bicycle by French people (although pedants might argue that the French, without a winner for decades, have been usurped, or ‘replaced’, a long time ago).

Selling onions by bicycle, and racing over 2000m high mountain passes, are obviously very different activities. You would struggle, I think, to carry any reasonable quantity of onions on Bradley Wiggins’ extraordinary time trial bike, which is designed to be ridden with your upper body in a horizontal position, and at speeds on the flat of around 30 mph (although not by mere mortals).

Likewise Mark Cavendish would flounder desperately in a bunch sprint if he had to compete on a sturdy bike with a wicker basket full of onions, and a baguette under his arm.

The fact that the word ‘cycling’ covers such a range of different activities permits the kinds of jokes seen in the cartoon. For cycling advocacy, this dual meaning (a dual meaning absent in the Netherlands) is a blessing, and a curse – although how much of a blessing and a curse will depend on your viewpoint.

It’s a blessing because it allows success in the sport of cycling to raise the profile of cycling in general. British success in sports cycling has, I think, far outstripped any improvements for cycling in general over the last decade, with multiple world and olympic champions on the track and the road, and now a Tour de France winner. Meanwhile cycling for transport, despite some positive stirrings, lags far behind, particularly on the evidence of national modal share patterns. Anything that puts bikes – of whatever form – on the front pages of newspapers is surely a good thing.

It’s a curse, however, primarily because plenty of British people aren’t all that interested in sport, or physical exertion – let alone the particular niche of cycling for sport. There is a danger that that the great success of our professional sports cyclists could lead to a reinforcement of the idea that ‘cycling’ necessarily involves exertion, and needs special, expensive-looking bicycles, and weird clothes, and consequently that the idea of ‘cycling’ becomes less attractive to the less athletically-minded sections of our population. Indeed, alongside hostile road conditions, I think this perception has been one of the main barriers to the uptake of cycling over the last few decades – the idea that riding a bike is necessarily a sporting activity. It’s only recently that practical – really practical bicycles, not just hybrids – have started to appear in significant numbers in bike shops.

Getting the message right is important because the current non-cycling demographic – principally women – are less likely to be interested in sport, and physical activity. The increase of cycling in London has primarily been amongst more athletically-minded young and middle-aged men, for instance. The physical demands of cycling safely on the roads of towns and cities in Britain have selectively created a cycling demographic dominated by young and middle-aged men. Those roads and streets have simultaneously put off the less physically able. In other words, these non-cyclists – the very people we need to reach – are those who are not as fast, or as powerful, and who had probably never heard of Bradley Wiggins until a week ago.

I don’t doubt that the success of Wiggins et al. will have a positive impact on British cycling, primarily for sport, but also for transport. But we should be very careful that, in trumpeting that success, we don’t put off potential cyclists by making cycling seem like an extraordinary activity. The message that riding a bike is easy, comfortable and (usually) effortless should be rammed home, and should not be lost in the promotion of cycling in the wake of sporting success.

We don’t use success in distance running to promote and publicise the ease of walking to the shops. Nor would we expect British success in motor racing to influence people’s decision to drive to the supermarket, instead of cycling, or walking, or getting the bus. It is only cycling that faces this problem of multiple meanings, and we should tread very carefully.

Mark Cavendish doesn’t ride a bicycle to the shops. He uses his car.

I grew up on the Isle of Man – so a white circle with a black line means ‘go as fast as you can’. It’s absolutely my favourite place to drive… the roads are wicked.

 

________________________________

See also the recent musings of Chester Cycling and Dave Horton about what Tour de France success might mean for ‘ordinary’ cycling

Posted in Cycle sport, Cycling policy, Cycling renaissance, The media, The Netherlands | 5 Comments

Priority of cycle tracks across side roads

Posted on July 11, 2012 by aseasyasriding

In summarising the results of their recently-conducted survey into the opinions of both members and non-members into varying types of cycling infrastructure, the CTC had this to say on the particular matter of cycle tracks –

Respondents were offered a set of conditions that CTC suggested be met before implementation of cycle tracks. These include cyclists having priority over turning traffic, adequate width and a high standard of maintenance. Support for these conditions was very high, with 88-95% of respondents saying that these were very or quite important.

Later in that report of the survey, the CTC go on to say –

Traffic regulations in the UK only permit cyclists to have priority over vehicles entering or leaving side turning[s] in very restricted circumstances. In nearly all cases cyclists must give way and are sometimes blocked from crossing with barriers, as in Figure 3, an image from Oxford. By contrast, rules in the Netherlands (Figure 4) permit priority for cyclists over side roads, without the need for anything other than road markings and some signs.

This is the vexed question of priority for cycle tracks across side roads, which is a particular bugbear for the CTC. Roger Geffen, their campaigns director, had this to say in the Guardian last year, in response to the findings of the Understanding Walking and Cycling report –

[An] important pre-requisite for segregation to work is legal priority for cyclists at junctions, given that this is where around 70% of cyclists’ injuries occur. In countries like Denmark and the Netherlands, if you’re on a cycle track and travelling straight ahead at a junction, the law says you have clear priority over drivers turning across your path

Obviously that’s the way things should work, but the CTC are concerned that we just can’t do that in this country.

This is the picture of a cycle track in Oxford that the CTC refer to in their report on infrastructure, used to illustrate the ‘lack of priority’ in the UK –

This is plainly awful design.

The cycle track runs along Park Street in Oxford, and the side road is a minor entrance into the University Science department. There should be no barriers, and the track should have priority across the side road.

There is, of course, no UK legal requirement for barriers like this at junctions. This is just sloppy, lazy engineering. The CTC suggest that barriers ‘sometimes’ block crossings, but they should also have made plain that such a tactic has no basis in regulation, and that they should be removed. Indeed the most idiotic section of barrier has disappeared since the CTC’s picture was taken. There was no legal requirement for it to be there in the first place.

Barely a hundred yards from this complete mess of a junction, the cycle track crosses another side road, in slightly smoother fashion.

No barriers, and no ‘give way’ markings. Cyclists would seem to have priority – albeit unclear, and potentially dangerous.

The CTC claim that a lack of priority is basically what we have to expect from cycle tracks under UK law, regulations of which mean that cyclists ‘have priority over vehicles entering or leaving side turning in very restricted circumstances.’

Is this true? A respondent to their survey – quoted in their report – doesn’t seem to think so.

It would be good to have new rules to support right of way at side roads as a default, but I don’t see them as essential since as far as I can see, high quality Dutch style segregated tracks could be built with currently available give way and priority markings.  

This stands in disagreement with the CTC’s claim about priority for cycle tracks only being available under ‘very restricted circumstances’. What’s the reality?

The relevant document is the latest edition of The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions, 2002, available as a huge 300MB pdf (hereafter TSRGD) – this 450 page beast sets out how signs and markings can and should be set out on British roads; it’s the bible of what is permitted.

The portion on ‘Give Way’ markings is found in Section 4, ‘Road Markings’, under Regulation 25. That regulation is online here. The subsection of this regulation we are concerned with is 25 (6), which states that

Where the transverse lines are placed in advance of a length of the carriageway of the road where a cycle track crosses the road along a route parallel to the transverse lines, then the requirement shall be that no vehicle shall proceed past such one of those lines as is nearer the cycle track, in a manner or at a time likely to endanger any cyclist proceeding along the cycle track or to cause such a cyclist to change speed or course in order to avoid an accident.

This is a lengthy way of saying that give way lines on a side road, placed before a cycle track crossing that side road, apply in the usual fashion – don’t cross that line if in doing so you make the cyclist change speed or course.  This subsection 25 (6) s a new addition to the TSRGD; it is not present in the Regulation 25 of the 1994 TSRGD, a document which seemingly has nothing to say about cycle track priority, or cycle tracks at all.

So cycle tracks can have priority over side roads, it seems.

It’s not quite that simple though; we also have to refer to the ‘General Directions’ section of the document, about how precisely to apply the signs. Regulation 34 (2) is found in the section covering ‘Signs to be placed only at specified sites or for specified purposes’, and states that

The marking shown in diagram 1003 may only be placed on the carriageway of a road in circumstances such that regulation 25(6) (transverse lines placed in advance of a cycle track crossing a road) applies, if the length of the road which is crossed by a cycle track consists of a road hump extending across the full width of the carriageway and constructed pursuant to—

(a) section 90A of the Highways Act 1980(a) and in accordance with the Highways (Road Humps) Regulations 1999(b); or

(b) section 36 of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984(c)and in accordance with the Road Humps (Scotland) Regulations 1998(d).

This is, again, a lengthy way of saying that a cycle track having priority across a side road using give way markings must consist of a road hump; i.e. the cycle track must run along that hump. (‘Diagram 1003’ is simply the familiar double-dashed ‘Give Way’ line painted on a road). That hump must be constructed according to condition (a) if you’re in England, namely

So in plain English, we can have cycle tracks, with priority, across side road junctions, marked with give way markings, provided they run across a hump.

What else is needed? A useful document is the Traffic Signs Manual, which explains, as simply as possible, how highway engineers should implement the conditions found in the TSRGD. Chapter 5 (pdf) deals with Road Markings, and has this to say about the implementation of the above.

CYCLE PRIORITY

3.25  Regulation 25(6) [from TSRGD] enables the marking to diagram 1003 to be used to give priority to a cycle track crossing a road. The length of road crossed by the cycle track must consist of a road hump, which should be of the flat-topped type. The hump must extend across the full width of the carriageway, in accordance with direction 34(2). The marking to diagram 1023 should also be provided, together with a longitudinal warning line to diagram 1004 on each approach. The hump must be marked with diagram 1062 (see para 21.9). The Give Way marking should be placed on the carriageway of the road, not on any part of the hump.

Again, 1003 is the double-dashed line. The hump must be flat, and extend across the road (obviously enough). 1023 is the familiar triangular ‘Give Way’ marking. A ‘longitudinal warning line to diagram 1004’ is simply a dashed central dividing line of the kind usually found between carriageways. Finally, diagram 1062 are the solid warning triangles painted on the upslope of the hump itself.

The picture below (courtesy of Google Streetview) seems to me to be a textbook example of how this has been done, literally by the book. It’s the start of the Bath end of the Bath-Bristol Railway Path.

We have the give way markings either side of the track (1003), together with the triangles (1023). The continuous flat, hump across the road. The (more than slightly faded) solid triangles on the hump (1062). And finally the ‘longitudinal warning lines’ (a dashed central divider to you and me) either side of the crossing (1004).

I have been informed by Paul James, while discussing this issue of cycle track priority, that Transport for London are of the opinion that DfT regulations mean a second set of give way markings cannot be placed within 5m of a junction.

I certainly have not been able to find such a clause within the discussion of cycle track priority. The best I can do is a section contained within LTN 2/08, Cycle Infrastructure Design (pdf), which has this to say

On a bent­out crossing, the cycle track approaches are deflected away from the main carriageway to create a gap of one or two car­ lengths between the main road and the crossing. A gap of about 5 metres is required to accommodate one car. The arrangement allows drivers turning into the side road extra time to notice the crossing and provides somewhere for them to stop for crossing cyclists without obstructing traffic on the main road. It also allows a vehicle waiting to exit the side road to do so without blocking the crossing point. [my emphasis]

Note, however, that this is only a statement of the length required to accommodate a car, not a formal stipulation. In addition, it only applies to the design of ‘bent out’ crossings, not crossings in general – indeed the previous section, 10.3.6, says

Where the crossing is placed on a road hump, it may be better if  it is “bent out”

‘May be better’. Crossings don’t need to be bent out. And even if they are, the distance mentioned is only suggestive, not a stipulation. I think TfL might be getting the wrong end of the stick, if this is the source of their ‘5 metre’ claim.

There are crossings in the UK which quite obviously do not meet this requirement.

(picture courtesy of David Arditti)

The 5 metre suggestion is actually quite sensible; indeed it accords with best Dutch practice, which sets the cycle track crossing back from the main road, allowing drivers to come off the main road and pause before giving way to the cycle track. It also means vehicles queueing to get on to the main road needn’t block the cycle track while queuing. An example in Assen –

But in any case a UK cycle track need not be ‘bent out’. It can run in a straight line, remaining parallel to the road, like this example, again from Assen –

If there is not much queuing traffic coming out of the side road, this is a sensible design, provided that the geometry of the junction is sufficiently tight to force slow entry speeds.

Again we have UK examples of this type of design –

(again courtesy of David Arditti)

The design is obviously inferior, particularly in the width of the track – but we can do this in this country. David Arditti has documented plenty of examples, mostly of this form. This track does not meet the strict requirements of TSRGD, because it does not have give way markings on entry (only the triangle markings on the hump), but I see no reason why  this could not have been done properly.

The new cycle tracks on Old Shoreham Road have even fewer markings –

(picture courtesy of Jim Davis)

I think this is slightly underdone – the painting of triangle markings on the hump at the right hand side could be a useful addition here, along with a continuous line along the hump, to give an extra implication of priority.

So the big question is – given both the provision in law for cycle track priority, and the evidence of plenty of cycle tracks with priority in the UK that accord with law to varying degrees of strictness – does this statement from the CTC

Traffic regulations in the UK only permit cyclists to have priority over vehicles entering or leaving side turning in very restricted circumstances

reflect reality?

UPDATE

I am grateful to David Arditti for pointing out in the comments where TfL’s aforementioned 5 metre ‘requirement’ originates – the Appendix of Transport for London’s London Cycling Design Standards. In Appendix C we find these two diagrams –

The first shows a cycle track without priority, continuing (more or less) without set back; the latter does have priority, being set back ‘5m or more’.

It is worth noting, as David points out, that these are only suggestions, not legal requirements. I have no idea where John Lee’s belief that the law is against cycle tracks having priority unless they are set back 5 metres originates.

Posted in CTC, Department for Transport, Infrastructure, London, Priority, Road safety, Subjective safety, The Netherlands | 51 Comments

Man bites dog

Posted on July 6, 2012 by aseasyasriding

A story doing the rounds at the moment is the case of Andrej Schipka, who knocked down a man in central London while cycling through a red light, leaving him with a fractured skull. Schipka was found guilty of careless cycling and fined £850, plus £930 costs. The victim, Clive Hyer, is apparently unlikely to be able to return to his old job, which is a tragedy.

His wife had this to say –

I want the whole world to know that cyclists have a duty of care to behave like human beings. It’s about time people stopped worrying about cyclists being killed by lorries if they do not conduct themselves in the right manner. He nearly killed my husband.

The first assertion is obviously entirely reasonable, but the second is not.

A person who happens to have been killed by a lorry while riding a bicycle, entirely blamelessly and innocently, has no necessary connection to another person on a bicycle who might be behaving in a reckless manner. The only thing they have in common, for certain, is the fact that they are both riding bicycles.

This is symptomatic of the persistent failure to treat ‘cyclists’ as individuals. Why should my safety while I happen to ride a bicycle be contingent about the good behaviour of other individuals who happen to be using the same mode of transport? Nobody would claim that we should cease to worry about innocent pedestrians or motorists being killed, because of the widespread foolish and/or dangerous behaviour of a minority of people who happen to be walking or driving about. It is perverse to apply the same logic to cycling as a mode of transport.

Mrs Hyer can be excused, of course, because her husband suffered a dreadful injury at the hands of a person riding a bicycle, which can cloud clarity of thinking.

The same cannot be said for the news media, where the usual suspects have predictably leapt gleefully on a story which serves to confirm all their latent prejudices about dangerous cycling and ‘lycra louts’. Stephen Glover in the Mail writes

In the city where I live, Oxford, cyclists almost uniformly ride through red lights… What is so extraordinary is that if you politely point out their infringement, normally peaceable souls are liable to yell obscenities at you, contorting their habitually placid faces with hate-filled rants. Rather as the internet can turn usually polite people into howling monsters, posting vile or threatening comments or blogs, so bicycles can have a similarly transformative effect on the mild-mannered and law-abiding.

In other words, lawlessness and unpleasantness are presumed to be the exclusive preserve of bicycle-riding, who ‘almost uniformly’ break the law. The fact that these traits probably exist amongst the population of bicycle riders in equal proportion to motorists – indeed anyone else – is ignored.

The  Telegraph has also covered the story prominently. This is quite extraordinary for a paper that has not covered a single other pedestrian injury this year. 

Let’s put this in perspective. If we consult the accident statistics for last year, we will find that nearly 20,000 pedestrians were hit by cars in 2011, of which nearly 4,000 suffered serious injuries. Doubtless a good proportion of those injuries resulted from incidents in which the motorist may have been entirely blameless, but it is reasonable to suppose that there were at least several thousand serious pedestrian injuries last year caused by motorists. The same will be true for this year.

The Telegraph has covered a couple of pedestrian deaths since January – the case of the student dragged to her death by a bus in north London, and the case of driver who killed a six-year-old boy in a hit and run.

But not a single pedestrian injury, serious or otherwise – out of the hundreds that have doubtless been inflicted this year by motorists – has been reported by the Daily Telegraph. Only Clive Hyer, who happened to have been seriously injured by a man riding a bicycle.

There is a plausible explanation for this extraordinary bias. Pedestrian injuries at the hands of people riding bicycles are rare, and consequently newsworthy. Serious pedestrian injuries inflicted by motorists, on the other hand, are exceedingly common, and consequently not very newsworthy. (Indeed newspapers would be full of little else if every single one was reported).

Man bites dog, in action.

I dare say there was a period, early in the twentieth century, when cars were not very common, when injuries inflicted on pedestrians by people riding bicycles did actually outnumber, considerably, those inflicted by people driving cars; yet it is probable that those latter injuries featured rather more prominently in newspapers than those inflicted by bicycle-users. The car was new, and scary, and the damage it caused was newsworthy, unlike the background of ‘regular’ injuries caused by bicycles.

Is there anything we can do about this latent bias in news reporting? Almost certainly not. The general public’s perception of the danger posed by bicycles will continue to be skewed wildly by the way reporting works. It is sad and ironic, nonetheless, that the great rarity of injuries inflicted by bicycle riders on pedestrians is itself the reason for the disproportionate reporting of those few incidents that do take place.

Posted in Road safety, The media | 23 Comments

A new arrangment on Parkway, Camden

Posted on July 4, 2012 by aseasyasriding

It does feel slightly wrong to make criticisms of a scheme that has vastly improved the streetscape in a particular area, especially when you’ve just left an excellent talk given by a great traffic engineer and designer who happened to be responsible for it, a talk which dealt with how difficult it often is to push change through.

Britannia Junction, by Camden Tube station, has been transformed from an area consisting largely of narrow pavements, fenced off from the road, into a much more generous arrangement for pedestrians. The guardrail has disappeared, and the pavements have been made as large as they can reasonably be made.

To take one particular example at this junction, Parkway – the approach to it from Regent’s Park – used to look like this (courtesy of Google Streetview) –

Basically a road designed around motor vehicles. Three queuing lanes, fencing on both sides to keep pedestrians out of the way and on the thin pavements. Pretty terrible.

It now looks like this.

The road has been narrowed considerably, with the entirety of the junction to the left of central island seen under the old arrangement given over to a new wide pavement. All traffic now passes on just two lanes, instead of three, to the right of that old ‘island’, which is actually the entrance to a ladies’ toilet.

This is a great improvement.

However – and this is the churlish bit – I can’t help feel that the bicycle has been forgotten about (as it has elsewhere, seemingly). The old junction wasn’t exactly pleasant to negotiate on a bicycle – it was fast, and you had to ‘keep your wits about you’ – but at least you could filter through stationary traffic with relative ease to get to the front of the queue, and likewise vehicles could overtake slower cyclists with relative ease.

That has changed a bit under the new arrangement. The new carriageway is narrow (which is obviously a good thing – we don’t need to make roads wider than they need to be), but so narrow that filtering past traffic is a bit of a problem.

A larger vehicle queuing here, such as a van, bus or lorry, would make filtering much more difficult, if not impossible. Filtering is one of the quiet joys of cycling, one of the great advantages of using a bicycle in London, and it’s always a bit upsetting when it gets taken away.

It’s quite hard to see what can be done about it though, because the two traffic lanes have to pass to the right of the toilet entrance, and can’t be made any wider without taking away space from the pavement on the right, which is not particularly wide. Given that queuing capacity here has been reduced from three lanes to two (I imagine that was quite a struggle), reducing down to just one lane for vehicles would be impossible to sell.

The obvious answer would be to route bicycles on a separate track to the left of the toilet.

The pavement is huge, and practically we could afford to lose some of it for a 2m wide track, given that the routing of that track would not lie on a desire line (most of the pedestrians walking were keeping close-ish to the buildings on the left, as that is the most direct route up Parkway as the pavement progressively narrows). Nor is there a huge amount of footfall on this street – certainly compared to the other streets around here, where the pavements are actually narrower. And – as we can see – some of the pavement has been sacrificed, in any case, for a parking bay.

A cycle track, arranged like this, could allow left turns, towards Chalk Farm, which aren’t permitted under the new arrangement (you can only progress straight across the junction, whether you are in a car, or on a bicycle). This would be a turn from the red road, at bottom, onto the yellow road, to the left (again, courtesy of Google).

But of course the difficulty would naturally be how to integrate such a cycle track into the (rather complex) junction itself. There isn’t really any history of doing these things in this country, and consequently things tend to get improvised – as at Bow roundabout. A track would have to run across the island in front of the tube station, but would then come into conflict with left-turning vehicles going up Kentish Town Road (the green road), where either bicycles or motor vehicles would have to be held at a signal.

The difficulties – given that there is no practical experience or template of how to organise the separate flow of bicycles through busy junctions in the UK – would be considerable, especially given that it would inevitably result in a further reduction in motor vehicle capacity. Putting a track to the left of the toilet would quite obviously open up a whole can of worms!

Now that Boris has signed up to the ‘Go Dutch’ agenda of the London Cycling Campaign, Transport for London should (should) start thinking about how these kinds of problems are addressed, and be considerably more open to proposed designs that permit the separate flow of bicycles through complex or busy junctions.

And one final point – Parkway is still a one-way street, two lanes wide, with parking on it. You can’t cycle up it, to get to Regent’s Park from Camden. That surely cannot continue to be acceptable.

Many thanks to John Dales!

Posted in Boris Johnson, Go Dutch, Guardrail, Infrastructure, LCC, London, One-way streets, Pavement parking, Transport for London | 1 Comment

The tragedy of Stratford High Street

Posted on July 3, 2012 by aseasyasriding

Having written last week about the flaws in the essentially useless Cycle Superhighway 2, today I’m going to take a look at the continuation of that route, Stratford High Street, in the London Borough of Newham.

The original plan was for the Superhighway to continue across Bow Roundabout and eastwards along this road, all the way to Ilford. However, that wasn’t counting on the intransigence of Newham Borough Council, who have blocked any construction (or ‘construction’) of a Superhighway in their borough until after the Olympics.

The reasons for this are somewhat obscure. One of the initial reasons – in fact the main one given by Newham Borough Council – was that the colour blue would conflict with the borough’s ‘design guidance’ for road surfacing. They wrote to Newham Cycling Campaign, stating that

the decision to defer the implementation of the route between Bow and Ilford was taken by the London Borough of Newham and Transport for London (TfL) for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons was the Council’s opposition to coloured road surfacing, in accordance with design guidance for the borough’s roads, without the coloured surfacing the route would not be identifiable as a Cycle Superhighway.

This doesn’t make a lot of sense, on several grounds. Why is the implementation merely being ‘deferred’ if the Council is opposed to coloured road surfaces? Are they only opposed temporarily?

Further, as the link from Newham Cycling Campaign makes clear, there is already a Superhighway on the roads of Newham Borough, Superhighway 3. When this was pointed out to them, Newham said that that Superhighway lay entirely on TfL controlled roads, not on borough roads. When it was then pointed out to Newham that this wasn’t true, and parts of the CS3 did indeed run along borough roads, Newham then said that they made ‘an exception’ for that Superhighway; they did not explain why they could not make an exception for Cycle Superhighway 2.

This was back in March last year. By May, Ross Lydall of the Evening Standard had picked up on the story. Noting that Assembly Member Roger Evans had challenged Newham over their refusal to build the Superhighway on the basis of a paint colour, Lydall discovered that

[Evans’] suggestion that Newham has refused to allow the cycle superhighway because it doesn’t like the blue colour has been refuted by the council.

A council spokesman is then quoted –

“Our primary concern is cyclists’ safety. Newham council is committed to a cycling legacy from 2012 and we are in constructive negotiations with TfL about the route. Kulveer Ranger will be visiting the borough later this summer so we can work together on the best way forward.”

So the difficulty is no longer the colour of the paint, but with concerns over safety. This reason is backed up by an assertion that ‘there are already too many roadworks in Stratford High Street.’ A period of roadworks would of course have been the perfect time to start painting a Superhighway; the disruption would have been kept to a minimum.

We move on to August, and the BBC’s Tom Edwards visits the area to find out just what the problem is.

This is what a Transport for London spokesperson said about the curtailed cycling superhighway: “Our original proposal was for Route 2 to run all the way from Aldgate to Ilford. However, the London Borough of Newham requested that we defer the section east of Bow Roundabout until after 2012 due to a number of projects planned in the Stratford area this year, including significant urban realm improvements as part of the Stratford High Street 2012 project. We hope to be able to resume construction of the remainder of the route after that time.”

Now it is clear what these ‘roadworks’, which are preventing the construction of Superhighway 2, involve – they are the ‘urban realm improvements’ of the ‘Stratford High Street 2012’ project.

One of the stated aims of this very same project is (pdf)

To create a healthy street by increasing opportunities for walking and cycling, by forming green oases and  active spaces along the way

That obviously doesn’t include the provision of an actual route for bicycles along Stratford High Street itself. And it is this plan – which has so singularly failed to provide any opportunities for cycling along Stratford High Street – that has blocked the construction of the Superhighway. An allegedly pro-cycling urban redevelopment has cancelled out another pro-cycling development. And we’ve been left with… nothing.

As Arnold Ridout, joint co-ordinator of Newham London Cycling Campaign, says –

Public money was wasted on redeveloping Stratford High Street without cycle facilities, a mistake exacerbated by then blocking the cycle superhighway.

Incredible stuff. The last ‘noise’ on the issue the Superhighway was that the Mayor’s Director of Cycling, Kulveer Ranger, was due to visit the borough over the summer of 2011. He didn’t appear to have achieved anything, and in any case is now no longer in place.

The ‘urban realm improvements’ of Stratford High Street have a passing resemblance to other  improvements elsewhere London. Just like Kensington High Street, for instance, we have smart, wide new pavements, with minimal clutter, and fancy lamp posts.

Just like Kensington High Street, we also have multiple lanes for motor vehicles, and absolutely nothing for cycling. The amount of money sloshing around here, with all the new development visible along the High Street itself (to say nothing of the Olympics, the Olympic Park lying just to the north of this road) must be staggering, and yet we’ve ended up with another huge road. The bicycle, just like in other new street designs in London, has been forgotten about.

For all the talk of active travel, and a sustainable Olympics, and the success of British Olympians in cycling, the main road to the Olympics is terrible for cycling. It’s just a motorway, three lanes wide in each direction. I think the speed limit is supposed to be 30 mph, but it didn’t seem to be adhered to, and I don’t suppose you can blame drivers, given the signals the road layout is sending out.

 The High Street 2012 pamphlet boasts that

Our vision is to create a thriving high street of which London can be proud, and which the world will admire; where there is a balance between pedestrians and  other road users

Pedestrians certainly have a nice wide pavement which keeps them away from the speeding cars. I didn’t try to cross the road here, however, so I’m not sure how much ‘balance’ has been created between pedestrians and ‘other road users’, either in attempting to cross the road directly, or in how long you might have to wait at the two-stage signalled crossings.

As a person on a bicycle, however, I’m simply treated like any ‘other road user’, even if they happen to be driving an HGV, at a speed far greater than I am capable of. How can this be the way we design streets, especially ones that are this wide, and that have so important a destination? It’s staggering.

Posted in Absurd transport solutions, Boris Johnson, Bow Roundabout, Infrastructure, London, Stratford High Street, Town planning, Transport for London | 6 Comments

An argument that has been heard before

Posted on July 2, 2012 by aseasyasriding

Mark Wagenbuur, of Bicycle Dutch, has provided us with an excellent translation of a Dutch newspaper article from 1935 on cycle paths and their construction. It’s very much worth reading in full, but one of the arguments made in that article – written 77 years ago – is how cost-effective it is to construct cycle paths alongside new roads, or on roads that are being widened or reconfigured.

Here, for cyclists, the benefits will always outweigh the costs, because cycle paths can be constructed for a relatively low and justifiable increase in the costs, that has to be added to the costs for the construction of a new road.

By way of contrast, I have an extract from an article from The Times of the 1st August, 1934 – only about 6 months before the Dutch newspaper article appeared. It summarises a statement issued by the Cyclists’ Touring Club on ‘Road Safety’, and has this to say –

PATHS FOR CYCLISTS. The club cannot support the suggestion of special paths for cyclists, the cost of which would in any case be enormous, whether their use be compulsory or optional. Cyclists claim the right, which they have always enjoyed, to use the public highway.

The Dutch understood how the costs of cycle path construction were minimal when considered alongside the cost of the construction of new roads, and the repair and maintenance of existing roads. The Cyclists’ Touring Club didn’t (or – if one wishes to be cynical about their motives – chose to use this ‘cost’ argument against the construction of cycle paths while not fully believing it).

What is tremendously sad is that this argument hasn’t ever disappeared – the cost of construction of cycle paths has continued to be considered ‘enormous’ ever since, despite the vast expenditure on new roads, and road maintenance, after 1934.

Posted in Cyclists' Touring Club, History, Infrastructure, The Netherlands, Transport policy | 6 Comments

Conservative councillor Christian Mitchell finds an issue that really matters – an unobtrusive £96 sign

Posted on June 29, 2012 by aseasyasriding

I am pleased to report that I am indirectly responsible for a ‘headline’ story in my local newspaper, the West Sussex County Times – although I think this must certainly count as a very slow news week if a story as trivial as the one I am about to recount can feature on the front page and on the entirety of page 3.

Some background. There has always been a public bridleway running northwards out of the old town centre of Horsham. It used to lie along the line of the original North Street, in front of St. Mark’s Church. The road itself was the bridleway, and people rode horses and bicycles, and walked and drove, along it.

Then in the early 1990s the church was almost entirely demolished to make way for an office block, and for a dual carriageway to be run through underneath it. The old North Street simply ceased to exist, and was realigned, running from a vast new signal controlled junction, behind the new office block.

All that remains of the old church is the spire, as seen above. The office block – running across the picture – marks the route of the old North Street.

The architects and designers of this enormous building had two problems, one rather serious, one less so. The first was new Department of Transport requirements on the height of bridges. The whole building sits some distance above ground level, in order to accommodate a huge underpass.

This was obviously a challenge, and meant, at the town centre end of the building, a steep ramp and steps in order to gain the necessary height.

The second challenge was the existence of the bridleway itself, which had to be maintained, by law.

As he was working on a front canopy for the main Sun Alliance building, [architect] Peter Davidson discovered that North Street had been a bridle path and he was obliged to keep it. It meant that anything built, or growing, over it had to be high enough to allow for the passage of a horse with a rider wearing a top hat. ‘Apart from that what worried us was that a cyclist could ride up and down a bridle path and there would be lots and lots of cyclists riding up and down. In fact some do, but it’s never been a serious problem.’

From ‘A Journey Through Horsham’s Changes’ – John Buchanan and Annabelle Hughes, 2008, Horsham Society

I am one of those cyclists who does, occasionally, ride up and down this bridle path. It provides a slightly more attractive route into the town centre than the enormous junction behind the new office block, which looks like this –

The fundamental problem with using this bridle path is that it was not at all clear to anyone on it that cycling was legal upon it. It looks just like a footway.

As I wrote last year, this is a recipe for hostility. I have been shouted at cycling along here by a member of the public. A Horsham cyclist, Greg Collins, recounts here his account of being stopped by PCSOs while legally using this route. You can also find complaints being made to local councillors about cycling on this bridge here (pdf), all parties to the discussion – including the councillors themselves – completely unaware that cycling on Chart Way is perfectly legal.

With this in mind, I got in touch with West Sussex County Council and asked them whether they could erect some small signs making clear that this was a bridleway, and that cycling was permitted. To their credit, they were very helpful, and within a few months two small green signs appeared on existing poles at either end of the path. You can see one in the photograph above.

Amazingly, it is the presence of these signs that have aroused the ire of District Councillor Christian Mitchell, who is quoted at length in the paper, railing against them in extraordinarily overblown language.

The superfluous addition of these two modern signs to the existing cast iron sign posts is wanton architectural vandalism.

And –

I’d like to be generous and hope that these two new signs informing the public that Chart Way is a public bridleway and that one can freely ride a horse into The Carfax from North Street is a belated April Fool’s joke. However, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Quite why, after more than 20 years, some jobs-worth felt the need to attach these two ugly signs, I don’t know.

The Carfax and the roads leading to it won national awards and praise for its [sic] design. But it didn’t happen by accident. Much thought and consideration was given to the colour of the stone paving, to the band stand, to the decision to have working gas street lamps and to ensure that the rest of the street furniture, namely the benches, litter bins and street signs all matched and were as unobtrusive as possible.

The eye for detail by the then chief executive, Martin Pearson, and the councillors who worked on the town’s redevelopment was simply incredible.

And not only are the signs brutal, detracting from the heritage signpost that has been designed to blend in with the street scene, they are a waste of taxpayers’ money at a time when we were all having to further tighten our belts. I cannot accept that this was a spending priority after twenty years without them.

The county highways officers should do the right thing and remove them immediately and put them back in the store cupboard from where they came from until a proper use can be found for them such as a public bridleway in the countryside, not one in the town centre.

This is such exceptional guff, on so many levels, it is quite hard to know where to start.

Bridleways aren’t just for horses, Cllr Mitchell – they’re for bikes, too, which is an entirely reasonable mode of transport in a town centre. Did you know that? Dribbling on about people wishing to ride horses into the town centre completely misses the point.

The cost of these signs was £97.64. An absolutely miniscule sum of money when you consider the size of the West Sussex County Council budget in entirety, let alone the Highways budget. (When even the pence are included in the price, you know it’s small). Is this really the only expenditure you see fit to rail against, or indeed the most appropriate target?

And now on to the matter of ‘architectural vandalism’. Setting aside the grim irony that the route in question lies on top of a demolished church, the remaining spire of which nestles, surrounded on three sides, by an office block, it is curious why, precisely, it is the addition of these signs that has provoked Mr Mitchell’s outrage.

The picture in the paper is selective and misleading.

If we stand back and look at this sign, in context, what do we see?

Three larger – and far more garish – signs, that existed long before the addition of a barely visible green sign to a green post. Is Mr Mitchell calling for the large red ‘Emergency Access – Keep Clear’ sign to be removed, or to be rendered more in keeping? Or likewise, the ‘no heavy goods vehicles beyond this point’, or the large and obtrusive sign for West Sussex County Council?

Curiously, he is not. Mr Mitchell’s outrage against ‘brutal’ signs is, apparently, selective. I can and will go on. There are a vast number of signs dotted all over the area, which have existed for many years.

Two signs telling cyclists to stop cycling, a few yards away from the new sign. They have existed since the bridge was built. No comment on these ugly signs from Cllr Mitchell.

A garish yellow CCTV warning sign, one of several CCTV signs along this path.

‘Beware Uneven Paving’.

‘Danger Falling Hazard’.

‘CAUTION Pathway slippery when wet.’

And attached to the pole of the other sign –

Another CCTV warning, along with a cigarette butt receptacle.

No comment on any of these signs from Cllr Mitchell, all of which have been in place for many years, and all of which are far more obtrusive than a green sign which matches the pole.

Indeed, we don’t have to look very far to find more examples of street furniture that does not blend in with the exemplary Carfax. The whole town centre is dotted with signs for drivers that simply do not match their carefully-designed surroundings.

A garish, illuminated ‘one-way’ sign, just yards from the offending bridleway sign.

Another sign just yards away, with its own pole and illumination, telling drivers not to drive on the pavement. Unnecessary? Who knows!

Elsewhere in the Carfax, we find more ugly signs stuck on attractive lamp posts –

A plethora of unnattractive No Entry signs –

And of course the ubiquitous ‘Cyclists Dismount’ signs.

This is to say nothing of the huge signs and gantries dotted nearby giving motorists directions, which if any sign is to be called ‘brutal’ or ‘ugly’ would certainly qualify ahead of a small green one that you can barely notice.

Seemingly these signs, and all the others, are exempt from the strictures on aesthetics Cllr Mitchell is apparently so keen to dispense.

I have a proposal for the councillor. I’ll pay West Sussex County Council the £96.64 for these two new signs, and also remove – with his approval – all the pointless and redundant ‘cyclist dismount’ signs dotted around Horsham town centre. At no cost! That way the tax payer is no worse off, and plenty of garish signs – which Cllr Mitchell so evidently dislikes – will disappear.

How about it?

Posted in Councillor Christian Mitchell, Horsham, Horsham District Council, Signs, West Sussex County Council | 16 Comments

A punishment for a motorist

Posted on June 28, 2012 by aseasyasriding

A small news article from The Times of 19th March, 1935 –

DRIVING LICENCE SUSPENDED FOR LIFE

FREDERICK BRIGHT ROBINSON, 33, engineer, of Oaklands Drive, Weybridge, was at the South-Western Police Court yesterday fined £100 and his licence was suspended for life on charges of driving his car dangerously at Putney while he was under the influence of drink.

In today’s money, that fine of £100 amounts, I think, to about £5000 – not insignificant.

A ban for life might not have been seen as quite so desperate a punishment as today, of course, because in 1935 people were generally rather less dependent on the motor vehicle as a means of getting about.

It’s worth noting, in passing, that Mr. Robinson was permanently stripped of his right to drive a motor vehicle at a time when the prominent cycling lobby groups were campaigning energetically against cycle tracks, arguing that the roads themselves should be made safer by means, amongst others, of more stringent punishments for offending motorists.

Posted in Dangerous driving, Drink driving, Driving ban, History | 4 Comments