Horsham District Council does not care about cycling

If you search for “Cycling” on the Horsham District Council site, you will find that it is classified as a “Sporting Activity” under “Leisure and Tourism.”

That serves as useful background for what follows.

In 2008, Horsham District Council, along with the Horsham District Community Partnership (HDCP), commissioned a review of cycling in Horsham. This was in response to a 2007 recommendation, from HDCP, that an assessment was needed of the gaps in the Horsham cycle network (it would surely have been quicker to look for where the ‘network’ actually exists at all, rather than looking for the gaps – but perhaps that is just nit-picking on my part), with the goal of improving the safety and attractiveness of cycling in the town.

The review, duly funded, was carried out in 2008 by an independent consultancy – Transport Initiatives, of Brighton – and was finally presented for approval to the cabinet of Horsham District Council on the 2nd April, 2009. It can be found in the appendix of the minutes to that meeting, here (beginning p.194).

The review contains a total of 235 separate recommendations for improving the safety and attractiveness of cycling in Horsham. Some of these are ranked as “Practicality – 4”, which according to the Review, means that the measures

May be desirable but may also be impractical/very difficult to implement, or have negative outcomes beyond the area to be treated.

I wouldn’t expect Horsham District Council to leap into action and carry out these kinds of measures – they involve, for instance resignalling junctions, or changing gyratories, and would probably also involve the consent of West Sussex County Council.

However, the great majority of the recommended measures – 146 out of the 235 – have their practicality ranked as “1” or “2” –

1 – Relatively inexpensive to introduce in both design and implementation, and should provide good return for minimal cost

2- Could be more expensive but generally should provide a reasonable return in giving more advantage to cyclists and pedestrians

That is, these are simple, cheap measures, that will almost certainly encourage more cycling and walking, and provide value for money.

The big question is, in April 2011, two years since the Horsham Cycling Review was presented to the Council, how many of the 235 separate recommendations have been implemented?

Four.

I’m not joking. (In fact I’m being slightly generous).

The inescapable conclusion is that Horsham District Council does not care about cycling as a means of urban transport. The facts are plain – it has been utterly neglected for decades in the town’s planning, and, on the evidence of the response to this Review, nothing is changing. Cycling is just something you do at weekends, when you attach your bicycle to your car and drive off to a nice quiet bit of countryside, and pedal around, before driving back. It is plainly not considered as a solution to congestion, pollution, the costs of continually repairing and updating the road network, or childhood obesity – to name but a few. Or even just a way of making my town a more pleasant place to live.

That is desperately sad.

Anyway, I leave you with a small example, one of well over 200 Horsham Cycling Review recommendations that have not currently been implemented.

Depot Road – Improve ex. cycle track & extend to school entrance (Practicality – 1)

Here is the cycle track on Depot Road, last weekend, with the school in the background, beyond the car park. Depot Road itself is currently classed as “CSNA 3” by the Review, meaning that you effectively need to have achieved Bikeability Level 3 to cycle safely on it.

The reasonably good, but short and difficult to access, off-road cycle lane here simply comes to an end (with a helpful “Cyclists Dismount” sign), some distance from the school entrance. As you can see, all that would be needed here is for a gap to be constructed in the fence, and for one of those parking bays to be removed – children can then cycle all the way to the school entrance, rather than being forced to dismount some distance from it.

But nothing has happened here. Just like nothing has happened with some two hundred other recommended practical measures to improve cycling in Horsham, that the Council have not implemented.

Why?

Dangerous lunatics

Here are some dangerous lunatics, taking to our streets with a reckless disregard for their own safety.

Oops, sorry, hang on a minute!

That wasn’t the photo I meant to post. Here it is.

Look at these maniacs. Not a single member of this group has protected themselves with a helmet as they engage in the extreme activity of cycling through St James’ Park.

They should take a lesson from the Jackass team, who, as you can see from the first picture, always wear helmets when they are not inside the protective zone of a metal cage.

Car crime vs. knife crime

‘Knife crime’ is, in common usage, the act of threatening , injuring or killing someone with a knife.

‘Car crime’ is, in common usage, the act of threatening , injuring or killing someone with a car stealing a car.

The driver in this video – from Gaz545, aka Croydon Cyclist – threatens, and comes within inches of seriously injuring, a cyclist with his car. But this kind of behaviour is never referred to as ‘car crime’, even though the driver in question is using his car as a weapon in the very much the same way that a knife would be used as a weapon in ‘knife crime’.

Why?

To me, the answer lies in the fact that a car is not really considered to be a potentially offensive weapon, even though in the wrong hands (as shown in this video) it can be capable of just as much threat, and possible injury, as a knife. There seems to be a curious disconnect in operation, one that prevents us from seeing the car as something that can be deeply threatening. Instead the car is purely a means of transport that can, on occasion, be operated ‘dangerously’.

I’m not quite sure what offence the driver in this video could be charged with (dangerous driving?) – but I am certain it would be nowhere near as serious as the charge he would be facing if he had waved a knife at a stranger on the street.

That tells me that something is seriously wrong.

Thanks to Joe Dunckley for providing the food for thought behind this post.

Has Terence Fowler received a driving ban?

The jailing of Terence Fowler, the car thief who drove across a level crossing moments before a train passed, as well as hitting speeds of 80 to 90 mph on suburban streets, has hit the headlines today, I suspect largely because of the extraordinary recklessness of his driving. The video below speaks for itself.

While all the stories report that Fowler has been jailed for three-and-a-half years, none of them – as far as I can tell – mention any kind of driving ban.

This surely can’t be because one was not imposed?

UPDATE

According the CPS, a dangerous driving conviction carries a minimum 12-month ban. It will be interesting to see what length of ban Fowler actually received. Needless to say, a 12-month ban would be an entirely meaningless punishment for someone who is in jail while that ‘ban’ is being served.

The Tanbridge Retail Park, Horsham – when urban planning goes wrong

The ‘A’ arrow on the map below marks the location of the Tanbridge Retail Park in Horsham. It was constructed in the early 1990s, alongside a new section of dual carriageway that had been blasted through part of the town, extending the existing ‘Albion Way’ inner ring road to allow easier access by car to a new Sainsbury’s development, itself built on school playing fields. Sainsbury’s lies on that same roundabout, on the map.

This roundabout is not very far from the town centre at all – barely a few hundred yards from West Street, the main shopping street. The large, darker area to the top of the map is the town’s indoor shopping precinct. It is a three minute walk, at most, from the centre of West Street, down Worthing Road, to this retail park. Indeed, websites which promote the retail park assure you that it is

within walking distance of Horsham Town Centre

But unfortunately, the planners who built this park, and the highway engineers responsible for the road network around it, seem to have gone out of their way to discourage this strange activity called ‘walking’.

Here we are, looking southbound, to the shop we want to get to, only a matter of yards away. But you can see that several barriers have been put in our way. Stop walking!

Here is evidence of the natural ‘desire line.’ This muddy track suggests that a large number of pedestrians have no inclination to be herded like cattle,  away from a straight line to their destination.

If you don’t want to push through the bushes, however, you have to hoof your way up the Albion Way dual carriageway to this two-stage pedestrian crossing.

Helpfully the lights are fitted with sensors which prevent them from changing if vehicles are approaching. This means that if traffic is continuous, you will have to wait at least a minute for the lights to change. And then wait again at the next set of lights, to cross the other carriageway. But people who walk deserve to be held up, don’t they?

Now that you are on the correct side of the street, you would think that it would now be easy to access either of the two shops in the retail park, but unfortunately life is still being made needlessly difficult for you. To enter either Staples or Curry’s, you have to double back to the entrance shown in the photograph below, which will add 50-60 metres to your journey on foot.

This is looking back northbound, to the point we started from, on the other side of the road.

The lack of consideration for pedestrians is entirely evident. The fences stopping you from crossing in the most natural place; a traffic light set that is displaced up the road to where it is convenient for motor vehicles, with a delayed light sequence to match; an entrance to the shops that is situated on the corner, at the furthest point from where pedestrians are ‘allowed’ to cross the road – the planners responsible have clearly decided that pedestrians are merely something that has to be kept out of the way of motor vehicle flow. No thought at all has gone into encouraging people to walk the very short distance to these two shops, and every incentive has been put in place to make people drive to them.

An enormous car park, free to everyone who drives here. To repeat, this is in the centre of the town.

Another natural ‘desire line’, this time from the eastern, Worthing Road side. The planners were thoughtless enough to not put a pedestrian entrance here – so one has been created for them.

And on a final note, there are no cycle stands at either shop.

Staples.

Curry’s.

“Where cycle lanes are less than 1.5 metres in width, it is because the road is too narrow to introduce a wider lane.”

On 22nd May 2010, Everton Smith was killed while riding his bicycle northbound along Vauxhall Bridge Road.

The cycle lane he was travelling in was 1.2 metres wide, a good deal less than the 1.5 metre minimum stipulated by the Department for Transport.

Somewhere between Besborough Gardens, and Drummond Gate, he was hit by a cement lorry that was about to turn left, and went under the wheels.

You can see the width, and condition, of the cycle lane along this road in the above image from Streetview.

The Metropolitan Police Officer investigating the collision, Sergeant Simon Seeley, stated that

Our traffic management unit has advised me that that cycle lane is not of the required width. It is not the proper width for a cycle lane.

The Evening Standard further reports that Sergeant Seeley felt that ‘the road layout was too cramped. Not only was the 1.2 metre-wide cycle lane below the minimum 1.5 metre width set out in government guidelines, but the adjoining traffic lane was only 2.9 metres wide. He said that was only slightly greater than the 2.5 metre width of the cement mixer and warned that such lack of space was putting cyclists at risk on a significant number of London roads.’

Seeley said

As a cyclist, you think this is not a cycle lane, this is the gutter. They try to squeeze everything on and there isn’t enough room because some of these HGVs and buses take up the whole lane.

What Sergeant Seeley is arguing is that the markings are not sufficiently wide for a bicycle and an HGV to fit in, simultaneously (this does not have anything to do with an HGV even being compelled to give safe clearance to a cyclist). Using Seeley’s figures, if the cement mixer was in the middle of its lane, and a bicycle of 90-100 cm in width was in the middle of the ‘bicycle lane’, there would only be thirty to forty centimetres between the edge of the truck and the cyclist. Any slight deviation, and there would be contact.

The markings on this road, therefore, were an accident waiting to happen.

You would think that Transport for London would rush, immediately, to rectify the markings that have been directly implicated by the Metropolitan Police in a man’s death. This was their response at the time.

A spokeswoman for Transport for London, which is responsible for the layout of Vauxhall Bridge Road, said it was “very saddened” by Mr Smith’s death.

She said: “Where cycle lanes are less than 1.5 metres in width, it is because the road is too narrow to introduce a wider lane. The green tarmac at these locations helps cyclists to navigate and is designed to alert motorists to their presence.”

This anonymous spokesperson seems to be arguing that Vauxhall Bridge Road is “too narrow” to introduce a wider lane.

This is not true. Vauxhall Bridge Road is, as can be seen from the above photo, six lanes wide at this point, with a dividing island. From kerb to kerb (excluding the pavement), this is a distance of 20.2 metres, or over 66 feet.

This is not a road that is ‘too narrow’ to introduce a wider lane.

What the TfL spokesperson is actually saying is that TfL cannot introduce a wider lane, without removing one of the six lanes allocated to motor vehicles.

The direct implication is that, for TfL, having six lanes of motor traffic, rather than five, is an absolute priority, one that cannot even by overridden by the fact that some cyclists might be killed while cycling in a dangerously narrow lane, alongside a dangerously narrow motor vehicle lane.

If there was any doubt about TfL’s commitment to keeping motor vehicle lanes at this location, at the expense of cyclists’ safety, it comes in the form of their proposed changes for this road, as part of the forthcoming Superficial Cycleway Cycle Superhighway 5, which will run from Lewisham to Victoria, along Vauxhall Bridge Road.

The Cyclists in the City blog – which, as always, is doing great work exposing the utter tripe that TfL is serving up for cyclists and pedestrians – has all the details. It comes as no surprise that all six lanes of motor traffic are being kept. There are no concessions at all to cyclists. The dangerous width of the cycle lane southbound (opposite where Everton Smith was killed) has a superficial ‘solution’. It has been widened to 1.5 metres, the bare minimum, but this extra width has come at the expense of a narrowed vehicle lane, which is – guess what – only 2.4 metres wide, which is narrower than the cement mixers Sergeant Seeley was describing. Any cement mixer travelling along the inside lane will almost certainly be straddling the cycle lane.

Northbound, the situation is hardly any better. The cycle lane is 1.5 metres wide, again, the bare minimum, but this time it has been placed in between two lanes of motor traffic, each of which are only 3 metres wide (again, note that this is only just wider than the 2.9 metres which so upset Sergeant Seeley). This ‘central cycle lane’ is a lethal design – empirically so, as it directly resulted in the deaths of two cyclists on Blackfriars Bridge, before it was hastily removed in 2006.

The whole picture is that – still – provision for cyclists is, literally, being squeezed in at the margins of the road network.

Don’t believe the nonsense Transport for London come out with about roads being ‘too narrow’ for decent, safe cycle routes. The plain facts – borne out by their own designs – are that they care more about keeping lanes for motor vehicles, than cyclists’ safety.

Close-pass deterrent?

I spotted this distinctive bicycle, with its two rear-facing child seats, in Horsham the other day.

I’m thinking about getting one myself, and placing two realistic models of children on the rear. I would like to think it might act as a close-pass deterrent.

A selection of London streets that, due to the existing layout of roads and buildings, could never accommodate segregated cycle paths

In many places, the existing layout of roads and buildings means that there is simply not enough space to provide segregated cycle lanes without adversely impacting other users.

Boris Johnson, 23rd February 2011, in answer to question from John Biggs regarding segregated cycle lanes.

Here is a small selection of some London streets, for your perusal.

Piccadilly.

St. James’s Street.

London Bridge.

Portland Place.

Harley Street.

Wigmore Street.

Regent Street.

Berners Street.

Tottenham Court Road.

Gower Street.

Victoria Embankment.

As you can see quite clearly, there really isn’t any point asking for segregated cycle provision in London. There just isn’t enough space.

Horsham Cycle Routes, Route 3 – King’s Road

King’s Road is one of the busiest roads in Horsham. A dead straight line from one of the main suburbs in the north, towards the centre of the town, cars commonly exceed the 30 mph limit. Traffic is particularly heavy at peak commuting hours, and also at school pick-up time – there’s a primary school here.

Fortunately, for the aspirant cyclist, there is some excellent, Dutch-style infrastructure – a wide, segregated cycle path, which allows anyone on a bike, young or old, nervous or confident, to navigate up and down this road safely and conveniently, without having to negotiate traffic, or worry about close passes from speeding vehicles.

Who am I kidding. No, it’s the usual crap.

Here’s the cycle lane, at the northern end of King’s Road. It’s about 80 cm wide, about half the recommended Department of Transport minimum. As you can see, people like to drive on it.

But look, there’s a nice shiny blue sign. This is a Cycle Route!

Further along, the lane gets worse. Much worse.

It takes you slap bang into the door zone, alongside a parking bay. Nice. This driver has helpfully folded in their mirror, which gives you an indication of the proximity of passing motor vehicles here. (You can also see, in the background, what a bicycle user makes of the road conditions here.)

A little further along, and the cycle lane has transformed, mysteriously, into a parking bay. You’ve no choice but to negotiate your way out into the traffic now. Although, frankly, that’s almost certainly the best place to be, given the standard of this cycle lane, and its tendency to position you right up against the kerb, or parked cars. Note the condition of this superior cycling facility here. You can feel the love with which it has been maintained –

Next, we encounter the primary school.
Despite the encouragement of a blue sign, you will not see children riding their bikes to this school along this road.

At the southern end of the King’s Road, we meet a busy gyratory. The solution here? Get on the pavement, you pesky cyclist.

Then give way to pedestrians.

Then try and get across to the other side of the road, without any assistance, at the point shown in the video below. This is hard.

As you can see, if traffic is not coming around the roundabout, traffic will be be emerging onto it from your right. Consequently, there are rarely any gaps in traffic (this video was taken on a less busy Sunday evening) and you will usually have to rely on someone being nice, seeing your predicament, and letting you cross first. I do not bother trying to cross here under normal circumstances.

How many people do you think are going to be minded to take up cycling because of this infrastructure, which is apparently good enough to merit inclusion on West Sussex County Council’s map* of Cycling Routes in Horsham?

I am almost certain the answer is ‘none at all.’

But don’t take my word for it. As has already been noted by a body no less august than West Sussex County Council itself,

The current provision of pedestrian and cycling facilities throughout the District, and in particular within Horsham, are not sufficient to support and maintain sustainable travel. This is because much of the network is disjointed and suffers from inadequate signing, safe crossing points and poor surfacing.

(See previous post here for details).

*It should be noted that, although this map suggests there is an ‘on-road’ cycle route on King’s Road, it neglects to mention that there is no provision at all northbound. This post has dealt entirely with the southbound ‘facility.’ I leave it up to the reader to decide whether it is better for cyclists than no provision at all.

Rehabilitating the image of cycling – lawlessness

Waiting at a red light on my bicycle in Horsham yesterday (because I am an obedient cyclist, who does not wish to bring vengeance raining down on my collective species – on this, more below), I had to pause for several seconds after my light had turned green, as a number of right-turning vehicles continued to proceed through the junction after their light had quite obviously turned red.

I thought the last of these – a middle-aged lady in a small red Vauxhall – was particularly egregious, and said so, raising my arm disbelievingly, exclaiming with a weary ‘Oh, come on!…’

This earned me a rather pouty scowl, as if it was me that was in the wrong, for having the temerity to question her rather dangerous and selfish behaviour. I even think she might have stuck her tongue at me. It was like being back at school.

She has inspired me to publish some footage I took recently at the junction between Southwark Bridge Road, and Southwark Street, on a Monday evening in mid-March. The video below shows eight consecutive light sequences, over about a ten minute period. See if you can spot the misdemeanours. Answers below.

Sequence 1 : An Audi rolls deliberately into the ASL, rather than stopping before it.

Sequence 2 : A taxi runs a red light, followed by a white car that thinks about doing the same, before coming to a rather desperate halt over the stop line.

Sequence 3 : A white van moves, slowly and deliberately, into the ASL.

Sequence 4 : A taxi runs a red light.

Sequence 5 : A particularly bad red light jump from a black car.

Sequence 6 : Another red light-jumping black car.

Sequence 7 : An ‘amber gambler’, who could and should have stopped quite easily before the junction, rather than moving through it.

Sequence 8 : Yet another vehicle, travelling at a slow speed, who thought it wasn’t worth stopping legally once the lights had turned to amber.

Despite this kind of behaviour – which can be observed at almost any similar junction in the country, particularly at busy periods – it is ‘cyclists’ who, in the eyes of the general public, have the reputation of being ‘lawless’. Why is this?

Undoubtedly, of course, there are dangerous people on bikes out there. While the outrage about ‘pavement cycling’ is quite often misplaced, I do encounter people on bikes who actively endanger pedestrians, usually by travelling too close and too fast to them in pedestrianised areas. But there are many, many dangerous motorists. In fact, I think it is quite reasonable to assume that the proportion of dangerous bicycle users is not any higher than the proportion of dangerous motor vehicle users (setting aside any consideration how ‘dangerous’ that behaviour is, empirically, given the different amount of momentum and energy involved in the operation of the two different transport modes).

So why do cyclists have such a bad reputation? The answer is quite simple. Not many people ride bikes, while ‘everyone’ is a motorist. ‘Everyone’ has gambled their way through an amber light while driving, or glanced at their phone on the motorway, or been caught by a speed camera. These kinds of offences, because they are committed by ‘everyone’, are seen as part of the ‘natural’ make-up of being a road user, in a way that offences committed by a small minority – cyclists – are not.

That is why attempting to give cyclists, and cycling, a better reputation by trying to ensure that no cyclist, anywhere or any when, breaks the law, is a curiously wrong-headed strategy. See, for instance, Stopatred.

Stopatred is a campaign to improve the status of cycling in the eyes of the public and policy-makers alike, and to tackle the attitudes of those cyclists whose behaviour perpetuates the image of cyclists as a low-status social ‘out-group’ on wheels.

Stopatred was created by concerned cyclists, alarmed about how the cause of cycling is being undermined by the reckless actions of an unrepresentative minority.

At the very least, this kind of strategy is doomed to failure, in practical terms – there will always be ‘lawless’ road users, regardless of mode. But beyond that, it fails to address why law-breaking by motorists is not seen as an innate characteristic of being a motorist in a way that law-breaking by cyclists is seen as an innate characteristic of being a cyclist. Contrary to the logic of Stopatred, and like-minded groups, cyclists are not seen as a social ‘out-group’ because of the poor behaviour of a minority of bicycle users. They are seen as such simply because using a bicycle is not an ‘everyday’ activity for the great majority of people, while using a motor vehicle certainly is.

The answer to giving cycling a better reputation lies not in some futile struggle to make every cyclist a saint, but in building a mass cycling culture.