Cyclists hate road narrowing schemes, but have our cycling campaigns been asking for them all along?

I was in Birmingham recently for the excellent Cycle City Expo where hundreds of cycling campaigners, road engineers, and local councils came together to think about really getting Britain cycling.  There was a palpable atmosphere that the new age of the bicycle was well on its way, and indeed that "something" will need to be done on our streets to help accommodate it.  But just what should be done is still very much up for debate, and this was brought home to me by a conversation I had with an engineer there who was exasperated with cycling campaigns.

"You cyclists don't know what you want!" the engineer exclaimed.  His outburst came as a shock to me.  I'd been telling him about the latest design trend for road narrowing schemes that is sweeping our capital.  I'd told him that such a design had been built on the Bethnal Green Road and provoked an incredible reaction from people who ride the road everyday, and that in Westminster plans to narrow the carriageway on Haymarket had people who ride there up in arms.  I explained my view that road narrowing puts people on bikes at a disadvantage, cutting their ability to get ahead of stationary traffic, bringing them closer together with heavy moving traffic and leading to dangerous overtakes by drivers who don't realise that cyclists are supposed to take the lane, or worse, just grow reckless and impatient.  I told him that I thought plenty of cyclists hated such schemes and would do anything they could to avoid any such future projects being implemented on busy roads and key cycle corridors.  Many people have told me they feel intimidated and bullied by motorised traffic when they are brought closer together by road narrowing, and recounted horror stories of road aggression, near misses and uncomfortably close passes.  That's when the engineer started to sigh, scratch his head, and look at me in an exasperated way.

 Road narrowing on London's Strand. No room for error here.

"Don't you see?" he began to explain, "Cyclists have been asking for road narrowing schemes for years.  And now they are being built, you are telling me that cyclists hate them.  You cyclists don't know what you want!"  

I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing, so I asked the engineer to explain further.  He agreed, on the condition that I kept his identity confidential so as not to prejudice some bicycle-friendly measures he is currently working on with a London council

"I've worked on a road narrowing scheme before.  The client, the Council, wanted to turn an A-road in to a more people friendly street, most particularly with regards to accommodating all of the cyclists, who in recent years had become the majority of the traffic on this particular stretch.  The road is also a bus corridor, and busy with lots of pedestrians.  A shopping centre had been built on the road recently and there was a big pot of Section 106 money set aside for streetscape improvements.  There was enough space to build really good cycle tracks, and increase the width of the pavements for pedestrians, as well as to accommodate pull-ins for the buses and loading bays for the shops.  At first I thought that would be the best option to build; something for everyone.  But the local cycling campaigners disagreed."

My heart sank at the words "local cycle campaigners"; whilst I know there are hundreds of highly committed individuals up and down the country doing outstanding work, sadly amongst their number there is still a highly vocal minority wedded to some very strange ideologies regarding how best to provide for cyclists.

"The local cycling campaign drew our attention to the Hierarchy of Provision.  It's a Department for Transport standard, you must have heard of it?" quizzed the engineer.  Indeed, I had.  The "Hierarchy of Provision" can be found in the DfT's briefing LTN 2/08 Cycle Infrastructure Design [PDF]  It is also the foundation guide for all of the CTC's approach to campaigning and the basis of their recent design brief Cycle-friendly design and planning [PDF].  In a nutshell, it tells urban designers and road engineers what they should do when considering the place of cyclists and supposedly cycle-friendly measures.  It says that Dutch-style infrastructure should be considered as a 'last resort' after traffic reduction, traffic calming and speed reduction, junction treatments and painted bicycle lanes or shared bus lanes.  Everyone knows that overt traffic reduction is a politically impossible request, so the first practical suggestion on the list of considerations is speed reduction and traffic management.

"Don't you see?" said the engineer, "The local cycling campaign showed us the Hierarchy of Provision and made it perfectly clear that even though there was space for really good quality cycle tracks where our scheme was being constructed, they didn't want them.  They pointed to the DfT's guidance and, well, frankly it isn't the place of a road engineer to take on the might of the Department!  They showed us that cycle tracks weren't wanted, necessary or welcome.  In fact, one or two of them had some funny ideas about cycle tracks being an invitation for trouble and danger, and the last thing I want is some kind of liability issue arising out of my work.  So I followed the guidelines and did what it asked; we narrowed the carriageway as much as we possible could.  It slowed the traffic down - down from about 40mph on average to about 25mph today.  It also meant there was room to put in a few extra trees and benches and bike stands, which is great, obviously.  We reduced the speed, and managed the traffic, just as the cycling campaigners had asked us too."

At this point the engineer's face grew dark.  He even looked angry.  Downing the last of his coffee he pointed at me and said again "Cyclists don't know what they want!"

"We did what the campaigners asked.  We did what the guidance from the DfT asked, which I understand was written with input from the CTC.  We reduced traffic speed.  We put in place a system that managed traffic.  We didn't leave room for reckless driving"

"But it's been terrible.  The Council are furious with us!  Firstly, the volume of cycle traffic on the route dropped off by about a third.  You have to remember that cyclists used to be the majority of traffic here; that's a big deal.  Worse still, the instances of pavement cycling have shot up.  The local Police had non-stop complaints from shop keepers and local residents about people cycling on the footway during the rush hour because the traffic is at a standstill and cyclists can't get through on the narrowed road.  I admit it, what's the point of riding a bike if you can't go faster than all of the stationary traffic stuck in jams?!" 

A skip lorry overtakes a cyclist on the narrowed Cheapside in the City of London. Picture courtesy of Cyclists in the City of London.

"Then, last month there were two terrible accidents on the road.  It turns out that in order to skip the stationary traffic, but avoiding cycling on the pavement, some people on push bikes have been riding down the outside edge of the lane - that is to say they've been riding down the middle of the whole road - like a motorcyclist would.  Someone on a bike got hit head-on by a motorbike coming the other way.  It was a really nasty crash." 

"Then the other crash was when a driver tried to over take a cyclist in the middle of the lane whilst the traffic was moving.  Technically the cyclist was doing the right thing, but the driver, either through ignorance, or impatience, or both, tried to overtake.  Our design was supposed to "discourage" over taking, but it hasn't worked.  The driver went for it, misjudged the distances and crashed in to a pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road.  It could have been very serious."

I suddenly felt sorry for the engineer.  Designing a street on which cyclists, buses, lorries, pedestrians and cars have to interact is a huge responsibility, and the individual obviously took the consequences of his work very seriously indeed.

He continued; "After the crashes, and with all the pavement cycling going on, we went down there to actually talk to the road users to try and find out where our design was going wrong.  We spoke to some taxi drivers who said they hated the road now; they had no idea that cyclists were supposed to ride in the middle of the road and said they always felt unfairly held up when the traffic was moving.  We also spoke to some of the cyclists and every single one of them really hated it.  They told us that our new design made them feel in more danger than before, and that they didn't want to have to ride their bikes as though they were cars.  They felt that there was no room for mistakes on the narrowed road, and most of them admitted to skipping on to the pavement when the traffic came to a standstill, of it they felt they were riding too close to big vehicles likes trucks and buses.  I asked them all, if they had a choice between narrow slow roads, or less narrow roads with cycle tracks, which would they choose.  Nearly all of them chose cycle tracks; the very thing we had not built.  So you see my point now; cyclists, and their representatives, don't know what they want!"

 The terrifying plans for Haymarket in the City of Westminster - why have our cycle campaigns so far been silent on these proposals? (See Cyclists in the City here and here for more details of these appalling plans)

I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing; cycling design guidance had been used to create the very last thing that any normal cyclist would want.  Whilst I think the creation of the Hierarchy of Provision came from a well-meaning place, the episode over coffee with a design practitioner showed me that in reality it simply isn't fit for purpose.  Except for some stringent vehicular cyclists, I am yet to meet a single cyclist who thinks that road narrowing schemes on major roads (like the Bethnal Green Road) are a good idea.  That the very guidelines which have been drawn up to supposedly protect people on bikes are now being used as an excuse to create conditions which actually threaten them is perverse in the extreme.  The Hierarchy of Provision fails because it tries to be a "one size fits all" fix for all roads, regardless of what the primary use of those roads might be, and because it is far too open to interpretation.  Road narrowing (and shared space) could be a useful tool available to us in our quest to create a more liveable city, but only when used in the right context.  On primary transport corridors which throng and heave with cyclists as well as buses, trucks and cars, it is clearly an unmitigated disaster.  It is no good suggesting a series of measures to help cyclists without first considering what the street it is being applied to is being used for.  The Hierarchy seems to me to be a document from another age; a less-cycled, less knowledgeable age. Dare I say a pre-internet age where we weren't able to see, and understand, the other options available to us just over the North Sea in more successful cycling countries.  

The Hierarchy of Provision is like Communism; perfectly well-meaning on paper, but a disaster in reality.  When interpreted in to the real world it equals a harrowing experience on our streets.  That an engineer waved a copy in front of me as being the basis for introducing a dangerous and uncomfortable road narrowing scheme just goes to show how far those interpretations can go, and how entirely unfit for purpose our cycling design guidelines are.  There may be one or two campaigners in our midst who very much like the idea of bicycles behaving as vehicles and taking their "rightful place in the road", but as road narrowing schemes demonstrate when it comes to actual everyday and ordinary cyclists using these designs, the reality does not live up to the rhetoric.  

The alternative solutions are well-documented and already exist, it is time for our cycling campaigns to go back to the drawing board together and start again with our cycling design guidelines, before every other road in our city is narrowed.

In brief, cyclists must decide what they want.


For more excellent and in-depth analysis of problems with the Hierarchy of Provision, see As Easy As Riding a Bike, Vole O'Speed and War On the Motorist blogs.

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Join The Times and thousands of others telling David Cameron to start a cycling revolution today

Today sees the publication of the much anticipated Get Britain Cycling inquiry report.  Over the past four months hundreds of hours of evidence have been submitted, pages of statistics compiled, all pointing to the same clear message:  Britain's political leaders must act decisively to truly bring about a cycling revolution, with pressure today building on David Cameron himself.

The report opens with a bold and concise message that pulls no punches: "Too many people in the UK feel they have no choice but to travel in ways that are dangerous, unhealthy, polluting and costly, not just to their own wallets but also to the public purse. Urgent action is required to address Britain’s chronic levels of obesity, heart disease, air pollution and congestion...

There is an alternative. When more people cycle or walk, public health improves, obesity reduces and roads become safer. By changing how people travel, we can create places where people want to live, work, shop and do business. We can make people healthier, happier and wealthier. We can save huge costs to our NHS.

To realise the full potential of this vision will require a fundamental cultural shift in the way we think about the way we travel. Cycling needs to be not just a personal option, when we decide how to travel for work, school or leisure, but as a core issue when planning our streets, roads, buildings and communities."

Cyclists on London's Bethnal Green Road

The report makes 18 key recommendations to the Government on what needs to be done to truly bring about mass cycling rates in England.  Motoring groups, road safety campaigners and opposition MPs have welcomed the proposals that they claim would save lives, improve public health and save millions of pounds; pressure is now being put directly on David Cameron as the leader of the Government and the nation's Prime Minister to personally pledge to "Get Britain Cycling".  A petition on the Government website has been set up by campaigning journalists at The Times newspaper, whose colleague Mary Bowers was struck by a truck whilst cycling to work in 2011 and who remains severely brain damaged.  The petition - which is open now for anyone to sign - states "In the Commons on February 22, 2012, the Prime Minister said of The Times's ‘Cities Fit for Cycling’ campaign: “If we want to encourage the growth in cycling we’ve seen in recent years, we need to get behind campaigns like this.” Now is the time to act on those words."

Over 200 people had signed the petition within an hour of it going live last night, with the list of signatures growing rapidly this morning.

Julian Huppert (Lib Dem, Cambridge), co-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group, said: “For it to become reality, it needs leadership from the very top, the Prime Minister. It is down to him to show that this matters to him and to the country.”  

In a powerful Editorial in The Times today, new editor John Witherow states: "Cycling has been good for David Cameron. The Prime Minister has used cycling to help brand himself a modern Conservative: young, down to earth and environmentally conscious. Now it is time for him to be good for cycling."

The report's 18 recommendations include;

• Funding of £10 to £20 per head of population per annum across the country for cycling
• A dramatic increase not just in the volume of people cycling but their diversity too
• Reallocation of road space for cycle routes running parallel to roads but separated from traffic, and connecting with routes and networks of enhanced off-road cycle paths, bridleways, disused railways and similar.
• A revision of existing cycle design guides, following the witness from the Highways Agency admitting his staff had little or no training or technical knowledge in designing for cyclists.
• Improved lorry safety through vehicle design
• Teaching children to cycle as part of the National Curriculum, just as they are for swimming

Cyclists in Copenhagen, Denmark, 

where 50% of journeys to work are by bicycle

There has never been this level of sustained focus on cycling at a political level in this country before.  Some may point out that reports about riding bikes in Britain have come and gone before.  That's as may be, but this report comes on the back of Olympic and Tour de France cycling euphoria, as more people cycle across the country than in many decades previously, and with the energy and focus of a united bicycle campaigning establishment (a rare thing!) as well as The Times thundering on our behalf.  This report, and the pressure pushing for this change, will not go away - but we need your help to really make change happen.  The time is now.

Each and every concerned cyclist, would-be bike rider, and proud parent who dreams of a better country for their children has to today step up to be the change they want to see.

We must each of us sign the petition, and then tell our friends to do the same.  Let your cycling club mates know, mention it at your school coffee morning.  Call your Mum! Add the link to your Facebook profile and ask all your friends to sign up too if they'd like to see safer roads for their mate to ride on!  Here's the link to the petition - get busy!

The last word once again goes to cycling champion and Olympic hero Chris Boardman writing in The Times;
"If we fail it won’t be because people don’t like cycling, it will be because it’s just easier in the short term to do nothing, to pretend we can’t afford it, to say it’s someone else’s responsibility or pretend we’ll do it without making an honest long-term commitment.
It’s apathy and lack of leadership that will continue to make us fat and our roads unpleasant places. ... it doesn’t have to be like this, our Government can change it." 

Let's ensure the Government hears our voices and truly commits to Get Britain Cycling!

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Let the Mothers ride!

Yesterday was Mother's Day here in the UK, and it got me to thinking about Mums who cycle, and Mums who don't.  There's something about societal pressures which, I think, mean that women who do cycle with their children are still seen as something of a conundrum.  Most people would agree that cycling - and more of it - are a good thing, but there's an association with taking your kid for a ride on the roads; an accusation (in some circles at least) that you are willfully putting your children in danger.  A friend of mine experienced this recently when she was shouted at by a total stranger at traffic lights on a quiet road in Hackney.  As her baby slumbered in the bike seat mounted on her bicycle handlebars, the stranger (a pedestrian) compelled her to literally "think of her children".  Of course, knowing you're in the right and that you're not the source of danger could help to compel you to strike out by bicycle with your children more, but the instant a vehicle comes just a little too close - either through malice or a momentary lapse of attention - all notions of "being in the right" go out the window and you'd be left only with concern for your most precious of cargoes.






Needless to say I'm not a Mum so I wouldn't want to put words in to the mouths of women everywhere, but I imagine if - as a male cyclist - I sometimes feel a bit like a hard-done-by minority on our roads, then it's even harder for women, and Mums in particular.  Indeed, men make up some 79% of the UK's trips by bicycle and one of the first posts on ibikelondon, back on International Women's Day in 2010, asked "What's stopping women from cycling?"

Here in East London we are starting to see more Mums, children and older women on bicycles as bike use grows from being the sole domain of early adopters to a wider proportion of the population.  But Hackney is just one borough in the whole of London (about which all sorts of exotic ideas abound as to why it is a so-called "cycling paradise") - what about the rest of the city, and what about the rest of the UK?  Within the traditional family unit, men are still more likely to be the primary users of cars and stay-at-home Mums are more likely to be car-free during the day.  By rights (and as in the Netherlands and parts of Denmark) our streets should abound with Mums a-wheel - cycling to school, cycling to the shops, or cycling to meet with friends; but the converse is in fact true.  After the rush of morning commuter cyclists have passed, I imagine being a cycling Mum can be a somewhat solitary experience.





We know that road danger and fear of danger is a primary obstacle to more cycling, and when you've got your children (or other people's children!) with you it must certainly be the biggest obstacle.  But not wanting to be the first to be seen to be riding with kids, or on "funny" bicycles (cargo bikes), and not having somewhere to store said bikes, and cost of said bikes must also play a role, and about which much more could be done.

H.G Wells can rest easy; cycle tracks will abound in Utopia if the Mayor and TfL deliver on their bold and exciting ten year cycling strategy.  But it won't be enough to just build cycle tracks on the busiest of roads and make minor roads more accommodating of sharing with cyclists, to stand back when they're finished and hope for the best.  We're going to have to actively encourage people to consider bicycles, and show them that riding a bike can be a viable transport option for them; even if they have two, or three, or more children in tow.  Cargo bike culture will, I think, take even more encouragement.  But encourage we must; an architect friend of mine pointed out the imperative of getting more parents on bikes to me over coffee one day.  He said; "Pity the poor Soccer Mom - she is the ultimate victim of bad design.  Because in suburbia the spaces between A and B are so wide, and the roads between each are so big and fast and full of motorcars, there's no way she'll let her children ride a bike.  Thus, in order to preserve her offspring she is chained to Mum's taxi in order to give her kids the wholesome suburban life she had always dreamed of for them.  Soccer practice, ballet class, after-school club, even play dates at other houses - all must be done by car, with the kids in the back, as the roads grow ever busier, her personal time ever smaller, and all their waistlines wider."

Over the next ten years here in London I think the focus of the boroughs must be not just encouraging commuter cycling and helping TfL to deliver their routes across London, but also thinking about who is moving around their borough during the day, how they are going about these journeys, and how these journeys could be transferred to the bicycle.  It's going to be a lot of work, and will not be an easy task, but the reward for Mums and for families everywhere will be substantial. 

I've met Cycling Super Mums in Taiwan, the Netherlands, France and Denmark - there's nothing about the culture in these countries that make their mothers any less fearless or full of concern for their children than here in the UK.  But where conditions for safe cycling have prevailed, the mothers have followed...






With recent announcements and cycling news we've started, finally, to move in the right direction, but more perseverance than even before is going to be needed to get to a stage where Mums jump on bikes without a second thought (much in the same way that they might jump in to a car, or on a train, or on a bus today).  The pay-off for families would be huge, of course, but the pay-off for the country as a whole would be even bigger.  With all the changes that are going to be needed at borough level, there's going to have to be an investment  not just by TfL and local authorities, but also by local communities.  If you're a mother who baulks at the idea of taking your kids on a bike in the city, or if you're a father who'd never allow your young family to navigate London atop a bicycle then you're going to have to get involved to help bring about this change yourself - the city that I think we'd probably all like to see just won't happen without the involvement and investment of families.  It may be an uphill ride at first, but it really is time to liberate Mums.  And change, just like charity, begins at home.

Update; 11.30AM 11th March.  There's been a flurry of Twitter activity following up on this blog!  DeadDogBlog has written about her exasperation with being a Mum on a bike, proclaiming that she can't win, and CityExile proudly points out how fabulous her Mum looks on her bike, whilst Richard from TransportParadise thinks that Oxford has cracked it.  My experience of Oxford begs to differ, but I'm certainly interested to see what we can learn from the city of dreaming spires.

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From early adopters to everyday and ordinary...

When monitoring trends, sociologists and marketeers like to talk about "early adopters".  They mean the people who first have the courage and the nuance to start a trend, or be the first to be seen to be doing something new or otherwise unusual. 

At the dawn of the motoring age the aristocracy were early adopters of private motor vehicle ownership; paving the way for motorisation for the masses to come later.  In technology, those of you who brought an Apple iPod more than 9 years ago were early adopters of a new way of listening to music, before we all started doing it.




I have no evidence to back me up, and I'm highly aware that the experiences I am about to discuss are limited only to one small corner of Hackney, near to where I live - but around Broadway Market I believe there is a clear pattern of people using bikes passing the "early adopter" stage and moving in to the mainstream.  6 or 7 years ago there were still lots of cyclists around Broadway Market, but they seemed to me to be primarily male, more focused on "gear", or indeed fixed wheel riders.  The fixed wheel "craze" really took off amongst the young art and design creative community in the East End and had a large scene to back it up and help to nurture it (such as specialist shops, bike polo groups etc), and long may it continue.  But as Mikael Colville Anderson of Copenhagenize fame describes in his presentation "Behavioural changes for urban cycling", the fixed wheel craze is sub-cultural (that is to say only appeals to a limited group of people) whereas when something is mainstream ("cultural"?) it appeals to all sorts of different everyday and ordinary people, and indeed is accessible to all.

Now, don't get me wrong, I rather like fixed wheel bikes, and I have no more beef with people who want to tear up the city in a single speed alley cat than I do with someone who wants to pootle to work on a Dutch upright bike.






But I am certain that we've passed the narrow-cast "craze" stage of cycling around Broadway Market and moved on to the "everyday and ordinary".  That is to say, the "sub-cultural" riders would cycle regardless of whether it was a mainstream activity or not, but perhaps the prevalence of "sub-cultural" riders in recent years has helped to encourage others to become early adopters and help to mainstream cycling.  I've talked before about Hackney and how the organic grid of cycle routes and different types of infrastructure have helped to create conditions which are inviting for cycling, but I wonder what the key factor is in helping to make cycling here seem so much more mainstream than elsewhere in London.  Note in my pictures the age range and diversity of the cyclists portrayed.  Note the lack of helmets, high visability gear and cycle-specific clothing.  I have my own ideas as to what I think are driving the move from early adopters to mainstream cyclists in my neighbourhood (regular readers won't be surprised to hear I think that design and planning have a lot to do with it) but what do you think?  Is cycling still a narrow-cast reserve of the few where you are, or, like Broadway Market, is it becoming everyday and ordinary?  If you currently cycle only in cycle-specific gear, helmets and high-vis what would convince you to change to a more leisurely European style of riding? 

As always, I'm keen to hear your thoughts!

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King's Cross Christmas Vigil; thank you all for coming

On a cold December night, just a few days short of Christmas, 100s of cyclists, pedestrians, bereaved friends and family and concerned Londoners gathered in King's Cross to remember the 16 cyclists and countless pedestrians who have been killed on London's roads, and the countless number of people who have been hurt or seriously injured.



We were there not just to reflect on what has been a terrible year for fatalities, but to demand change.  Too often dangerous junctions have been ignored, and recommendations to make roads safer shunned in case it might "disrupt motorised traffic".  The human toll of such conditions are no longer acceptable.  I spoke with a lady, her grief all too evident, whose husband had been killed on his motorcycle earlier this year.  Mrs Dorling, the wife of Brian Dorling who was recently killed at Bow roundabout paused to light a candle.  Each of these "fatality statistics" has a human, tragic story.

Pedestrian campaigner Caroline Russel told us a story about her friend's father who was killed whilst cycling on his bicycle in King's Cross 14 years ago.  Nothing has been done about the accident blackspot since.



London Cycling Campaign put out the call to bring us all together at King's Cross, and thanks must go to them for their efforts in helping to make the event a success.  Thanks must also go to Assembly Members Jenny Jones (Green), and Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dem) who attended and have been doing excellent work on cycle safety all year.

Meanwhile, Transport for London must be hoping that the safe streets issue will go away over time; that if they obfuscate and delay enough their opposition will evaporate through weariness.  I believe tonight showed clearly that Londoners of all backgrounds care very much about safe streets for all, equality of access throughout our city and subjective as well as statistically safe cycling for all.  Tonight saw cycle campaigners, pedestrian campaigners and road danger reduction campaigners coming together and speaking as one.  The opposition to "smoothing the traffic flow" to the detriment of other road users is not going to fade away; it's just getting started.

Thank you to all who came tonight, who helped to rally numbers, guide the crowds, who spoke and who I may have thrust a candle or a flyer into the hands of!  Merry Christmas to all of you, and here's to a safe and prosperous 2012.

May they rest in peace; cyclists who have lost their lives in London in 2011:

Ellie Carey, 22

Svitlana Tereschenko, 34

Brian Dorling, 58

Deep Lee, 24

Sam Harding, 25

Johannah Bailey, 49

Paul McGreal, 44

Michael Evans, 62

Thomas Stone, 13

Naoko Miyazaki, 35

Gavin Taylor, 40

Paula Jurek, 20

David Poblet, 20

Tom Barrett, 44

Daniel Cox, 28

Gary Mason, 48

RoadPeace is the national charity for road crash victims, offering support and guidance to the recently bereaved and campaigning for safer streets based on on the principles of road danger reduction.  To make a Christmas donation to support their independantly funded work, click here.

All photos on this post used with permission and thanks from London Cyclist blog.

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Tory AMs and Boris smack cycling safety in the face.. again

Further to this morning's blog post asking where the promised cycle safety review from Transport for London is, there's been more depressing, pathetic news from City Hall...

Briefing BBC transport correspondent Tom Edwards, TfL confirmed that they have no date as yet for when they will publish their much vaunted "review" of cyclist's safety, the Cycle Superhighways and most importantly Bow junction.  They'd originally promised that the report on Bow would be delivered within one week.  Labour AM John Biggs has described the inaction by TfL - of which Boris Johnson is Chair - as a "broken promise".

Meanwhile a motion tabled by Green AM Jenny Jones and Labour's Val Shawcross calling on the Mayor to address cyclist's concerns was scotched after Tory AMs walked out of the Assembly making the meeting inquorate.  A valuable opportunity to ensure that everything possible is being done by TfL to keep everyone on its roads safe has been lost because of a childish, unprofessional petty squabble.

Astonishingly, this is the second time this year that the Tory AMs (plus Richard Barnbrook, BNP) have pulled this stunt to the detriment of cyclist's safety; they pulled the same mean, cheap, pathetic trick earlier in the year when the London Assembly were due to debate cyclist's concerns over Blackfriars Bridge.

Jenny Jones said:

"The Tory walkout before we could take the cycling motion was perhaps partly based on embarrassment at the Mayor's poor safety record. He has consistently ignored cycling campaigners' advice on how to make junctions safe, leaving cyclists vulnerable to the faster traffic. This is playing with people's lives, not delivering good government for London."

 

As a bike blogger I'm not interested in party politics and don't especially care if the best ideas for improving cycling and walking in London come from Labour, the Conservatives, the Lib Dems or the Greens. 

Tell it to the bereaved...

What I do care very strongly about is the fact that 2011 has been the most fatal year for cyclists in London for a very long time (Ellie Carey became the 16th rider to die on our roads this year earlier this week) 

Everyday and ordinary Londoners on bikes feel that they have to fight their way to work just to stay safe and stay alive.  Hundreds of ordinary citizens have felt engaged enough to write to the Mayor, to join protests (and protests, and protests) whilst all around them a sense of spin, inaction and deception from TfL pervades the debate.  And a bunch of grown men, each earning a handsome salary to do their jobs, feels it appropriate to play cheap party politics with people's lives because of some pathetic inter-party squabble.

They should feel ashamed of themselves, but frankly I'd rather they explained their actions to faces of the mourning families of Ellie Carey, Brian Dorling, Svitlana Tereschenko, Min Joo Lee and all those others who have lost their lives or been seriously injured on our roads this year.


The job of the London Assembly is to hold the Mayor - and via him Transport for London - to account.  These Conservative AMs should set aside their petty squabbles and damn well get on with it, or quit. The choice is clear and for once I'd like to see some urgent action on the matter.

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After the Tour Du Danger, where is our cycle safety review?

It's now two and a half weeks since Transport for London hoped to soothe anger within the London cycling community by announcing a review of our most dangerous junctions, the cycle superhighway schemes, and Bow roundabout, where two cyclists have recently been killed in quick succession.

Cyclists, family members and local politicians hold vigil at Bow roundabout

Since then an all too familiar scenario has been played out on the Tower Bridge Road in South London; another female cyclist has lost her life on our roads after a collision with a lorry at a junction which campaigners have previously identified as being dangerous.  Eleanor Carey, 22, from the island of Guernsey is the 16th London cyclist to be killed this year; six more than in 2010 and double the amount killed in 2008.

The initial announcement regarding the review of Bow roundabout stated that the issue was a matter of urgent priority for TfL and that they would report back to the Mayor within one week.  This has not happened.  Yet London Cycling Campaign and indeed TfL's own consultants have published designs for safe cycling infrastructure at this notorious roundabout on which work could start immediately.  The LCC's Mike Cavenett explained ""The Mayor has failed to get a grip of this situation, and cyclist lives are still at risk.  This isn't an issue that's going to go away seeing as this is the major route between central London and the Olympics."  Assembly Member John Biggs (in whose constituency the Bow roundabout lays) described the lack of action by Boris and TfL as a "broken promise".

As Chair of TfL Boris Johnson must get to grips with both the seriousness of the situation and indeed the level of anger felt towards him and his seeming reluctance to act.  A motion will be tabled today at the London Assembly by members Jenny Jones and Val Shawcross stating the following:

This Assembly deeply regrets the deaths of cyclists on London's road network and wishes to express its condolences for the loss felt by their relatives and friends.

We are concerned that some cyclist deaths and injuries could have been avoided if the road network designs for the locations where these deaths and injuries occurred had been safer.

We therefore call on the Mayor and Transport for London to:

• produce a list of the 10 most dangerous locations for cyclists on the Transport for London Road Network (TLRN) and all locations in London where a cyclist has died in the last three years;

• report on any proposals that were put forward by cycling and road safety groups as part of official consultation processes for redesigning roads at those locations; and provide the reasons why such proposals were rejected.

Riders of every kind on the Tour du Danger. Londoners shouldn't have to fight just to feel safe getting to work or dropping the kids off at school by bike.

Boris and Transport for London can't keep on encouraging as many people to consider cycling with their savvy marketing, whilst simultaneously ignoring their safety.  We've already seen 500+ cyclists take to the roads to highlight the most dangerous junctions on our Tour du Danger.  Many hundreds of you have joined with the LCC in emailing the Mayor to demand action.  How many more need to start to shout before those who control our roads start to take notice?

The days of this year are rapidly passing and the cycling death toll is growing.  The time for action, not words, from Transport for London is now.

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From Amsterdam to London; exploring bicycle networks with This Big City blog

Over at This Big City blog author Joe Peach has been doing an amazing job of examining the role of bicycle networks in sustainable communities.  From the perfect density of the city of Amsterdam to the stalled attempts by our own fair London, his writing explores the good and bad of attempts to build cycling infrastructure and the benefits it can bring.

There's always plenty of food for thought on This Big City but the current run of articles on bicycle networks are worth sharing here; each post is perfect lunch time reading and anything that gets us discussing the role of the humble bicycle in our cities gets a big tick in my books!

So, make yourself a cup of tea, draw up your chair and enjoy the following posts:

One:  Urban Bicycle Networks and Sustainable Communities

Two:  What makes a Sustainable Community?

Three:  Do Urban Bicycle Networks get more people cycling?

Four:  Local Economic Implications of Bicycle Networks

Five:  Urban Bicycle Networks and an Improved Sense of Place

Six:  Environmental Sustainability; 3 reasons why bicycles are great for cities

Seven:  Transport opportunities for all - the potential of bicycle networks

Eight:  Sustainable Communities and Amsterdam's Bicycle Network

Nine:  How Amsterdam's urban form created the ideal cycling city

Ten:  Amsterdam - no magic pill but still a world-beater

Eleven:  How London tried (and failed) to become a cycling city

Twelve:  Mixed success as London rethinks its bicycle networks

Thirteen:  London's bicycle network; good for commuters bad for communities

And if all that reading doesn't sate your appetite, This Big City's bicycle network series continues till November 27th so there's more to come.  Enjoy!

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The launch of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain

They say the sun shines on the righteous, and boy did the sun shine today!  A diverse group of supporters of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain gathered in Lambeth this morning in view of the Houses of Parliament to mark the official launch of the Embassy and to make their message clear; Britain must build Dutch-style cycling infrastructure if it ever wants to achieve mass cycling rates.

Pic via thirtyfivenotfive on Flickr

From the very young to the young at heart; women, families and children gathered on bikes of all shapes and sizes (including a cargo bike or two!) for an official welcome to the representative of the Dutch Embassy in London who graced us with his presence, a speech by CEoGB Chair Jim Davis, and a short ride across Lambeth Bridge (where, guess what, the brand spanking new cycle lane they've just painted in is still utter utter crap)

Cycling Embassy of Great Britain founder and Chair, Jim Davis, said:

“We’ve all seen some of the terrible cycle lanes around the UK; they cost us all money but few people are prepared to use them because they’re often dangerous and poorly conceived. No one in their right mind would let their children cycle to school on the worse of them! The Cycling Embassy of Great Britain looks to countries that are successfully building a cycling culture, and wants to use their knowledge here in the UK to ensure only high quality and safe spaces for people on bicycles are built from now on. British people are sick of paying through the nose for public transport, or fuming in traffic congestion. They’d love an alternative means of transport but aren’t prepared to consider riding a bike because they are afraid; not of the act of actually riding but of riding on the conditions the UK’s roads currently present. We need only look across the North Sea for great examples of how to design streets for people with safe – and if necessary separate – cycling infrastructure which will lead to a much higher cycling rate than we currently have.”  (See here for the full press release)

I'll let the pictures do the talking but thank you all for turning out and sharing such a marvellous day.

The Cycling Embassy of Great Britain; officially launched.  Now, on with the hard work....

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Boris! Give us streets for people!

Before I moved to London I would drive in to the city occasionally, on streets like the Old Kent Road, the South Circular, the Purley Way or via the Elephant and Castle roundabout.  I'd wonder where the people were, why there was such a proliferation of low-rent fried chicken shops, and whether indeed the entire city was like this.  Then I'd blow my horn at the inattentive driver ahead of me and forget about it all.

Transport for London are in charge of those major streets, our 'red routes', and these routes blight us all.  They are uniformly dirty, dangerous and stuffed with traffic to the exclusion of all others.  The buildings along them are usually shabby, smog-stained and either boarded up or rented out to cheap enterprises like the aforementioned chicken shops, betting parlours or converted for use in to mildly exotic budget African churches.  Traffic noise along them is usually so loud that it is not possible to maintain a conversation with other pedestrians if you are walking, and at peak times the air is often foul smelling and filthy.  (Indeed, ask any visitor to London and they'll tell you about the horrifying experience of discovering their bogies have turned grey from breathing in all that lovely London air.)  But these routes are not just limited to outer London - TfL is also in charge of streets like Park Lane, Regents Street and, of course, Blackfriars Bridge and they all exist with one aim: to get as many vehicles through them as quickly as possible.

Cyclists protest on Blackfriars Bridge

"The battle for Blackfriars" has been rumbling on for a long time now.  Ever since TfL first proposed their terrifying redesign of the bridge, cyclists and pedestrians have been calling, emailing, blogging, petitioning and protesting in the hope of getting this bridge turned not in to an urban motorway but in to a space for all - and a safe one at that.  Things came to a peak of publicity last week when Tory members of the London Assembly walked out of the chamber rather than debate a motion calling on Transport for London to retain the 20mph limit currently in place on the Bridge.  More and more people are waking up the debate and realising that Blackfriars is just the tip of the iceberg, and that if as Londoners we want streets which are open, safe, fair and accessible for all then Transport for London is a barrier to that desire.

TfL have, under law, an obligation to 'keep London moving'.  They are governed by a rule called the Traffic Management Act 2004 which states that TfL's obligation is to ensure the expeditious movement of traffic on its own road network; and facilitate the expeditious movement of traffic on the networks of others.  This is all well and good, but how is TfL interpreting this rule?  My take is that 'traffic' must of course include people on bike, and people on foot, and people on buses - people who have jobs to go to, shops to spend in, schools to teach at.  Indeed, the law is explicit on this issue too: “traffic” includes pedestrians, cyclists and “motorised vehicles – whether engaged in the transport of people or goods.” (Traffic Management Act 2004, Section 31, and DfT Traffic Management Act 2004, Network Management Duty Guidance, DfT page 4, paragraph 10). (Links via Cycle of Futility blog)


But are other road users being taken in to account when it comes to the management and design of our roads?  Or is it all about the movement of cars?  The excellent Cycle of Futility blog has looked in to TfL's Operating Strategy to see how they measure "keeping traffic moving", and his findings are telling in the extreme:

TfL’s Draft Network Operating Strategy (May 2011) explains how this Mayor’s Transport Strategy (MTS) objective is translated into reality:

The key measure for smoothing traffic flow set out in the MTS is journey time reliability .(p14)

And how is this measured?

Journey time reliability scope includes all classes of light good vehicles, Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV’s) and cars. (p14 – footnote 2)

So there you have it. Pedestrians don’t count. Cyclists don’t count. Buses don’t even count.And the results of this approach to managing our streets is there for all of us to see....

Second class citizens.

In Elephant & Castle it is TfL which is blocking the creation of a signficant pedestrian square which would allow thousands of foot passengers faster access to the newly developed Tube station - they want to keep the Elephant & Castle as a hostile car-centric roundabout because the pedestrian plan would "slow down traffic too much".

It is TfL's pursuit of 'network assurance' which has kept this killer junction in Camden; allowing vulnerable road users to continue to die here rather than slow down or decrease capacity for motorised traffic.

It is 'network assurance' which stops Oxford Street from becoming the pedestrian paradise it ought to be, and it is because of 'network assurance' why the Cycle Superhighways dissapear under parked cars or evaporate entirely at busy, dangerous junctions.  It is also why Parliament Square remains a hideous roundabout instead of the fascinating World Heritage Site it ought to be. God forbid creating streets for people - for all people - might create a jam.  Don't even TRY to cross the road in Henly Corner for fear you'll be run down by the fast moving cars which simpy MUST be given priority.

Of course, Transport for London are keen to be seen as pro-cycling.  Indeed, they're always encouraging Tube users to 'catch up with the bicycle'.  But let there be no doubt that their incentive for doing this is to alleviate over-crowding on the railways, as oppose to aiming to create a true cycling city.  Once you are off their trains and on your bike on their streets it's each to their own; you'll have to take to the roads in spite of the prevalent conditions, not because of them.

And that is why TfL have been busy trying to increase the speed limit and strip out the cycle lanes on Blackfriars.  Their 1960s-style obsession with accomodating motorised traffic at all costs is to the detriment of all others.  It's why you don't see kids riding to school across Blackfriars in the morning, and why cycling's modal share in London remains pitifully low.  Kulveer Ranger is fond of telling us that "It’s staggering that half of all car trips in outer London are less than two miles in length, a distance you can cover on a bike in around 10 minutes."  Any ideas why all those people don't want to ride in the current conditions, Kulveer?


And as the above examples show, it's not just about us cyclists; it's about people who want to be able to get on the Tube at Elephant and Castle, or do their shopping without fear of breathing in dangerously high levels of traffic fumes.  It's about people wanting a fair and balanced and safe and pleasurable city.  This very policy is why those corridors like the Old Kent Road are littered with the corpses of formerly succesful cinemas, fried food outlets and harried people scurrying from door to door.  The cost of creating spaces which prioritise the smooth and expeditious movement of traffic is the creation 'no go zones' which are not only deeply unpleasent places to be, they are practically undemocratic.

Streets for people?

When Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, spoke in London on how he made his city a better place to be for all, he was clear on what needed to be done: "Choosing between a city friendly to people or a city friendly to cars is a conflict... ..Often, injustice is right before our noses but we are so used to seeing it we don't even notice it. 
    Under our - and most - constitutions, all people are equal under the law.  Therefore, a bus with 100 passengers has 100 x the right to access and space as a single occupancy car.  Likewise, a child on a tricycle has the same rights as a motorist.  This is not about being anti-car, this is about equality for all"

If Boris Johnson really wants London to become a 'cyclised city' he needs to take a leaf out of Peñalosa's book and wrestle with his traffic planning dinosaurs at TfL first.  Until then, our city will continue to be a traffic-clogged, smoggy, noisy, dangerous hostile place for all.  No one that I know, whether a cyclist, a pedestrain or a car driver, wants to live in a city like that or impose those conditions on other people simply so they can get to work 5 minutes faster.

So a clear choice is emerging; streets for cars or streets for people.  What's it to be, Boris?





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