Needs your feedback: Westminster council publishes a cycle strategy designed by a drunk spider. Some of this is fairly decent but a lot of it is really second-rate. Please fill out the online survey (link at the bottom)

Believe it or not, the pink line is meant to be a direct and convenient bike route. Call me stupid? 

Westminster council (or, rather, the City of Westminster as it calls itself) has this week released its draft cycling strategy. You can comment on the strategy on Westminster's website.

The strategy is to deliver what Westminster calls a network of 'well-signposted, direct and continuous cycle routes' through central London. Pictured above is one of those 'direct and continuous cycle routes'. The Jubilee Line will take you from St. James's Park, up Bond Street to north of Oxford Street. Now, the big and positive thing about this is that you will - by the looks of it - be able to bike north up Bond Street and that is a big deal indeed. But just look at the insane amount of back and forth you'll have to do to line up with the stretch on Bond Street. No-one in their right mind is going to use this is they face a literal maze of one-way streets just to connect with the clear stretch along Bond Street.

Or take a look at the stretch north of Oxford Street along New Cavendish Street. This route links with the main east-west bike track on Camden's streets across towards Bloomsbury and ultimately Islington. This looks like wiggle central. If you're in a car you can storm down three-lanes of New Cavendish Street but it looks to me like Westminster wants people on bikes to take the least direct, most convoluted route possible. Why not create space for cycling along the more direct route here, namely along New Cavendish Street and then in to George Street?

And what is critical, of course, is to actually make space for cycling. Some of these streets are already part of the London Cycle Network within Westminster. But the carriageway is filled with parked cars and with multiple lanes of fast-flowing motor traffic. Some of these routes aren't going to work unless that changes and they'll be nothing more than highly windy, convoluted ideas that no-one uses.

In balance, some of these routes look pretty encouraging. The planned 'Victoria Line', through Soho is one of those. It would shoot up (and down) Wardour Street and was first mooted with support from the Crown Estate back in April. That would then link to a route towards St James's Park and Vauxhall Bridge. It, also, seems to link, however to a Victoria Non-Line, namely to a long stretch where you'd presumably have to get off and walk your way to the other end of Green Park, having walked down a one-way road and crossed Piccadilly.

I'm also not at all sure what is going on a Trafalgar Square. You'd have to come up the Mall, do a left a right, a left, a right and right again, all to wiggle around and get yourself aligned with Whitcomb Street. Pretty messy if you ask me.

I'm sure it must be a mistake but the bike track through the middle of Hyde Park Corner disappears on this map, replaced instead with a jolly ride around a six lane gyratory. It's a bit like publishing a map of London and putting the M4 down the Grand Union Canal towpath.

I'd urge people to take a look at the map and look for similar crazy routes. Where you see a dotted line route and a full-line route, assume that the dotted line is an alternative proposal.

Once you've had a look at the map, please have a go at completing the online survey and making sure Westminster knows what you think. Some of this is downright rubbish and we need to make sure the council knows about that. Please post any comments on this blog as well and I'll wrap those up into an email to the council when I've got sufficient feedback.

Five cyclists, three pedestrians killed this week. Boris turns it into a debate about whether those dead road users are law-abiding or not. Unimpressed.

This was meant to be a 'cycle highway' not a 'danger road'

I've had to do a bit of soul-searching before writing this. The past 10 days have seen eight people killed on London's roads: three pedestrians and five people on bikes.

Speaking on radio, Boris Johnson's response to the cyclist deaths was to say: "There's no question of blame or finger-pointing. That doesn't work in these circumstances...But unless people obey the laws of the road and people actively take account of the signals that we put in, there's no amount of traffic engineering that we invest in that is going to save people's lives."

Now, my understanding is that in one of the five cycling deaths, the person killed may possibly have been on the wrong side of the road at the time.

But that doesn't excuse the fact that the Mayor seems, in my view, to have missed the point. The point is that precious little of Boris Johnson's "traffic engineering" is going on at the moment. At least, precious little is happening on the ground.

Let's get the facts straight here.

When the Mayor came to power, he scrapped investment in the London Cycle Network. The network was never the most impressive but it did provide a mechanism for councils across London to build decent routes for cycling along quieter roads. After several years of studies and consulting projects, the scheme was due to get an upgrade. That was scrapped in favour of the Cycle Super Highways.

Cycle Super Highway 7 in action in Clapham. The bike lane is under the red car. 

The idea at the time was to provide more direct routes for people to cycle. And I can see some merit in that policy. The Cycle Network was often disjointed, down dark, quiet (and sometimes downright scary) streets and it kind of shoved cycling out of sight, through industrial estates and along railway sidings. Instead, we would see cycling on London's main roads, it would be quicker and faster and easier. In theory, it should also have been safer.

The reality is that the Cycle Super Highways were complete and utter junk.

The reason they were complete and utter junk was simple. The Mayor has consistently backed a road planning team within Transport for London that sanctifies traffic flow of motor vehicles above all else. This policy, 100% supported by the Mayor meant that before they even got started, the planners of the Cycle Super Highways were hopelessly unable to deliver safe cycle routes. It meant that instead of designing the sorts of safe, semi-segregated bike routes you see springing up all over cities in the USA, all we got was expensive blue paint.

What this meant was that at Oval, the cycle lane is just some blue paint between three lanes of trunk road traffic, half of which is turning left directly across the cycle lane, which turns right at the same point that motor vehicles are turning left. At 40-50mph.

What this meant was that at Kings Cross, the scene of numerous cyclist and pedestrian deaths, TfL's solution was to suggest some mirrors, rather than a road layout that kept cyclists and HGVs apart.

In short, cyclists were supposed to cycle like they were cycling a car. On a trunk road. With vehicles at speeds of 40-50mph.



Slowly, we have begun to see the Mayor change direction. He should be quite rightly proud of the very newest section of Cycle Super Highway 2 to Stratford. It is by no means perfect but it is a step change better than things that have gone before it. And the Mayor's cycling vision is also impressive. The plan is for all new Cycle Super Highways to be segregated or at least semi-segregated from fast-moving, busy traffic on trunk roads.

Good. But what I fail to understand is what is taking so long. The East-West cycle highway has been on the cards for nearly a year. The route has been more or less agreed. But the first invite-only consultation on this new cycle highway is still several months away.

Cycle super highway at Oval - down the middle of the trunk road

Then there are problems with some local authorities to deal with as well. Westminster council is more or less sticking two fingers up at the Mayor as far as I can tell, refusing to play ball with the Mayor's plans to build a network of cycling quiet ways. I don't get that information from the Mayor, by the way, but I get that from a whole host of people connected with the programme who are watching with disbelief as Westminster council sinks deeper and deeper into the 1970s.

And then we come to the Mayor himself.

He could, had he chosen to, have spent time spelling out on LBC that he has serious intentions to get things right for cycling. That he is building a network of segregated highways. In fact, he could have admitted he screwed up and that he's starting again. I watched an excrutiating interview with the Mayor on the BBC, where he was interviewed by the political correspondent who asked him that exact question. Did the Mayor think he'd built the Cycle Super Highways on the cheap, he questioned. No real answer.

Every time the question of cycling comes up, the Mayor seems to flounder something about cyclists running red lights, not riding with lights, not riding according to the rules. He could choose instead to focus on the vision. Instead, it's like something kicks in his brain that says, hold on, most of my voters are in outer London and drive everywhere, they don't care about these cyclists all that much, so I'd better not sound too much like I'm pro-cycling.

It strikes me the Mayor is being a coward. He has a vision. It is, slowly but surely coming together. But he won't stand up for it. If he won't stand up for it in public, there's a risk it will never happen. And I think that the fact his Cycling Vision is taking sooooo long to be implemented is linked to his public lack of consistent support for his vision.

The Evening Standard put it spot-on in an editorial this week:

"This is a question of political will, not physical road space: other changes to our roads once branded unthinkable, such as bus lanes and the congestion charge, are now accepted parts of the system. London is a working city with a multiplicity of road users — cyclists, pedestrians, car and lorry drivers. Yet it should be possible for all of us to share the roads, given decent provision and mutual consideration. We can be a cycling city to rival any other in Europe: we just have to want to make it happen."

A previous Mayor implemented the congestion charge. People on phone-in radio stations whinged about it for ages in advance. But now it's accepted. If the Mayor stood up and said for once and for all, 'right you lot, this cycling stuff is going to change, because it has to change and I'm going to build these Cycle Super Highways properly and that means taking some space away from motor traffic and giving it to cycling', people would whinge. And, just as they did with the congestion charge, they'd get used to it. But he's not saying that. He's flip flopping from launching new cycle highways to blaming people killed on his cycle highways. And he risks failing to lead London to a better future on its streets.

Not good enough.

Mayor launches 'major step forward' with new cycle highway plus announces new segregated cycle highways and upgrades to existing routes. It's not before time.

New look Blackfriars Road? I hope so, but let's see

Yesterday, once again, a cyclist was killed on Cycle Super Highway 2, hit from behind by a tipper truck, it seems hospital porter Brian Holt had been cycling a mile to work for the past year in order to get fit. Good on him. 

He is the third person to be killed on this negligent piece of non-infrastructure.

Also yesterday, a male cyclist was hit by a coach on Southampton Row (a road controlled by Camden council rather than the Mayor directly) at 7pm and suffered extremely serious injuries. This is the third person to suffer life-changing injuries while riding a bike across this junction in five years. Two people on bikes have also been killed here in the same period.

This is a bike and pedestrian only route. The barriers went up last week. There were none here for over a decade.
Pic courtesy Cycalogical blog

Earlier in the week, on a smaller scale by far, some chicane fences went up on extremely busy (and supposedly flagship) Lambeth local cycle route 3, between Ovaland Stockwell. The fences make this bike and pedestrian-only route near impossible to use during rush hour, encouraging people instead to use busy,fast, narrow roads instead: The sorts of roads where bikes, buses and lorries are forced to share space. Not smart. So far, TfL: and Lambeth councillors all agree that the chicanes are insane. No-one’s even sure who put them there. Was it a TfL contractor? Is it the housing association that owns the land? Let’s see.

And today, the Mayor rode for the first time along his new,seriously sexy Cycle Super Highway 2 Extension (CS2 X to those involved with the planning) that leads into Stratford from Bow roundabout. CS2X is a major shift for London. It is the first time that TfL has removed a motor traffic lane and installed a pretty decent, high quality bike track instead. The only problem is that it runs out at Bow roundabout and dumps you into the killer stretch of Highway 2 that was built a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, the London Cycling Campaign is right in its verdict that CS2X is a "major step forward" for cycling in London. 

You can see a review of the new Cycle Super Highway on this excellent and well-balanced BBC news report. 

The Mayor has also today admitted that the whole Cycle Highway scheme needs an upgrade. Earlier today, Transport for London announced that it intends to build a segregated bike track running from Kings Cross to Elephant & Castle in the south. It also releases new images of the proposed East-West track along the Embankment. If these two tracks get built, they will be a game changer, a serious central London cycle link heading in all four directions with a massive cycle cross roads at Blackfriars Bridge, where bicycles already account for 43% of all vehicles in the morning rush hour. 

Updated perspective showing planned bike track along The Embankment. Truly amazing, assuming it does happen.

This is serious stuff. If it happens. For the first time, there is some reason to believe it just might happen. According to today’s Evening  Standard, Transport for London will be hiring “128 new posts within its cycling division with new opportunities for designers, engineers and traffic modellers”. That would be very significant and would, at last, start to give cycling a serious seat at the table within TfL.

In his first Mayoralty in 2009, Boris Johnson promised: “No longer will pedal power have to dance and dodge aroundpetrol power - on these routes the bicycle will dominate and that will be clearto all others using them. That should transform the experience of cycling - boostingsafety and confidence of everyone using the routes and reinforcing my view thatthe bike is the best way to travel in this wonderful city of ours." 

For the very first time, there are signs that CS2X and the recently announced plans for new Cycle Super Highways through central London might at last mean the Mayor starts delivering on that 2009 election promise. And it’s not before time. This is what he should have done the first time around, instead of delivering high-cost, seriously low quality routes lined with blue paint.

There are also promises to upgrade some of the other Cycle Super Highways, including route 7 to Balham and Tooting, which is little more than a bit of blue paint that is normally filled with parked cars. Cycle Super Highway 7 is utterly unusable outside of rush hour. Strangely enough, no-one cycles on it outside of rush hour. If we want people to switch to cycling, we need routes that work all day and all night. 

CS2X is the start of something that resembles a real commitment to infrastructure for people who want to pedal from place to place. Don't get too excited, though. The Embankment won't look like this until at least 2016. I don't know if there's a date for the north-south link or not (and my understanding is that the developers along Blackfriars Road are quite opposed to the bike lane for goodness knows what reason). Either way, there's still a lot of time for things to change. We have to keep the pressure up but we also have to acknowledge that, at long last, the Mayor has delivered a couple of miles of decent cycle highway. Which is exactly what he should have done several years ago. 

Guest post: Two people killed at the same spot in City of London. Sticking plaster solutions suggested, yet again.

Last week, Transport for London published a consultation on plans to improve conditions for people cycling and walking on Upper Thames Street. I asked a colleague who works in one of the offices on Upper Thames Street what he thought about the plans. These are the comments of @KristianCyc

Yet again, some small changes planned to make Upper Thames Street a tiny bit less dangerous

Things are looking up for safety on Upper Thames St. The City of London is consulting on changes to this road, focusing on the junction leading to Southwark bridge road, where cycle super highway 7 terminates. This is important, because this is a popular route for cyclists and it is not a safe place to cycle. Sebastien Lukomski was killed here in February 2004. 

Following this tragedy, the City of London made changes to the road to make it safer for cycling, introducing feeder lanes and ASLs. 

Clearly, the changes implemented did nothing to address the problems at this junction, and in 2008 Nick Wright was killed just a few metres from where Sebastian Lukomski suffered the same fate. Just a few weeks ago another man escaped with his life but suffered severe leg trauma. Now the junction is to be changed again, perhaps it would be safe to assume that they will be extra keen to get it right this time? Sadly, history is repeating itself. 

Approaching Upper Thames Street from the south. The blue is a bike lane, apparently. Vehicles in the left hand lane are turning both left and right; people are generally cycling straight over the junction

Upper Thames St is an intimidating and unpleasant place to cycle even for the most hardened cyclists. The consultation alludes to the possibility of Andrew Gilligan’s “Crossrail for bikes” project being routed along this road. Serious levels of investment would be required to truly change the road and make it safe, pleasant and suitable for people of all ages and abilities. However, the route is not finalised and changes would not be finished until 2016 anyway. In the interim, Transport for London has proposed some measures that are worth having a look at. 

There are some good bits:

• a straight across pedestrian crossing (current situation is people having to wait twice at a staggered crossing)

• extension of the traffic island to prevent motor vehicles turning right into the car park on the south side and a) holding up the traffic and b) risking collision with cyclists (plenty of occasions that this has happened). Although if this reservation wasn't there, they'd be plenty more room for safer cycling.  

But there are some clangers that need addressing:

1) For cyclists continuing westbound on Upper Thames St, there is a significant left-hook risk from vehicles turning on to Southwark Bridge.

2) For pedestrians travelling east or west across Southwark Bridge, there is no pedestrian light or phase. Pedestrians are forced to guess when it is safe to walk across, and run for their lives if they get it wrong.

3) For cyclists travelling along Upper Thames St, cycle lanes are too narrow for HGVs in the next lane to overtake safely or are inconsistent, at one point simply merging with the next lane.

4) For cyclists joining Upper Thames St from Southwark Bridge, there is a left hook risk from vehicles turning left onto Upper Thames St, plus the confusion and conflict that invariably comes from the fact that vehicles in the left lane can also turn right.

5) Cyclists heading westbound on Upper Thames St and turning north at the junction have to cross two lanes of traffic to do so, which will be moving traffic if the light is green when the cyclist arrives at the junction

Of these most significant risks, two appear to have at least been identified. With regards to point (5), the plans introduce a waiting area for cyclists making this manoeuvre, suggesting that they see this as a problem. However, nothing has been done to solve the problem of crossing two lanes of traffic first. An earlier version of this plan included a Copenhagen-style right turn: Cyclists would have been able to turn left into the northbound carriageway on Southwark Bridge and then wait for the green lights to cross into the City of London. That seems to have been considered too difficult, so instead, you have to play chicken with two lanes of HGVs instead. 

TfL does seem to have identified the inconsistency of the cycle lanes along here (they narrow and widen like crazy), particularly when heading eastbound from the junction, at the point where the cyclist who suffered severe leg trauma was hit. At this location they intend to remove some of the pavement so they can continue to squeeze 1.5m of advisory cycle lane through the tunnel. Encouraging HGVs to overtake cyclists here with only 1.5m of cycle lane to occupy is a dangerous idea, and best considered by reading about how one person who witnessed CCTV footage of Nick Wright being killed reported on the incident:

"... there were two lorrys following one another .The cyclist slighty [sic] swerved(not out of the bike lane) and basicly the lorry “hovered” [sic] him up and he come [sic] out the back."

Without sufficient separation between HGVs and cyclists there will continue to be a serious risk of this type of collision repeating itself. Experienced cyclists will ignore the new cycle lane, hold the traffic lane and deal with the subsequent aggression. Less experienced cyclists will be left at great risk. This is not acceptable. Please respond to this consultation and make it clear to the City of London that this isn’t good enough. These 5 risks should have been identified and they must be addressed in the new design.

With particular thanks to Bill Chidley whose past coverage of these incidents was invaluable in piecing together the history  on Upper Thames St.

Local roads in London: up to 75% of peak traffic is now people on bicycles and yet there is no consistent policy for making those roads safe for cycling

Here's one we don't have. Protected bike lane down the centre of Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.
US Senate in the distance. 

Back in June, Transport for London issued the results of a detailed central London bicycle census. The numbers showed that during the morning peak, 24% of all vehicles inside the congestion charge are bicycles. Average that out across an entire 24 hours and you get 16% of all vehicles.

For some reason, however, TfL never published the full results at the time.

Handily, I have now obtained those results and the more intrepid among you can delve into the data yourselves. I've uploaded the morning peak data and the afternoon peak data.

For those of you who don't want to trawl the data, here's the morning rush hour data in summary. I was fairly stunned to see the numbers on Kennington Park Road, a route I use most mornings. The percentages are also fairly stonking. But what's just astonishing is to see figures in the high 50%+ range even outside the congestion charge area on places like Chelsea Bridge or, in fact, Kennington Park Road. Just as staggering are the numbers at places like Parliament Square which is downright hostile for cycling. The entry roads are all designed in a way to actively suppress cycling (in my view) and yet people have to cycle here and do so in huge numbers.

Morning peak - cyclists between 7 - 10am at various sites

Most of the streets listed above are fairly sizeable roads. It is equally telling to look at quieter streets on local roads. Streets like Black Prince Road in Lambeth where people on bikes are 65% of the traffic in the mornings; Paul Street in Hackney (75%); St John's Street in Islington (54%).

What is so damning about all of this is that even on local roads where the number of people on bikes is more than 50% of the peak traffic, the quality of the experience for cycling is utterly random.

Bike counts on local roads in London, rather than main roads, during the morning peak

Black Prince Road is a residential street with one bus route. Apart from a few elephants' feet road humps which do nothing to slow the traffic, motor traffic can roar down here as much as it likes. Paul Street, however, is 'filtered' so that motor traffic can't blast through the entire street, it only really makes sense to drive here if you're going somewhere on this street. St John's Street has a laughable bike lane filled with parked cars despite the massive width of the street. It is to London's shame that routes that are dominated by bike-traffic are so utterly inconsistent and the experience for cycling on these bike-dominated routes is made deliberately haphazard in a way that would never be acceptable for driving.

Absolutely crazy: Cycling is being deliberately suppressed by five new schemes in London all of which squeeze out safe, sensible cycling. Thames crossing review identifies massive need for cycle crossing but only offers people the chance to stick their bike on a £4 cable car

It started with a trickle and then it turned into a flood: London is being swamped with crazy road narrowing schemes on major cycling routes; the worst of which will see two lanes out of four turned into pavement and yet even there, the only provision for cycling will be advisory bike lanes that stop and start along road space that is made deliberately narrow. These schemes will be in place for at least the next 20 years, in most cases.

Goldhawk Road now. Will be reduced from four lanes to two but with only intermittent, advisory bike lanes. 

In Tottenham, TfL is proposing to remove part of a gyratory. It will also remove one lane of motor traffic AND remove the existing segregated bike track. Now, the bike track itself could do with an upgrade. But why on earth is TfL ripping up bike infrastructure and creating acres of paving space, rather than using the masses of new space it is creating and making a decent bike-friendly link in this part of Tottenham? Rachel Aldred blogs about this in brilliant detail, declaring that the engineers simply haven't thought about cycling here. You can comment on the scheme on TfL's website but even if you do, TfL only wants your views if you're either a "resident; business; bus user; or motorist". Screw the cyclists. In any event, I'd urge you to read Rachel's blog and comment on the website.

Plans for Goldhawk Road. See that blue bit? That's not a bike lane, that's road space that will be taken and given to trees. 

Meanwhile, just west of Shepherd's Bush, TfL and Hammersmith and Fulham council have designed schemes on Goldhawk Road, Uxbridge Road and others, to narrow the carriageway and plant lots of trees. The schemes, as they say, have been designed by "residents and businesses and further consultations with local businesses, schools, the police and London Buses". Note, no consultation with people who think and care about making cycling safe and convenient here. You can see the schemes and respond to the consultation online here. 

According to Hammersmith & Fulham Cyclists: "The overall plan is for what was two lanes each way to become a 3.5m wide lanes and a 2m wide cycle lane each way. This does mean that a bus lane is being relinquished and cycle lanes are replacing them." Sounds great, doesn't it. The problem being the bike lane turns into bus stops at regular intervals, randomly narrows here and there due to extra pavement widening and disappears entirely at major junctions. It's definitely a step in the direction of cycling but a real missed opportunity to deal with some major problems. This review by H&F Cyclists is well worth a read. 

If you want to see something really bonkers, though, look at this scheme in Lewisham. Over in Ladywell, the countil plans to remove trees on one side of the street to create parking spaces. And then build NEW trees on the other side of the street that completely and utterly block the cycle track along this main street. 

There is something systemically wrong going on and a complete failure by councils and TfL to properly secure safe space for cycling in these new schemes. The money is being spent to remove space from motor traffic but instead of some of that space being given to make cycling a safe option, instead it is going to trees and making cycling even less appealing in most of these examples.

Here is what London's main high streets won't be looking like for the next 20 years. Pic courtesy Streetsblog

To top it off, this is what sums up what is going on: Transport for London has decided to go ahead with building a new crossing of the Thames, east of the Blackwall Tunnel. TfL's review concludes: "[It is] clear that there is a strong appetite within the public and stakeholders for TfL to consider crossing improvements for cyclists, pedestrians and public transport users". 

Great, you think, TfL is going to make it possible to cross the river by bike, not just by car. Except that's not the case. Read the report in detail and this is what is promised to make it easier to cycle from south of the river if you live in SE London: "Cyclists and pedestrians are not permitted to use Blackwall Tunnel, for safety reasons. We anticipate that Silvertown Tunnel would not be accessible to cyclists and pedestrians for the same reasons. Pedestrians and cyclists can use the Emirates Air Line cable car, which links the same places as the proposed Silvertown Tunnel."

Cable car??? What's the point in a review that declares 'cyclists need somewhere to cross the river' and concludes 'cyclists won't get anywhere to cross the river'?

It's completely insane. I feel like the Mayor is doing great things to put cycling on the map. He has a great vision, plans for some really good quality schemes on certain routes. But at the heart of Transport for London, precisely nothing has changed. Cycling is being ignored on 90% of new road investment in London. And that's because the TfL machine is massive and only has a handful of people worrying about cycling. How come London buses get to advise and agree every single new scheme in London but London cyclists don't, for example?

Something has to change.