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New Cycle Superhighways - Visualisation of proposed segregated two-way cycle track on Tower HillCycle campaigners give thumbs up to new London superhighway plans – but not everyone's happy
Cycling campaigners have given a generally favourable reception to Transport for London's draft plans for two new London cycling superhighways that will cross the city from north to south and from east to west.
The plans were opened for public consultation yesterday and comprise a north-south route between King's Cross and the Elephant and Castle, and an east-west route stretching from the western end of Cycle Superhighway 3 at Tower Gateway to the Westway at Royal Oak.
Both routes will be "largely segregated" or "substantially segregated" according to Transport for London.
The routes will cross at Blackfriars in what one commentator called "a stonking new bike interchange". It's been a while since anyone from the world of cycling described anything planned by TfL as 'stonking'.
The stonking Blackfriars interchange
The idea, TfL says, is to encourage people to ride who "currently feel unable to".
In its introduction to the consultation, TfL said:
"Cycling in London has more than doubled in the last decade. Bikes now make up around a quarter of rush hour traffic in central London* - but there are few special routes or facilities for them.
"The proposed Superhighway would create a separated cycle corridor to improve safety and reduce conflict between motor vehicles and cyclists.
"[They have] been designed to encourage the large numbers of people who would like to cycle, but currently feel unable to."
As well as being largely segregated from motor traffic, the two new routes will have priority at intersections, are intended to be wide enough to allow overtaking and include substantial improvements for pedestrians too.
Individual campaigners and cycling organisations are busy examining the proposals in detail, and many have encouraged riders to take a look for themselves and feed back comments to Transport for London.
On the whole, though, the plans have been hailed as a big step forward.
London cycling Campaign
The London Cycling Campaign said: "The plans show that the Mayor is finally delivering on his commitment the promises he made to LCC’s Love London, Go Dutch campaign.
"While LCC has concerns around some of the details which we will be addressing with Transport for London, overall we’re pleased to see that the scheme provides much more space for cycling, and also gives more space for pedestrians."
Ashok Sinha, Chief Executive of London Cycling Campaign, said: “In 2012 … the Mayor promised them that he would deliver all new cycle superhighways to best continental standards. We congratulate the Mayor on finally taking such a big step towards delivering on this promise.
"LCC’s main concerns are that some of the planned new junctions are not safe enough and that the width of the new cycle tacks is too narrow in places. … Overall, though, LCC is really pleased to see commitments to substantially reallocate carriageway space to ensure protected space for cycling – particularly on the east-west superhighway, where cyclists regularly make up almost half of traffic during the morning peak.
“We’d encourage all our members and supporters who use the routes to feed back on the proposals on the TfL website.”
Sustrans
Transport charity Sustransput its weight behind the plans. Sustrans London Director, German Dector-Vega said: "These are two hugely important developments that will improve Londoners’ quality of life and transport options.
"With this level of quality and ambition, we will all finally be able to use bikes to get from A to B without having to worry about traffic.
"Despite being the London Director of a walking and cycling charity, I'm terrified of cycling on some of London's busiest roads. This will fundamentally transform London to the point where my family and I can ride safely through the centre of our capital. What’s more pedestrians will benefit from improved crossings and extra protection from fast traffic."
Bloggers back routes
Two influential cycling transport writers, Rachel Aldred and Danny Williams, also gave their support to the plans.
Aldred, Senior Lecturer in Transport at the University of Westminster, wrote on her blog: "I think it’s crucial these proposals succeed.
"If these two superhighways go ahead as proposed or better, we’ll have proved on the streets that London can do it. Yes, I know they’re not perfect. And two routes don’t make a network.
"But the hard stuff is not digging up and remaking roads, not in a transport rich city like London. And even elsewhere resources appear if something’s a priority. The hard stuff’s the politics – getting support for change."
Aldred said that she had gone into a meeting about the plans with TfL, in her role as a trustee of London Cycling Campaign, with some trepidation.
"Could they actually be any good?" she wrote.
"Yes, they’re good. Good enough that if you care about cycling, you need to say so.
"We need to be heard. People who don’t want space for cycling will be taking similar action right now."
Williams, a member of London Mayor Boris Johnson's Road Task Force, wrote on his Cyclists in the City blog: "Unlike when the Mayor announced plans for his original Cycle Super Highways, this time they really have the feel of being proper Cycle Highways. They are almost entirely segregated. They have priority over side roads, just the same way that other traffic does.
"There are some impressive new features, such as a bike track through the service tunnel that runs parallel to Upper Thames St (near Cannon Street) and a stonking new bike interchange where the two Cycle Highways will meet at Blackfriars.
"There is a cycle track planned through Parliament Sqaure, and pedestrian crossings so that people can actually access the Square properly for the first time.
"And once you're on the tracks, there is a consistency that means I would - for the first time ever - be able to get my mum on a bike with me in central London. Something I never ever thought would be possible."
The naysayers
Of course, not everyone is happy. The plans will take road space from motor vehicles, and even though this has been demonstrated to reduce congestion by discouraging people from driving, motor organisations are concerned.
Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, told the BBC the mayor's plans would cost £100 per Londoner (a sum that seems to be based on the planned spend of £913 million over ten years on cycle facilities) and challenged him to prove that this was value for money.
"It would be a mistake to think London is clogged up with selfish drivers in their cars," he said.
"Much of the traffic is essential freight and commercial movements, not to mention buses and taxis, and if you cut capacity then business costs will rise and deliveries put at risk."
The Freight Transport Association (FTA) also sounded a warning about the importance of access for goods deliveries.
Natalie Chapman, FTA’s head of policy for London said: “FTA supports the development of new cyclist infrastructure which is targeted on improving safety for cyclists, and believes it can provide real benefits.
"But cyclists are only one user of the road and the needs of all must be considered – Londoners depend on the goods our members supply every hour of every day.
"It is important that these schemes are carried out in such a way that does not unduly disrupt traffic flow or prevent kerbside access for deliveries to businesses and homes.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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42 comments
kie7077, segregated cycle paths are part of the way forward and with that i agree with you, however i do have a concern and this comes back to the british mentality.
If you are able to see yourself on that bike, or as a pedestrian you might bother to care, but as regularly demonstrated UK drivers are **** when it comes to sharing the roads. We have the on going issues in the new forest, i have a post on my Facebook feed where a race somewhere east anglia way had tacks on the road today and at least one rider hospitalised by the sounds of it. Today i had far to many dangerous overtakes, i witnessed motorists whinging that roads were closed for the local half marathon.
There is no give and take, there is no acceptance that other people actually have a right to use the roads. Even the whinging about lorries overtaking on the motorway and blocking car drivers.
With the attitude of motorists now and the times you get comments such as use the cycle path, even when it is unuseably crap! If the paths aren't perfect you might as well not bother.
I'm willing to bet that there was much the same attitude on Dutch roads before things started changing there...
Oh, and we need to have some actual traffic police to enforce the rules
You really don't see it do you! Shall we look at what has happened to pedestrians over the years?
Once upon a time it would be quite normal to see people to walking down the road, mingling with other road users and being on the whole quite safe.
Then along came the motor-car (or as one well respected paper called it "that infernal engine of destruction") and people walking found themselves pushed to the side of the roads, corralled behind barriers and told where and when they could cross. Woe betide any persons who tried to buck the trend, they would be labelled 'Jaywalkers' and anything that happened to them was their fault; how dare they get in the way of progress.
If we accept that cyclists cannot mingle with motorists and we have to be kept separate then we accept segregation and separation (Apartheid?) and we will became marginalised and dispossessed, our rights to go where we please become eroded. More people drive cars than cycle - the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - lets ban cycles. After all there are more votes in bashing cyclists than motorists.
I am not saying that segregated facilities are never the answer (personally I think that any road with a speed limit in excess of 40mph should have a proper segregated 3m wide facility alongside it), what I am saying is that they are not the only answer. There are other ways to make the urban walking and cycling environment safer - enforced 20mph urban speed limits, presumed liability, protected right of way, 'permeability', proper legal sanction to name just five.
We are in great and very real danger of sleepwalking into a future that none of us want.
@levermonkey
The countries with lots of cyclist segregation don't bear out your fears, whilst here in the UK were we have very little segregation, drivers already hate cyclists and drive badly around them. I think we have very little to lose and a lot to gain.
Exactly that, why keep raising theoretical concerns when this experiment has been done.
The danger isn't just the speed of traffic but the type and density. I find the roads in the centre of London much more dangerous than most of the national speed limit roads out in Surrey, for the simple reason they are packed wheel to wheel with buses, trucks and lorries.
In city centres segregation isn't just about safety, or rather the danger of speed, it's about reserved capacity. It's the same principle as bus lanes, though a bus will never find itself squeezed off the road in a battle of might is right. I've never heard bus passengers complaining about commuter apartheid when they have a nice car free lane. In fact I'm going to start calling these the VIP cycle routes, that's a much better description!
But as far as I am aware, that's pretty much what 'going Dutch' entails. Physical segregation for fast busy roads, other options elsewhere. In particular if by 'permeability' you mean basically 'bollards', I'm especially in favour of that - get the through-traffic off the side roads - and I'm fairly sure that's what the Dutch do.
The other four things you mention seem less important, but by all means chuck them in as well.
(Personally if I were dictator-for-life I'd go way further than the Netherlands, with removal of most on-street parking, big extensions of congestion charging and big increases in fuel duty to try and make drivers really pay for stinking up my air and putting their ugly, noisy, smelly vehicles in my field of vision - but that might not be terribly politically realistic with this irritating 'democracy' thing that we have nowadays)
Can't comment as don't ride in London but all very positive surely?
Question I still have to ask is can someone 'accidentally' drive along it in a stolen car, smacked out on drugs on a current driving ban and hurt people to have the courts accept any lame excuse offered and get fined £80?
We need facilities AND robust new legislation if those wanting to ride but are too scared are to start cycling with any confidence that government gives a damn about them and takes their safety as a complete priority.
Comment from FTA chair person is predictable. Important that goods can be delivered. Sure, you go knock on the door of a young lady's parents and tell them your truck has just killed their daughter as the driver had to comment on his mates Facebook page.
Not all is lost though - if you fancy a sodding Choc Dip the shelves are full.
No? Thought not.
I dislike any scheme that promotes the idea that roads are motorways. Will they join this one up to the fantastic segregated paths at the Barbican?
And at the moment we have Crossrail being built, which will cost about £15billion, and the proposal for Crossrail 2, which is another £15billion.
Meanwhile, TfL are also developing a proposal for a new underground circular for Motorists that is expected to cost around £30billion, (which would be about £3000 per Londoner).
Even the buses still have to be subsidised to the tune of about £400m per year, which is surprising considering the fares.
By the standards of transport infrastructure projects in the capital, cycling sounds like remarkably good value for money.
the new interchange at Blackfriar looks nice. Also doesn't look like they will need to spend much on it either as the lane layout looks pretty much as existing and just a few demarcations required and install some robust new kerbs.
Regarding the RAC Foundation and FTA comments, they are utter BS. I cycle on the East-West route and the North-South route very often. I have been on upper thames street going over/under blackfriars and then onto victoria embankment on various time of the day...mostly during morning or evening rush hours. The most common traffic is taxi, then it is tourist coachs. Both sets of vehicles will be looking to park up near the area to either pickup tourists/customers or dropping them off. The general congestion along the road is usually caused by these things anyways. then there are buses, but they still getting their priority lanes so no changes there. I hardly ever see any commercial vehicles such as the FTA ones describes so I really fail to see how that point is relavent. Furthermore any delivery drivers would be sensible enough to avoid the central areas as noted in the routes. The most often place you see a white van or delivery truck is generally not on the busy trunk roads but the back roads that run parallel to the trunk roads.
ironically the computer image of the types of vehicles on the blackfriar junction is probably correct bar missing a couple of red buses. i.e. mostly mini cabs/black cabs and a few cars.
so a world of toss for those motoring advocates. I hope these two routes get the go ahead...would make cycling a lot safer.
I have been cycling for over 10 years, but there are traffic light controlled junctions along Farringdon road where the rad become 1 lane and there is no space at the front of the queue for cyclists. It is almost like a death trap, when you set off from lights you need to be sure you have a steady grip. slight wobble with a car brushing pass you with less than a feet of space between you...that is a recipe for deaths and accidents.
Lovely idea but it aint going to happen
The plans aren't entirely perfect, but very good.
If you, as a cyclist, are against this proposal overall, you need your head examined.
I like the 25mph Embankment race as much as the next man, but I would rather we had a civilised city in which everyone can cycle than one in which only fit and brave people can do so.
+1 squajilion.
As much as I like going HARD and FAST and SUFFERING for THE GLORY and THE PASSION and... that sort of thing, I'd much rather London was designed to be a pleasant, civilised and safe place for everybody than a Temple To My Pain. There other places where I can actually enjoy cycling fast and freely, and they will remain, but I don't think city centres hold much scope for the joys of that sort of riding.
I'm sure other cyclists will slow things down a little, but from my experience of riding in London, the cars, lorries, vans and HGVs tend to slow me down a lot. They're quite big and have a habit of taking up all the available room, despite my best filtering skills. Having a decent sized segregated lane may not leave overall journey times badly affected, even if top speeds and average moving speeds are lowered. And I'd rather be stuck with a bunch of things that clearly resemble humans than listening to the steady growling of a hundred engines, ready to pounce. Waiting at a red light in London is the closest I've come to feeling like being fed to the lions. I don't like feeling like that.
Here's the link again to the consultation form: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/eastwest/consultation
Having looked at it a bit more they seem to be universally missing out the option for bikes to avoid traffic lights on left turns which is a shame. Cyclists will do this anyway where gaps in the traffic are available so they might as well build it in.
The flashy pictures show something that looks like roads for bikes, fantastic! But I am rather cycnical about how much TfL can water this down before implementation...
If i was the FTA I would be throwing my full weight behind this, I bet HGV drivers hate driving with cyclists and less motor traffic means they can make more deliveries, lets hope they start to work this out.
There is no need to moan about speed, the lycra commuter hardmen can presumably still choose to take the main road if they wish.
That would be the rational approach, however it appears that the all groups representing motoring interests take a much more myopic approach...all available money must be spent on more road infrastructure and every penny spend on anything else is wasted. The fact that the last 70 years of massive road building have produced mixed results at best and almost complete gridlock in places seems to have passed these people by.
The FTA does not care about lorry drivers, only haulage companies' bottom line. So, no, they'll never support this.
From my experience, the majority of commuters (on bikes) want to take fastest possible route.
Yes, they do. For some of them this will make that route feel safer. For others this scheme shows that, actually there IS enough room, and it CAN be done in London, and that their route may become safer in the future.
For others the choice of cycling AT ALL isn't there due to safety fears - this will help to reduce them.
"Good enough that if you care about cycling, you need to say so."
^this.
No you can't be selfish and moan that this will slow you down. If the cycling fraternity sounds like they don't plan to use the facilities, they won't happen. Seriously, don't be a dick. Accept the compromise that means you sacrifice some top speed, but instead more people will get around cheaply and safely and sustainably.
Completely agree - let's hope they make the lanes wide enough to cope with different speeds as I'd like to be able to use this to cycle with my kids at the weekend and commute so it will need to deal with different speeds but doesn't need to deal with the 25mph+ race down the Victoria Embankment we get today. I'll miss that a bit but the gain in making central London really usable to a broader range of cyclists is more than worth it.
I'm still not convinced that completely segregated facilities are the answer. I would much rather find a way to share the road safely. Road apartheid will only fuel resentment and hostility between different groups of road users.
I really dislike the use of two-way cycle lanes on one side of the road. When they end far too often you are abandoned facing the wrong way and on the wrong side of the road. If we have to have segregated lanes they should be one way with-traffic on both sides of the road with protected right of way at junctions [side roads] to remove the stop-start nature that exists today.
Cyclist numbers will increase provided that the cycle is a better option than the car for travel in town. It is not necessarily always true that "if you build it they will come". Look at Milton Keynes and Stevenage, totally segregated traffic but hardly used. Why? Because of the lack of on going investment to maintain and improve.
There IS no way for everyone to share the roads safely - that's been made perfectly clear by drivers pretty much since the invention of the internal combustion engine. Even if you could make every single driver give every single cyclist enough space, would it actually FEEL any safer? One mistake (yours or theirs) and you're still in trouble. Protected lanes have a much higher level of subjective safety that allows more people to use them.
The current set-up on the roads discourages most people from riding at all - the demographic is ridiculously male 25-35. The main reason for this is the hostile environment. Would you like you parents/kids cycling in central London at the moment? Or would you prefer them to ride with protection from motor vehicles? What would THEY prefer?
2-way lanes are much more user-friendly - you'd never cross the road to go 100m before re-crossing again - and any off-carriageway tracks are de facto 2-way anyway, like pavements.
I agree that "if you build it they will come" is not always correct, but Stevenage and Milton Keynes failed to maintain and improve things, and failed to restrict motor vehicle movements. This project should be seen as a starting point for future improvements, not a "well, that's that then" plan.
These MUST be supported in general. Some details need improvement, but overall this can be the start of something brilliant, and the motor lobby will fight to restrict and reduce it to failure. Stop them by responding to the consultation in support.
That's cute. 95% of the UK's population find our roads so bloody terrifying that the only cycling they do is at Center Parcs, yet you're worried about losing your "right to the road"?
Because driving in Milton Keynes and Stevenage is convenient and easy. Driving in London is mentilz.
Well there's a daft OTT use of language.
I see this simply as the correct infrastructure for the location. The centre of London is absolutely bonkers, dangerous and intimidating to huge numbers of potential future cyclists, and it's not exactly huge fun even if you are confident and experienced.
Filtering in-between high sided lorries, tipper trucks and double decker buses will never be safe, and that's the only way you can progress at more than a crawl in much of zone 1. I expect most cyclists will be able to travel faster using these lanes, as well as safer.
I will leave feedback for TfL, and apart from a few questions (I've been reading the PDFs), it will be very positive.
Really? A system set up supposedly to provide equal and separate development of different groups that in actuality leads to the advancement of one group to the detriment of all others.
This is more a matter of mechanics than it is of ethics though. The difference in this case being that one of the groups has the size, weight and power of a rhinoceros, while the other has the size, weight and power of a human.
That is a concrete, meaningful difference; especially where both groups operate in such close proximity and dense conditions. It is not an arbitrary, meaningless factor like skin colour or eye colour or political affiliation or favourite football team. It is planning according to need.
There is a reason why we don't put elephants in aquariums, and it's rarely labeled 'apartheid'. Separating cyclists and motor vehicles, providing it's done properly, is no more 'apartheid' than the existence of pavements. And I'm pretty glad that pavements exist.
I think the key word there is "supposedly". If your mind is already made up that segregated infrastructure is a ploy, then your mind is made up. Those crafty Dutchies, forty years advancing motorists and they've got away with it!
Take a good look at Dutch (or for that matter Danish, German or Swedish) infrastructure. Now given these superb examples of how to get it right with the benefit of decades of testing and experimentation take a really good hard look at what we get in this country. Look a how what is promised differs to what is built. Look at what planners think is acceptable.
Warrington Cycle Campaign have on their website a wonderful feature called "Cycle Facility of the Month" do check it out at
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/index.htm
I am not totally against segregated facilities, I just feel that they are seen too often as the only answer. Not all continental infrastructure is segregated.
Two other points to consider.
1) Critical Mass - When every motorist knows someone they care about who rides a bike and adjusts their behaviour on the road accordingly.
2) Some continental facilities are now at or very near capacity. The really interesting thing is going to see how they take the next step (and what the next step is).
Yes I am cynical, but, I'm not that cynical that I don't believe that the British motorist cannot be educated to share the road eventually.
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