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London borough of Camden announces ambitious new cycle safety project in the West End - but will TfL agree to it?London bus and cyclist.jpg

London borough of Camden announces ambitious new cycle safety project in the West End - but will TfL agree to it?

£40m plans would ban taxis and cars, ease traffic flow and create segrgated cycle lanes
by Sarah Barth
Sun, Jan 18, 2015 12:31
5

The London Borough of Camden is proposing to implement what it calls the West End Project - which along with improving traffic flow promises to improve cycling facilities.

Tottenham Court Road will be redesigned as a two-way street, with bus routes moving from Gower Street to Tottenham Court Road. The council says that traffic levels overall will be improved - especially as they hope to remove taxis and private vehicles along most of the length of Tottenham Court Road.

The original plans were met with outcry from cycle campaign groups, leading to some changed, including “stepped cycle tracks” in Gower Street, Bedford Square and Bloomsbury Street for safety, and a new westbound lightly segregated cycle track on the south side of Torrington Place.

Controversially, there however remain no cycling tracks planned for Tottenham Court Road, although almost all existing one-way side streets would be converted to two-way cycling contra-flows.

The whole project is estimated to cost around £40 million with £33 million already available. The plans now rely on approval from Transport for London .

Camden’s council has warned that doing nothing is not an option, due to the high incidences of traffic collisions, along with dangerous levels of pollution and the opening of the new Crossrail station nearby in the coming years.

London
West End Project
Camden
Safety
junctions
segregated cycle lanes
cycle infrastructure

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5 comments

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mrmo | 8 years ago
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Serious question, how wide is a street sweeper. If your going to provide the lanes they have to be maintained, which means they have to be swept, they will collect glass and other bits of rubbish.

Was just looking at that campden example and wondering, lots of potential rubbish to find its way into the road way.

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LondonDynaslow replied to mrmo | 8 years ago
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mrmo wrote:

Serious question, how wide is a street sweeper. If your going to provide the lanes they have to be maintained, which means they have to be swept, they will collect glass and other bits of rubbish.

Was just looking at that campden example and wondering, lots of potential rubbish to find its way into the road way.

Pretty narrow. They can even get down the Tavistock place path - I know because I nearly had an accident avoiding one recently..

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jmaccelari | 8 years ago
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The Southwark Bridge lane may look intimidating, but if you ride into the side, you really deserve to get hurt. It's wide, obvious and well lit. I would like it to be a little wider, but with a (polite) tinkle of the bell or call, there's enough space to pass safely.

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darrenleroy | 8 years ago
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I wouldn't want to fall off and skid along the edge of that kerb in the pic of Southwark Bridge. Could be nasty.

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hampstead_bandit | 8 years ago
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Please no more "lightly segregated" cycle tracks in Camden! These consist of white paint, rubber "armadillo" bumper (like oversized cat eyes) and metal plant pots filled with dirt and plants.

The experiment in Royal College Street has been a disaster, despite LB Camden and Camden Cycling campaign's insistence its been a success. Basically, its really cheap to build (1/10th the cost of concrete segregation) and they think it looks "nice" because there are some plants.

If they are not parking in the cycle lanes:

//ep1.pinkbike.org/p4pb11718141/p4pb11718141.jpg)

then they are driving into / reversing into the plant plots and smashing them up, pushing them into the cycle lane leaving jagged metal and dirt / plants across the cycle lane.

We've lost 3 plant pots in the last month to vehicle collisions, this was the most recent. The base plate is the mounting, you can see how far the vehicle has pushed the planter. The plant pot behind is actually a replacement for a damaged one, which is why it does not have the reflective tape and red circles.

//ep1.pinkbike.org/p4pb11778522/p4pb11778522.jpg)

The previous 2 were hit at the same time during one evening and I just stopped before riding into the ripped open and jagged metal remains spread with dirt and plants across the cycle lane, poorly lit...disaster waiting to happen.

Its very obvious that light segregation does not stop vehicles parking or driving into the cycle lane, and that rubbber bumpers and plants pots cannot resist HGV and other vehicle collisions.

Its really simple to solve, some inexpensive pre-cast concrete sections dropped in place by a lorry with a crane, would protect cyclists using the cycle lane, at minimal cost. Similar to what has been done on Southwark bridge.

//blog.oomap.co.uk/files/2013/09/cyclefac_bridge.jpg)

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