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London's Victoria Embankment could be closed to motor traffic for six months - but Cycle Superhighway will remain open

Complications with capital's Super Sewer project could force road to be closed to motor vehicles...

London’s Victoria Embankment could be closed to motor vehicles for up to six months due to complications relating to the building of the capital’s so-called ‘super sewer’ – but the good news for cyclists using the East-West Cycle Superhighway which runs along the same route is that it will remain open.

The Evening Standard’s Ross Lydall reports that initially, the westbound lane of the Victoria Embankment will be closed to traffic from Southwark Bridge for six weeks commencing 6 August.

That closure will enable engineers to examine the risk of damage to two gas mains that run beneath the road due to works associated with the £4 billion Thames Tideway project which will run for 16 miles and link 34 sewer outflows between Acton in the west and Abbey Mills in the east.

Should the gas mains have to be replaced, Transport for London (TfL) has said that the Victoria Embankment would be closed for six months from 29 April next year in both directions while the work is carried out – but the Cycle Superhighway, which is used by thousands of cyclists each day, will remain open.

TfL’s director of network management, Glynn Barton, told the Evening Standard: “Due to essential gas work by Cadent Gas, there will be changes to travel along Victoria Embankment from 6 August to mid-September this year.

“We are working with Tideway and Cadent to ensure the impact of the work is minimised as much as possible and the cycle superhighway will remain open for the duration of the work. Full travel advice will be available on the TfL website from next week.

“The work this year is a trial ahead of full gas main replacement next year. Further details of next year’s work will be available once this summer’s trial hole work has been completed. The Cycle Superhighway will also remain open during next year’s work.”

In 2014, then Mayor of London Boris Johnson came under criticism for what some saw as his desire to push through the Cycle Superhighway rather than wait until the works could be performed alongside those for the Thames Tideway Tunnel and thereby minimise disruption to motorists.

> London's £4 billion 'Super Sewer' could disrupt east-west segregated cycle route

At the time, it was reported that the ‘Super Sewer’ works could even result in parts of the Cycle Superhighway to be closed, and today’s news has led Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, to call on Johnson’s successor, Sadiq Khan, to re-route it.

He told radio station LBC: “Sadiq needs to grab this opportunity to put right Boris’ wrongs.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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14 comments

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kie7077 | 5 years ago
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And what about the large tricycle taxi things that have electric motors rather obviously ramped to illegal speed levels, has anyone seen the police take them to account? Combine those with the occasional idiot jogger* and it can get quite tricky.

*Most of the joggers are back on the pavement, I guess they got sick of the constant heckling. Hell I even got sick of constantly having to heckle them!

Oh, I'm not going to get any notification if I get a reply am I, so I probably won't see the reply because I'm not about to go through every post I ever wrote regularly looking for replies, life is too short.

 

PLEASE FIX THIS ROAD.CC

Avatar
FluffyKittenofT... | 5 years ago
5 likes

Heard LBC's political correspondant saying this was becase 'Sadiq is terrified of the cycling lobby'.

 

This is the same guy (Theo Usherwood) who preoduced his own ludicrous made-up counts of cyclists using the superhighways when the official ones were too high for his liking.

 

The bias of parts of the media over this is quite amazing.  The truth is that Sadiq is terrified of the motoring lobby, hence his reluctance to ever take anything from them.

 

 

Avatar
matthewn5 replied to FluffyKittenofTindalos | 5 years ago
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FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Heard LBC's political correspondant saying this was becase 'Sadiq is terrified of the cycling lobby'.

This is the same guy (Theo Usherwood) who preoduced his own ludicrous made-up counts of cyclists using the superhighways when the official ones were too high for his liking.

The bias of parts of the media over this is quite amazing.  The truth is that Sadiq is terrified of the motoring lobby, hence his reluctance to ever take anything from them.

To be fair, Sadiq has been handed an annual budget for TfL that's £700 million less than Johnson had, owing to the government cutting the entire £700 million grant to TfL. Plus, Londoners are taking fewer trips*, so fare box income is down too.

Still, cycle infrastructure is the cheapest way to add capacity to London's bursting-at-the-seams transport, so it would be great if he'd just get on with it. Extremely annoying that nimbys in Westminster and elsewhere can capriciously stop infrastructure that's for all Londoners.

*It's thought that this is because of working from home, internet shopping, and people taking Uber rather than public transport.

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brooksby | 5 years ago
2 likes

How short will be the period between it closing to motor traffic and an article appearing here about a car being driven along the superhighway, d’you think?

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RichK replied to brooksby | 5 years ago
3 likes

brooksby wrote:

How short will be the period between it closing to motor traffic and an article appearing here about a car being driven along the superhighway, d’you think?

How short will be the period between it closing to motor traffic and an article appearing in the DM  about the resultant congestion being caused by cyclists, d’you think?

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bamboo | 5 years ago
6 likes

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

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S_P_A_C_E_M_A_N replied to bamboo | 5 years ago
1 like

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Agree with the above comments about this being a good opportunity for those who don't cycle to give it serious thought. Particularly interested to read Bamboo's comment. I use the Embankment CS every day and it seems to be getting a bit more dangerous. I've seen more accidents recently. Difficult to say whether it's down to increased tourism levels in the summer months, or people being out and about. I go at a fair pace, and it's generally pretty safe, but I see a bit of risky overtakes particularly at pinch points. Pedestrians are the real issue - just stepping out apropros of nothing or at least walking super close to the CS which puts me on edge. Delighted that the CS will remain open, but I wonder if it will make pedestrians even more incautious about actually looking before they cross the CS.

Avatar
Jem PT replied to bamboo | 5 years ago
1 like

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

Avatar
I love my bike replied to Jem PT | 5 years ago
2 likes

Jem PT wrote:

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

Don't they jump the lights, because so few of them can cross on each cycle of the lights, which isn't helped by the Sh*teway being so narrow?

It might be illustrative if the Danish/Netherlands standards, were used for camparison.

Avatar
Jem PT replied to I love my bike | 5 years ago
0 likes

I love my bike wrote:

Jem PT wrote:

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

Don't they jump the lights, because so few of them can cross on each cycle of the lights, which isn't helped by the Sh*teway being so narrow?

It might be illustrative if the Danish/Netherlands standards, were used for camparison.

Possibly. But then cars have to stop at red lights too. Or should we widen the roads for them so they don't have to?

Avatar
emishi55 replied to Jem PT | 5 years ago
2 likes

Jem PT wrote:

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

errrr.,,, perhaps you should read through what bamboo is saying about 'increasing capacity for cyclists by widening the lane itself' - or where appropriate having a lane for cyclists on either side of the road (and ideally reducing the car lane to a single one - like the excellent Tavistock Place example).

I suggest you call for this kind of action from those nice people at Westminster council, your local one-stop any scheme that threatens their motoring-at-all-costs reprehensibles

I'm not sure there's any more need for compaints about 'red-light jumpers' at the moment though

 

 

Avatar
I love my bike | 5 years ago
4 likes

Might be a good opportunity to widen the Superhighway, so a 'girl holding hands with dad' cannot block it in both directions  3

Avatar
DrJDog replied to I love my bike | 5 years ago
0 likes

I love my bike wrote:

Might be a good opportunity to widen the Superhighway, so a 'girl holding hands with dad' cannot block it in both directions  3

 

Also - how bloody dangerous is that?

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Dnnnnnn | 5 years ago
3 likes

Perhaps an opportunity to persuade more people (and some goods) to move around via pedal power, not least those who would otherwise be clogging up the Embankment in taxis?

I'm being optimistic but with the Embankment closed and alternative routes likely to be clogged (even more) then it might be a good time to switch...

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