The official launch of a new protected cycle lane, dubbed “the most beautiful bike lane in London” thanks to its unique tulip-shaped wands, didn’t quite go to plan this week, after the opening ceremony was interrupted – by a cyclist angrily complaining that the event was blocking the infrastructure.
Earlier this week, to coincide with the London Cycling Festival, new colourful tulip-shaped wands were installed along the cycle lane in Sussex Gardens in Westminster, as part of a trial by Westminster City Council to “improve safety and to enhance the streets for everyone”.
Designed by award-winning architects Pitman Tozer, the flexible wands are made with recycled plastic collected by the local authority.
They were inspired by the poppies at the Tower of London and the sunflower fields that are a visual staple of the Tour de France, and designed to be a “flexible, attractive, and recycled alternative to standard cycle lane bollards”.
“Traditional black-and-white bollards are clunky, often bent or broken, hard to maintain, and easy to crash into. They clutter the streets and can be almost as dangerous to cyclists as the traffic,” the architects said.
“Tulips bring safety and joy to the street. Bright and playful, they clearly mark the cycle lane and stand out from the grey road, helping drivers and cyclists see and respect the space.”
While the tulips are designed to keep cyclists safe, the brief ceremony held this week to open the joyful new infrastructure wasn’t without its issues, however.
The ceremony saw a section of the bike lane on Sussex Gardens temporarily closed for 20 minutes, as the tulips were officially launched by the Lord Mayor of Westminster, Paul Dimoldenberg, in front of a crowd (which included broadcaster and safe cycling advocate Jeremy Vine) stood on the infrastructure.
But, despite their clear safety objectives, the pomp and ceremony surrounding the launch of the wands proved something of a hazard for one cyclist, who was forced to ride on the road as the speeches took place, much to his clear chagrin.
In a video posted by the Tulip Cycle Wands group, the cyclist can be seen interrupting proceedings by shouting “it’s a cycle lane” as he approached (causing one of the organisers to worry that he was planning on charging through the gathered crowd).
As the cyclist rode past on the road, the organiser informed him that the lane was closed, only for the rider to hit back: “It’s a cycle lane, you can’t just stand in the way!”
Reflecting on the rather ironic incident, a spokesperson for Tulip Cycle Wands told road.cc: “For 20 minutes we temporarily closed a short stretch of the tulip cycle lane for the Lord Mayor of Westminster to officially launch these beautiful new pieces of cycling infrastructure.
“We had a colleague acting as a spotter placed 50 yards ahead of the ceremony to warn cyclists and other road users of the very temporary disruption.
“One cyclist opted to ignore our spotter’s warning and approached the short stretch. While he did so, he energetically exclaimed ‘this is a cycle lane!’, before continuing his journey. The whole incident lasted 15 seconds.
“We couldn’t have agreed with him more, and that was the whole point of planting the tulip cycle wands in Sussex Gardens: to make cycling safer and the street more beautiful for months and years to come. The irony was not lost on us either!”
Before he was shouted at by a passing cyclist, Lord Mayor Dimoldenberg praised the new wands, saying: “Cycling is a fantastic way to travel and an easy way to see the sights in our city. Thank you to Pitman Tozer Architects for inviting me to unveil the first one in London.
“These new Tulip Cycle Wands add a pop of colour along Sussex Gardens, and I hope they bring a smile to cyclists for many years to come.”
And the occasional angry bellow, too, if the opening ceremony is anything to go by…
51 thoughts on ““It’s a cycle lane!” shouts angry cyclist forced onto road – thanks to new bike lane wands opening ceremony”
Pretty dumb of the organisers
Pretty dumb of the organisers Tulip Wands Group. Tone deaf attitude. Who decided that it was a good idea or even required to close the lane. Just hold the event on the pavement next to it!
But that would inconvenience
But that would inconvenience pedestrians. Can’t have that.
Mind you, in California where I live, pavement is what we call the road. So that might not have been a good idea
Twenty minutes seems a bit
Twenty minutes seems a bit unnecessary for a photo opportunity and a few words…
Again I may just be the grump
Again I may just be the grump here – perhaps like wearing helmets or PPE or taking primary it’s just people doing what they can do…
But it seems we’ve seen any amount of “warm words” and “photo ops” in the campaigns to “encourage cycling” – every decade or so throughout my life (and “big” ones from central government about every quarter century)?
Apparently anything to encourage cycling – other than spending more than say 1% of the motoring travel budget, or dealing with junctions, or building “good enough” separate cycle paths or … discouraging some driving! (Sorry, I completely lost control there, don’t know what I was thinking…)
Yeah… surely it’s a 10x
Yeah… surely it’s a 10x better photo-op to have them standing next to the cycle lane being actively used. Especially with all the rhetoric around nowadays about cyclists not using them.
Excellent point.
Excellent point.
Prosper0 wrote:
Well, a politician was involved, and those buggers will turn up to the opening of an envelope if it gets their pic in the papers.
Apologies if I’m just a
Apologies if I’m just a grouch today: I’m all for art and good intentions but…
… seems just another example of “decorating the nettle”. I foresee these getting trashed or nicked in short order. Even the bigger sturdier ones are trashed by drivers (“didn’t see it”) or removed by the bored.
And fundamentally wands aren’t good cycle infra – if wands are justified now that’s where we need fully separate, boring, standard cycle paths.
On the positive side they are perhaps less of a threat to cyclists who might collide with them than the bigger wands? But by the same token perhaps less likely to discourage motorists?
I hope I’m wrong but I suspect this is like using glitter to fill pot holes – an expensive way of failing to address the real issue.
The issues being addressed
The issues being addressed here are that standard flex posts are ugly and, despite the name, break easily when they flex. I mean sure we all want segregated cycle lanes everywhere, but that will literally never happen and in the meantime we can still improve things incrementally. And these are certainly better than the line of paint that was there before.
sigirides wrote:
Little splashes of beauty are nice … but on the roads? Roads are just ugly. Lipstick on a pig. Let it be a useful pig instead.
And we’ve had blocks before, we’ve had armadillos and orcas before…
If these wands are more durable though (and less danger if you cycle into one) that’s something I guess…
Well, certainly seems hard to imagine in the UK (and impossible in the US) … but in fact things have moved on. In a rather small way, in a very few places … but there’s growing UK evidence (apparently evidence doesn’t travel well) that doing this doesn’t bring society to its knees and in fact after a year or so people have forgotten what the fuss was about.
It happened here – from a high “base”, true – with much of the change within two decades. It happened here from “nothing” as far as I know – in about a decade.
I’m somewhat skeptical about “incremental”. In both cases of change above there certainly was some “incremental” stuff but at some point a step-change was needed – for Seville it was “we’re going to build an actual network in one go – a small one sure – but complete”.
Obviously change does happen one person at a time… but I think at some point there’s a “step change” or nothing sticks. We’ve had “cycling demonstration towns” in the UK – didn’t stick. We’ve had better infra than we have most places, designed in from the outset (discussed here and here) – didn’t stick; because at the same time we made it very easy (in fact easier than cycling) to drive in those places.
And I wonder if the key choice is “we’ll actually commit to deliberately making driving some trips a bit less convenient so other modes can compete”?
I don’t know what else to say
I don’t know what else to say other than “perfect is the enemy of good”. I tend to stand with the people actually making things good rather than the people complaining that it’s not perfect.
Again … maybe just a grumpy
Again … maybe just a grumpy day for me. Or perhaps – what is “good enough” is variable, depending where you’re starting from?
I’ve had a long “cycling journey”. I know now that “I can” doesn’t translate into “they will”. Example – few people I cycled with are still cycling now. I’m also less optimistic that lots of very minor changes add up to a major change. E.g. one that increases the cycling levels from say 1 to 2% – that of most places in the UK – to 10% or more.
I hope that’s possible (say in the bigger urban places). But I no longer think that all the small things like this will get us there.
After seeing many of the “covid emergency cycling and walking measures” in Edinburgh – which might have stuck – being rolled back (and just how noisy the opposition is), I’m less confident we’re at the “end of the beginning” (certainly not the beginning of the end).
Perhaps I should just “enjoy the moment”? After all, I grew up cycling an even more motor-friendly UK. But … back then there were a few million fewer people driving. And I hadn’t experience of anywhere better (I didn’t really “get it” the first time I cycled in NL either.)
Here’s a better angle of the
Here’s a better angle of the angry cyclist btw: https://youtu.be/svHEEFutBbQ?si=CIEp44yimb_tuO4b&t=57
I guess it’s a sign that it
I guess it’s a sign that it was doing its job before. Just like the rest of the road. If you stand in it you’ll get normal people with places to go who are pissed off you’re in the way…!
Would be nice if people could be chill around the odd “novel event”. We know that normal people in cars often aren’t though. And people on bikes have to put up with “stuff in the cycle lane” pretty much every day. (Today, for me, in Edinburgh, the first one was at lunch with a postie who had abandoned his van on a double-yellow – which I believe is accepted for them – completely blocking the cycle path and footway… I’m able-bodied so I can dismount and deal with kerbs, not everyone can).
Tulip Architect wrote:
If you don’t look where you’re going, pretty much anything is easy to crash into – I’m not convinced the bollards are the problem there…
https://www.theguardian.com
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/may/31/forceful-bike-campaigners-can-undermine-uk-cycle-lane-planning-report-finds
Yeah – it’s the campaign
Yeah – it’s the campaign dilemma – “ask for little and you’ll get less”, but also “don’t mention bikes! Don’t criticise driving!”
Ultimately we do need restrictions on driving, but start with that and you’ve lost, apparently.
I think in the UK a Chris Boardman is good on the middle way. It’s the same as David Hembrow’s suggestion – campaign for safe independent mobility for children.
https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2012/03/who-do-we-campaign-for.html
We’ve seen this before, we
We’ve seen this before. We all just know these painfully expensive, gimmick wands will look semi-derelict within a few months; with missing, flattened, stolen and crooked posts. A cheaper concrete ridge would have actually protected cyclists and lasted 30 years. But would the Lord Mayor have opened the better option of a concrete ridge?
I really hope you are wrong.
I really hope you are wrong. Knowing and speaking to the designers and engineers who have worked on them, I know this has been thought about. From non-scientific feedback on them so far they have raised a smile, been noticed and generally been seen as a good thing.
I thought the same about the
I thought the same about the designers comment that the usual black and white ones are flattened, smashed or missing. That the same fate that awaits these.
I think they are meant to
I think they are meant to bounce back if they are clipped. Can’t guarantee they will survive a angle grinder attack by a Lego man wanting flowers for Mother’s Day!
Maybe they will, maybe they
Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. I look forward to finding out.
I can’t understand how us
I can’t understand how us cyclists have got a reputation for being angry, mean-spirited middle-aged men who take every opportunity to complain about everything and shout at every person on the road, even those who are on our side. It’s a complete mystery.
https://tulipcyclewands.com/
https://tulipcyclewands.com/
If you want more info.
All road.cc articles have to
All road.cc articles have to be written with a negative/argumentative angle, even when it’s a nothing incident and this is fundamentally a good news story.
yep and we wonder why
yep and we wonder why everyone is angry
(No subject)
I never knew squirrels were
I never knew squirrels were fond of a Werther’s Original.
mdavidford wrote:
They like to keep it quiet so that no-one will discover their Riesens
The name Sussex Gardens wasn
The name Sussex Gardens wasn’t familiar to me, so I was pleasantly surprised to happen upon these on my way to Paddington last week. However, I’m pretty sure that nearby some wag had replaced these ‘cyclist only’ signs with the ‘no cyclists’ red circle – I was sitting at the lights in some confusion trying to work out where I wasn’t allowed to go!
Rather have the infra you’ve
Rather have the infra you’ve pictured there than just paint and even very nice wands! Although presumably it’s “not possible”…
(And what you’ve shown is also not quite up to snuff – needs something like a “forgiving kerb ” in the inner side and better treatment at the side entrance (continuous footway / cycle way). And a different colour for clarity would be good. And a bit more width…)
To be fair, the side
To be fair, the side-entrances are into a church yard – not heavily used. Where this crosses side roads, that is handled by traffic lights separating modes (although flip-side is that means waiting ages at a cycle-red when there’s no motor traffic coming, with the result that people often ignore the cycle lights…) It’s also uni-directional, so width is generally ok. It’s here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/y2HehdNU9jkWWUYg7
Steep kerbs on cycle lanes do make me a little nervous though.
Will have to check I wasn’t making up those red prohibition circles next week…
quiff wrote:
Those are exactly the places where continuous footway ought to be very low friction to deploy. I think with so much infra it’s just “how often i encounter it means i can learn how to use it (no teachers after all…) and how quickly i accept it”.
Yep – on closer inspection
Yep – on closer inspection they seem to be official, retroreflective ones – the signs now seem to alternate no bikes / only bikes as you progress up the road
Will contact Westminster to ask what that’s all about.
Also noticed they have installed some new orthodox black / white plastic wands on the approach to the tulip ones – presumably a test to see what fares better?
If he ignored the spotter’s
If he ignored the spotter’s warning he can’t very well complain about beingh forced onto the road.
God, we’re mostly (or at
God, we’re mostly (or at least those that resort to public comment) a load of moaners! No wonder so many people get fed up with us.
Albionrt wrote:
Are you moaning about other people moaning?
Good point, yes! It’s
Good point, yes! It’s deserved though!
Albionrt wrote:
You wait until you hear about car drivers: LTNs, petrol prices, speed limits, congestion charges, “road tax”, parking tickets, speed cameras, parking charges, cyclists, pedestrians, cycle lanes, bus lanes, “war on motorists”…despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of road space and transport funding is dedicated to them there’s no end to their moaning and yet oddly there’s no mainstream media or social narrative that they are “a load of moaners” or that it’s justified for people to be fed up with them. Funny that.
Have a read of the Southern
Have a read of the Southern Daily Echo comments. That’s nothing but people moaning.
Well I think they look nice.
Well I think they look nice.
I do agree with the point that they could have done most of the photo op ceremony on the pavement, but something with the new man in the fancy necklace with the wands in view was inevitable. But better with a cyclist using the path as intended.
But for all of the moaning about moaning about moaning – the incident has resulted in the ceremony and path getting more attention.
Profound news.
Profound news.
I hate wands, not when
I hate wands, not when driving, but when I’m cycling. Three short ones are the worst, sooner or later they’ll be the death of a cyclist.
Biker george wrote:
BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS!
BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS! BOLLARDS!
Accept no substitutes.
Big kerbs separating bike
Big kerbs separating bike paths can also work well.
current wands are bad because
current wands are bad because x y z out wands are better, goes on to not mention how they fix x y z… it’s not about being pretty it’s about fixing the issues, they need to be eg on a spring that returns the wand when driven over, make them reflective red or something to, setup a camera where they get damaged most and go after the drivers insurance to replace them if they get damaged
It appears they are less
It appears they are (EDIT: designed to be) less dangerous to cyclists hitting them and will pop back up if motorists drive over them (thanks to posters who provided their site address). The flip side of the latter is they don’t offer much disincentive to drive over (won’t damage your motor) and they’re not as easily seen as the bigger variety. EDIT: also – not sure about costs relative to the usual kind.
My meta-beef with the whole thing is that wands aren’t cycle infra. “Celebrate the small positives” say people. Well … we were expected to celebrate “take the lane”, then white paint on the roads, then “orcas and armadillos”, then some minor tweaks to wording in the Highway Code (no law changes)…
Meanwhile (during my life) numbers cycling have continued to decline … and the only changes which made a small difference to that were the rolling out of actual separate cycle infra and junction improvements (only in the places where deployed e.g. most notably in parts of London) and (perhaps) reduction of speed limits to 20mph. (By the numbers cycling – especially women, the old and they young – and the relative lack of helmets you can judge it – or compare how it looks or how the streets look).
Still … while the majority of the public simply aren’t interested it’s hard to see what can happen apart from small changes (after a lot of campaigning effort). It’s not that the majority of the public are specifically anti (unless you take their parking space). And it seems that things like LTNs are supported after residents get used to them. But there are few actually pushing for this, so politicians generally feel no need to take the risk.
There is a wand ‘protected’
There is a wand ‘protected’ cycle lane on Kirkstall Road, Leeds. This is now unusable, as so many vehicles have been driven into the wands that a number of them bend over so much they block the cycle lane. A fail on both counts!
paint is worse than useless, wands are a bit better, but BOLLARDS reign supreme
Motor vehicles trashing the
Motor vehicles trashing the bollards can still impede the bike lane though. And cyclists can still hit bollards to their own detriment.
Some kind of “Falkland Islands penguin reserves” solution? e.g. directional vehicle operated landmines which are only set off by things of a tonne in weight or more? That way they don’t get in the way of cyclists but are a strong deterrent for motorists.
Of course in reality people would still drive over them, and they’d still trash the cycle lane (if only when bits of vehicle landed in them) / any passing cyclists and pedestrians.
Best-in-class solution is a) strategy: think in terms of networks for different modes, reducing interactions between modes generally and protecting everyone from the motor vehicles where they do interact and b) tactics: for (broadly) two categories of environment – i) local streets where most motor traffic has been removed and the rest slowed, and ii) bigger roads where there is separated cycling infra. The separation meaning that if bollards are deployed they can stop the motor vehicles without impeding the cyclists.
Mr Grumpy gets his 5 minutes
Mr Grumpy gets his 5 minutes of fame. I hope he feels better.