The Cycle Superhighway reaches Hyde Park

Construction of the East-West Cycle Superhighway (or CS3) in London has been continuing, and the sections on the roads in Hyde Park are nearly built, and to pleasing quality.

From the already-famous section on the Embankment, which opened on 6 May (the opening was Boris Johnson's last act as Mayor of London) the route is programmed to go via Bridge Street, Parliament Square and George Street (already constructed) via a new path on Birdcage Walk by St James's Park, a new bollard-segregated section past Buckingham Palace (mentioned in this post), and an upgraded path along the margin of Green Park in Constitution Hill, to the crossing of Hyde Park Corner, and thence along South Carriage Drive in Hyde Park. It will then turn sharply north on to West Carriage Drive (wrongly labelled as 'Exhibition Road' in TfL's own diagram, below) and exit the park at Lancaster Gate.

As I've pointed out before, this routing is not the most logical, and I expect most cyclists actually following the east-west route to connect from Apsley Gate at Hyde Park Corner to Lancaster Gate via the existing cycle path of the Broad Walk and the North Carriage Drive, which is more direct than the official route, which seems to have been chosen for political reasons between the Royal Parks Authority and Transport for London. I guess they did not want to 'encourage' more cyclists on to the already busy Broad Walk, full of pedestrians, cyclists and skateboarders, which has painted-line segregation and a poor design which is not effective at keeping pedestrians and cyclists apart. (One foolishness is that the benches must be accessed from the footpath by crossing the cycle path – it would be better to use the benches as a barrier.)

Rather than change this poor design in Broad Walk, the authorities have chosen to built a new high-quality route along the South and West Carriage Drives (which already had cycle facilities, but poor ones). This is in many ways a good thing. It creates a high-quality, high-capacity motor-traffic-free connection from Hyde Park Corner to Kensington Gardens and South Kensington (Exhibition Road) to replace the far too narrow, existing line-segregated path along the south side of the park. At the same time it benefits walkers, taming the rat-run of South Carriage Drive and taking flows of cyclists on the east-west axis well away from flows of pedestrians. The work on West Carriage Drive is also, in itself, welcome and long-overdue, replacing the strange and illogical mixture on on and off-road 'facilities' on different sides of the road that existed before, and creating a top-quality cycle connection north-south across the park from Exhibition Road to Westbourne Terrace, linking South Kensington to the future western extension of the Superhighway.

Boris Johnson opens the first phase of the East-West Superhighway in May

Two-way Superhighway on the west side of Bridge Street, heading for signals in Parliament Square

The old cycle path on Broad Walk does not effectively keep pedestrians out at busy times, and is often closed for events.

South Carriage Drive as it was: a wide, open fast rat run for cars with a painted cycle line that only hardened cyclists dared use, and space-wasting central islands that forced pedestrians to cross the road in two stages

Building work on South Carriage Drive in early July. A swathe of road on the park side is being segregated off for a 4m wide track. The old pedestrian islands are going, along with the old cycle lane, and the whole road is being moved southwards (to the right) slightly.

A completed section of 4m segregation on South Carriage Drive near Hyde Park Corner. The old cycle lane markings are still present and the red surface is old. Presumably it will be resurfaced.  

The track on the east side of the West Carriage Drive is largely complete and is 4m wide generally but widens to 6m at Alexandra Gate to allow for lanes for cyclists heading to and from Exhibition Road and cyclists following the Superhighway from and to South Carriage Drive.

Charlie Fernandes (@Charliecycling) demonstrates the width of the track approaching Alexandra Gate (Exhibition Road). The pavement has been rebuilt and the old, poor on-pavement cycle track is gone. 

The track in West Carriage Drive gracefully allows cyclists to bypass the near-permanent traffic jam that has always made cycling here so unpleasant and inefficient in the past

A chamfered kerb has been used here, which is good practice, and in the distance a table runs across both cycle track and carriageway at a pedestrian crossing point.

Detail of the speed table on the track. The ramp has cobble-ish stones but is fairly benign. I don't know why a zebra crossing was not used; are Royal Parks are antipathetic to these?

The track becomes very wide again on the curve north of the Serpentine Bridge. This is very good design; there is something of a slope here and some cyclists will be going fast at the junction of the track with the car park entrance: the extra width here gives room for errors by both drivers and cyclists

The same viewed from the north. An odd thing has occurred her in the cycle track having a black machine-laid surface, but the carriageway being reddish, as is often Royal Park's practice. The colours are thus the reverse of the Dutch convention.

When I viewed these facilities in early July they were not yet open, though of course cyclists were trying to use them. The building of the linkage through Lancaster Gate, a hitherto highly unpleasant racetrack gyratory and major blockage on the cycle network, had not started. I believe work in Westbourne Terrace, further north, has started, however. This is the last part of the Superhighway that is currently approved for construction. In April consultation took place on the next section, taking CS3 (and the Superhighways) firmly into West London, via the elevated Westway section of the A40. This idea, by Johnson's cycling commissioner, Andrew Gilligan, was not universally welcomed by cycle campaigners, who generally would have preferred a more accessible and humane route on the surface, but I supported it, as, due to the obstructiveness of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, who seem to have a horror of the idea of cycle tracks on their roads, there was really no alternative for westwards continuation at that time. Transport for London have jurisdiction over the A40.

We await a decision by the new Mayor Sadiq Khan on the continuation of CS3 on the Westway, as well as the northward continuation of CS6, the North-South Superhighway, from Farringdon Road to Judd Street, and the commencement of works on CS11 from Portland Place to Swiss Cottage. All these were consulted on earlier this year, and, despite the vicious campaign against CS11 that I reported on, all secured a high level of public support. Khan must now start to make good his election promise to 'Make London a byword for cycling'. So far we have only heard generalities from him (except for a commitment to create a new walking and cycling bridge in East London and a commitment to pedestrianise Oxford Street, which may or may not work out well for cycling). He has also not yet appointed a successor to the highly-successful first Cycling Commissioner for London, Andrew Gilligan. Caroline Russell, Green London Assembly Member, has reported that this job, which is to be re-badged as 'Cycling and Walking Commissioner', is to be advertised soon. I am worried about this. 

The Cycling Commissioner post that Gilligan occupied under Johnson was a political post, as it needed to be. The job was not advertised because it needed to go to a political ally of the Mayor for the role to be effectively accomplished. In, Gilligan, an ally of Johnson, and indeed a friend, political heft was combined with diplomatic capability and  a great deal of knowledge about cycling in London, with a recognition of it as being generally dreadful, and a determination to knock political  and bureaucratic heads together in order to change things. A journalist, and thus an expert at publicity or propaganda, Gilligan was not a technical expert but understood enough technicalities to challenge experts when they stood in the way of progress, and was able to work with campaigners, if not always in complete harmony, then with a constructive friction; a kind of double-agent if you will.

Advertising the post of Cycling and Walking Commissioner suggests it is to be be downgraded to a technical role. A technician is likely to be ineffective in this highly political position. But we will have to see; I hope my worries on this are unfounded. They could be, with someone who is an expert in the post of Commissioner, but a strong driving force from the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Transport. I suppose Gilligan could re-apply for the job; he is clearly the most qualified person to do it. His report on the progress of the first three years of The Mayor's Vision for Cycling, Human Streets, is worth a read.

While the segregated Superhighways have been the massive success we knew they would be, they are still far from where most Londoners live and work. They only represent the bare beginnings of a functioning cycle network. It would be a crime for momentum to be lost and for the the expertise now built up within Transport for London in building high-quality, effective cycle infrastructure to be dissipated, which is what will occur if we do not rapidly have a plan for expansion of the network, in all directions, beyond Zone 1. Khan has popular, fully developed 'shovel-ready' schemes at his fingertips in CS3 as far as Wood Lane, CS6 as far as Euston Road and CS11 as far as Swiss Cottage. He needs to approve these now, get his Commissioner in place, and produce the detailed plan for the next four years.

He has been busy, of course, with the EU referendum, and, in the aftermath, with pressing the government for new powers to allow him to keep London as closely linked to Europe as possible; these were the right things for him to be doing, and the strategic and financing powers he is seeking, if he is successful, can only be good for continuation of the cycling programme and modernisation of the streets generally. In particular, he needs far more authority over the infrastructure currently controlled by the boroughs, the Corporation of the City of London, and the Royal Parks. The lack of this authority is pointed to in Gilligan's report as a major reason why progress  on the Mayor's Vision has not been faster. Nevertheless, Khan should not repeat Johnson's mistake of moving slowly, being in office for eight (or four) years, and scrambling to try to build a world-class cycle network in the last few months of that.

It's often only one person

Such is the pace of developments in London cycling infrastructure (planning if not actual execution) currently that a couple of details in my long blogpost of 11 days ago have already been superseded.

The most striking one is that a plan has now been produced for taking the East-West Cycle Superhighway past Buckingham Palace in a sensible manner, with the support of the Royal Parks Authority. There will be, if this goes through, a two-way segregated track on the north and west sides of the Queen Victoria Memorial linking a new cycle track on the north side of Birdcage Walk (currently the most stupidly-designed road in the area, with masses of space wasted in the middle of it, with giant pedestrian islands and dead areas between) with a widened two-way track on the north side of Constitution Hill. The segregation around the Memorial will be with bollards, removable for ceremonial purposes, unlike on most of the Superhighway, where it is with kerbs.

TfL visualisation of the bollard-segregated track in space taken out of the road (middle background)

Plan for the Superhighway link at Buckingham Palace

This all looks sensible enough, and people should respond to the consultation, supporting it, by 4 October. The question that is posed is: what was the problem before? Why was the Royal Parks Authority, until last week, bizarrely insisting there should be a gap in segregated the Cycle Superhighway in front of Buckingham Palace for 'safety, operational and aesthetic reasons', which would have caused, as Cyclists in the City pointed out, the Superhighway flow to get mixed with hundreds of gawping, snap-happy tourists on the Mall Service Road (effectively a pedestrian area, shown hatched just south of Green Park on the map above), obviously a recipe for disaster, and a position made even odder by the fact that, for the Superhighway solution in Hyde Park, the RPA was insisting that cyclists not share any of the current subdivided paths, but be routed via the roadway of South Carriage Drive.

South Carriage Drive, Hyde Park, a bizarrely under-used road space, will take the next section of the route westward 

Of course I've not been party to any behind-the-scene negociations, but Ross Lydall of the Standard, who generally seems to be very well-informed, seems to make things very clear:

The appointment of a new chief executive at The Royal Parks, which is responsible for the roads around Buckingham Palace, has been key to resolving the dispute.

Previous chief executive Linda Lennon was a fierce critic of many aspects of Transport for London’s 18-mile “Crossrail for cyclists” that passes through Hyde Park, Green Park and St James’s Park as it links Barking and Acton. 

The Royal Household is understood never to have objected to the plans. 

Mr Johnson said: “This is the final jigsaw piece in what will be one of the world’s great cycling routes. I am absolutely delighted that we and the Royal Parks have been able to reach agreement and I pay tribute to the agency’s new chief executive, Andrew Scattergood, his staff and TfL officers for the immense work they have put in to make it happen.

So an anti-cycling Chief Executive left, and suddenly the 'safety, operational and aesthetic' objections all disappeared and the RPA was left looking rather less like the car-oriented dinosaur that campaigners had perceived it as before (the Royal Parks of course being full of roads that are full of cars, roads used as normal parts of the through-traffic system of London, with this fact not seeming to cause the RPA any distress or sense of conflict about their purpose). Hopes are raised that, after decades of campaigners asking for it, the Outer Circle of Regent's Park might cease to be a huge gyratory for motor traffic, but might be changed so as to allow only motor access to the car parking, the zoo and residences, and to facilitate a much-needed north-westbound Cycle Superhighway, CS11.

So my message here is that often, despite outward appearances of implacable homogeneity of institutional opposition to progressive schemes, it can often turn out to be only one badly-placed person, in reality, who is causing the problem.

On the flip side, one well-placed progressive person can often galvanise an organisation and create more progress in a short time than has been achieved for many years. And I have to hand it to Cllr Phil Jones, Camden's Cabinet Member for Transport that he has, with the assistance of his officers, got Camden making better progress on actually implementing a Central London Cycling Grid (to complement the small number of built Superhighways) than all the other boroughs combined. I reported in my last post that the promised link between Royal College Street and Primrose Hill was currently stymied by bus-related arguments, but apparently these have been overcome, and Camden is now produced an attractive plan for consultation, which I recommend all London cyclists respond to favourably as well.

Proposals for Pratt Street

The proposals for Pratt Street , between Royal College Street and Camden High Street, and Delancey Street, betweem Camden High Street and Parkway, show a huge improvement over the current state of these space-wasting, unattractive, rat-runny one-way westbound roads, with a stepped cycle track going westbound with the motor flow, and an eastbound contraflow track either stepped (Delancey Street) or fully segregated (Pratt Street). The westbound flow for bikes is currently allowed, but is unattractive, particularly with the competition for road space with large vehicles including buses and squeezing at the corner of Camden High Street and Delancey Street, but the eastbound flow is not possible, cyclists from the very traffic calmed and reduced Primrose Hill area needing to access the Royal College Street or St Pancreas Way routes being forced to go via congested Chalk Farm Road or busy Parkway and Camden Street. This scheme promises to fix this long-standing, bad gap in the cycle network (as well as generally improving these streets for everyone) and others have seen the potential of this. Andrew Gilligan, the Mayor's Cycling Commissioner, has been touting this as making possible numerous long-distance cycle connections across London, in combination with the East-West and North South Superhighways:

Once the links are complete, cyclists will be able to ride from Swiss Cottage and Camden Town to Canary Wharf, Barking or Elephant & Castle entirely on separated cycle tracks or low-traffic streets. It’s testimony to the power of the relationship between TfL and a borough genuinely committed to cycling.

Actually he could go go further. If the Mayor actually builds CS11, promised for 2016, it will be possible to go all the way from Brent Cross to Canary Wharf, Barking or Elephant & Castle on cycle tracks and low-traffic streets. So I congratulate Cllr Jones on getting his plans this far, though I have disagreed with him on the best solution for Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street, Camden's 'West End Project'.

With the West End Project,  I felt, as I said last year, that fixation on the objective of undoing a gyratory system for cars and buses had got in the way of visualising the best possible ways of changing these roads to benefit pedestrians and cyclists, who are supposed to be at the top of Camden's 'transport hierarchy'. Camden's planners are now doing as good a job as they can on trying to solve junction problems that will be introduced by having stepped cycle tracks running in both directions on a two-way (for cars) Gower Street, but I think there are fundamental problems here. The cycle tracks will be on the same level as the motor lanes at the junctions, so reduced to painted markings, Danish-style, and therefore an attempt to signalise the cycle flow separately from the turning motor flow is likely to result in cyclists just getting blocked off by cars and vans invading their space. There is something of an attempt to combine Danish and Dutch junction principles here which I fear will not work. The Danes merge the cycle flow with the left (their right) turn for motors and expect cyclists to turn right (their left) in two stages. A full Dutch signalised solution separates all the conflicting cycle/motor movements in time, but depends on segregated tracks running right up to the junction, which cannot be invaded by motors. Without segregation at junctions, how can separate signalising work without risking the blocking-off of the ahead path for cyclists on what is certain to be a congested road? However, Gower Street clearly is not wide enough for two-way motor flow plus two-way cycling segregated at the junctions in the manner of a large Dutch signlised junction. The problem here is the whole architecture of the system left by removing the one-way flows for motor vehicles. (Another bad problem with the Gower Street plans is that one of the 'Danish' tracks will be interrupted by a loading bay, something the Danes would not dream of.)

But, to get back to my main theme here, we've got some individuals in influential positions now doing a lot of good for cycling in London, and we've got one or two who have been really getting in the way. Linda Lennon may have gone, but we still have a fine example of the latter tendency in Hackney Council's Planning Sub-committee Chair and perhaps Phil Jones's polar opposite, Councillor Vincent Stops. Stops has been a long-standing and clear opponent of segregated cycle infrastructure, and most likely through his influence Hackney Council has prevented TfL implementing Cycle Superhighway 1 on the A10 in the borough, consigning it instead to indirect back-streets in the manner of the old poor-quality London Cycle Network, and sacrificing the safety of the majority of cyclists who will always wish to cycle on the direct, main road, on which 28% of the serious casualties to people on bikes in Hackney now occur. Stops has actually written a blogpost on the subject of Cycle Superhighway through Hackney, but this does not really attempt to justify the route that Hackney Council has forced on the Superhighway on any logical grounds, rather, it attacks the whole concept of cycle routes:

A route-based approach is limiting, when streets are better regarded as a network

Drawing lines on maps, declaring them cycle routes and investing heavily along the route seems to capture the imagination of cycle planners and some campaigners, even though hardly anyone cycles such a route from end to end. Some of the investment that comes from such route-based planning will be good cycling value for money. However, instead of spending all this money on CS1, there are numerous other locations in the borough where investment would have been better directed. Improving these other locations, rather than using a large pot to titivate, and not substantially make things better for people cycling would certainly be better value for money, in terms of improvements to cycling.

In Hackney, in contrast to the route-based approach, the most innovative recent work has been the creation of a Bikeability map which assesses all of the borough's streets, regarding them as a network. Incrementally improving this network, particularly where there are historic clusters of collisions, will provide the best value for limited cycle and road safety funding. Sometimes improvements may be made opportunistically.

Hackney's 'Bikeability map'. The green on minor roads represents a lower 'Bikeability skill level' than the grey-brown on  (e.g) the A10 running straight N-S down the west side of the borough.

The first thing to say here is there is nothing 'innovative' about these 'Bikeability maps' for urban areas; I've been hearing about them for years from various campaigners and officials. The approach sounds reasonable enough, if it is being used to identify the worst locations that require remedial action, but, in practice, these maps are always used as a displacement activity to avoid doing what really needs to be done. Stops is being disingenuous in his talk of 'limited cycle and road safety funding'. Hackney could have had the funding from Transport for London to transform the A10, the road, I repeat, where 28% of all cycle casualties in Hackney occur, the most direct sand useful route in the borough, into an attractive, safe, high-quality cycle corridor. They chose not to take this, but to fiddle about on back-streets instead. Stops' claim that

Hackney Council has to be congratulated for getting so much value from the Cycle Superhighway process

will be regarded with some very raised eyebrows in the borough and beyond.

Of course I'd not dispute that streets should be regarded as a network, and, ultimately, almost the whole network needs its quality raised for cycling, but the points that are missing from Stops' analysis are 'utility' and 'standards'. Some routes are of far more utility and importance to cyclists than others, and it is here that investment at this early stage in developing a cycle network must be concentrated, to develop what I'd describe as the 'backbone network' of obviously attractive and useful routes that is needed to pull people in to cycling. Generally, but not always, these routes will be on the main roads, where, to achieve acceptable standards of actual and subjective safety, cyclists need segregation.

Stops wishes to focus on the wider network, and implicitly, to focus on small roads, because he seems to have a horror of the idea of subdividing the space on larger roads using kerbs, which he considers to be 'pesky' things that will disadvantage pedestrians, bus passengers, or others. But the 'Bikeability map' approach that Stops praises is fundamentally discriminatory and opposed to inclusive cycling, because it accepts a general and permanent compromise between efficiency and safety that is inimical to creating to a quality cycle network with uniform provision. What this 'Bikeability' thing, in this context, is really about is classifying cyclists, not roads. The very concept of 'Bikeability' in play here is a motor-oriented one, confusing 'cycling skill' with 'willingness to cycle with motor traffic'. Brave 'skilled' cyclists (normally young men) will continue to push their way down the A10, with its bad crash rate, because it is the most efficient, useful route for them. The slow and less assertive will, if they try to cycle at all, which most of them will not, be consigned to an indirect, low-priority, hidden 'superquietway' that will not be easy to use and will not get them to the places they need to go. This is not a good approach if your aim is mass cycling. But I sense this may not be Stops', or Hackney Council's, real aim.

Stops goes to a bizarre extreme in inventing arguments against segregated cycle tracks, for example when he commented on Twitter on the forthcoming East-West Superhighway:

How will an 8 year old get through a more congested Parliament Square as a non CSH route user?

...as if there are eight year-old cyclists using Parliament Square now who could possibly could be inconvenienced (rather than enabled) by the cycle track! (Even if you accept the wrong contention that the cycle track will cause congestion, I challenge Stops or anyone to stand at Parliament Square for a day, or a year, counting eight year-olds on bikes. There will be more flying pigs seen, except, of course, when road are closed for events like the RideLondon.)

Stops likes to claim that Hackney is London's best borough for cycling. I'm sorry, but the truth is that cycling in Hackney is, by and large, crap. I've often cycled in Hackney, and I cycled through Hackney the other day. There is no provision on main roads, which are choked with buses and other heavy vehicles, and the minor road routes are slow, deprioritised, badly-maintained and uncomfortable. You are bumping over severe traffic-calming all the time, and badly-maintained surfaces, taking long ways round, trying to follow neglected or non-existent signage in obscure places, you are constantly having to give way to main roads, or even slightly more important roads, and where you meet a main road to negotiate a straight across or dog-leg junction you have no help and no protection. Hackney can't even can't keep these poor backstreet routes open. The famous one running east-west from Canonbury to London Fields is currently blocked by major digging where the railway goes over in Middleton road, and cyclists just have to use the pavement.

Cycling in Hackney is inefficient and dangerous on the backstreet routes that borough provides, and very dangerous on the direct main road routes that it does nothing to make attractive or comfortable. Contrary to Stops' frequent claim that Hackney is some sort of great cycling leader amongst London boroughs, it actually (according to TfL cycle counts) has a similar cycling level to the boroughs of Richmond upon Thames, Hounslow, Islington and Lambeth, places with very different local circumstance and policies. The 2011 census gives utility cycling actually at a higher level in Richmond upon Thames than in Hackney (though I don't put much store by census transport data, as it comes from a self-survey, and may just mean that Richmond people want to believe they cycle more than Hackneyites do).

TfL counts had (2013) Hackney on 6% of journeys compared to Richmond, Hounslow, Islington and Lambeth on 5%

2011 census data had Richmond ahead of Hackney on cycling

Richmond and Hackney are very different places, the former outer London and Conservative-controlled, the latter inner London and Labour, but I think the reasons for the high (by very low UK standards) cycling levels they share are a result of similar factors. Both have within them or very close to their borders a lot of parkland and waterside space where cycling is possible, attractive and car-free (in Richmond Park and other parks and along the Thames in the case of Richmond and in Victoria Park and other parks and and along the canals in the case of Hackney). In neither case is this much to do with the roads policies of the council. Hackney is, in addition, a flat and compact borough within easy commuting distance of the City of London, and it does seem that Hackney does disproportionally well out of commuting to the centre (it is the commuting mode share that the proponents of Hackney's 'cycling success' usually quote), while cycling to school remains at only 2% of trips, not high even by UK standards, and indicating the lack of a genuinely broad-based cycling culture.

Cllr Stops' partner Rita Krishna, is strangely (or not so strangely, if you know the local situation) on the Committee of Hackney Cycling Campaign. Since she appears to share the same views as Stops, those Hackney cyclists wishing to campaign for good-quality infrastructure in their borough had best lend their support to the rival campaign, Hackney People on Bikes, which does support the policies promoted in this blog (which are also the official policies of the London Cycling Campaign). In any case, it looks like Hackney will continue to be a blockage to the development of a high-quality, inclusive cycle network for Londoners while Vincent Stops remains influential on the borough's transport policy.

I paid a visit to the Embankment on Friday to see how the East-West Superhighway construction is getting on (and to examine those pesky kerbs). Only a 500m section is currently open, between Horseguards Avenue and Westminster Bridge, and it is only accessible to westbound (or southbound) cyclists, as there is no way to reach it eastbound. However, looking at the rest of the work on the two kilometre section between the open section and Blackfriars Bridge, I expect all this length to be open by the end of the year.

Completed Superhighway section looking south (up river). The basic two-way track is 4m wide in general.

This is all cycling space. The right-hand area is a lane for right-turning cyclists, who will cross the carriageway using the signals 

Completed Superhighway section looking north (down river)

The track is smooth, machine-laid tarmac. The kerb on the river side has not been altered, though I think it has been made lower by laying of the track. The kerb on the new segregating island is chamfered,  a good detail, allowing wider effective width and reducing the chance of pedal-strike.

Make no mistake, this is the proper thing, and very satisfying to see, as the first piece of truly high-quality cycle infrastructure ever built on a main road in Central London. This is the most significant thing done for cycling in London since Camden built its tracks at the turn of the century, and, before that, well perhaps the most significant infrastructure put in since the 1930s (though that was suburban, not central). It's worth re-emphasising here: this is a gain from road-space. Nothing has been lost by pedestrians (in fact a lot has been gained). A simple transfer has taken place from space dominated and, from the point of view of most people, monopolised by motor vehicles to space dedicated to active travel. We'll see a lot more of this with the rest of this Superhighway scheme, and the north-south one from Elephant and Castle to the border of Camden. The politicians and public servants, like Vincent Stops and Linda Lennon, who say they support cycling, but do not want to see this kind of thing on their patch, will in future be seen more and more as an anachronism and an impediment to the development of a more civilised, pleasant and sustainable city. 

The new Superhighways and Camden's grid routes point the way to a future pattern of use of road space that gives everybody an opportunity to cycle their journeys if they wish. The discriminatory approach based on keeping direct main routes as the cycling preserve of a tiny fit and brave minority must be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Response to the Central London Cycle Grid consultation

The consultation on the Central London Cycling Grid ends today, Friday 13 February. As they did for the (related) Westminster Cycling Strategy consultation, I hope that thousands of Londoners interested in cycling will respond to TfL. It is worth copying your local council, if it is one of those that covers part of Zone 1, the Royal Parks, and the Canal and River Trust with comments relevant to them as well.

The Grid is one of the four main planks of the strategy announced in the Mayor's Vision for cycling in London last year. The others are the Cycle Superhighways and Quietways outside Zone 1, and the Ourter London mini-Hollands. The Grid consists of routes classified both as Superhighways and Quietways, within Zone 1. Within Zone 1, these routes are supposed to form a fairly dense network that will facilitate most cycling journeys in comfort and safety. However, as officials have been keen to tell me, Transport for London cannot impose a plan for the Grid on the boroughs that cover Zone 1, and the other relevant authorities: that is, Camden, Westminster, Islington, The City, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Southwark, Hackney, the Royal Parks, and the Canal and River Trust. They can only make suggestions and try to ensure coordination, but they cannot force compliance or any particularly standards on local authority roads. Though TfL provides funding, they cannot force consistency (except by withholding funds, which would be a blunt instrument to use). This is a pretty unsatisfactory situation all round, but until the Government or Parliament alters it, there is nothing we can do, and we have to try to get the best result through lobbying. Here are the views on the Grid of London Cycling Campaign and Hammersmith and Fulham Cyclists, and here are those of bloggers As Easy as Riding a Bike, Rachel Aldred, and Sticks and Wheels.

The fact that the Grid looks inconsistent between boroughs is due to the fact it is effectively 10 separate projects, of 8 councils plus the Parks and the Canals. 

My response follows. It concentrates on the north and west of the Grid zone, as the area I know best.

1. General
The Grid routes need to be as direct as possible, full stop. Otherwise they will not achieve their potential, and the potential for cycling in the Grid area will not be realised. All cyclists require and deserve direct and prioritised routes, whether they are fast, fit and experienced cyclists, used to handling motor traffic, or those who wish to cycle slowly or who refuse to share space with motor traffic. Frequently, this directness and priority cannot be achieved on minor roads. The Grid is too heavily biased away from main roads. Main roads that I suggest should have been included in the Grid are Euston Road, Marylebone Road, Edgware Road, Park Lane, Piccadilly, The Strand, Fleet Street, Whitehall, and Kensington High Street, amongst others. More notice should be taken of the Copenhagen experience of creating a cycle grid: their early attempts to accommodate cycling on back-streets met with limited success. They realised they had instead to carve out safe space for cycling on the main roads that cyclists showed consistently they wished to use. They have now covered nearly all the main (non-motorway) roads in the city. They did succeed in creating the "new type of cyclist" that the Quietway consultation document speaks of, but they did not, primarily, do it by attempting to shove cycling away on small roads.

The standards that the Grid is built to, as well as its directness and convenience, will determine its success. The standards that should be adopted are those agreed as policy by London Cycling Campaign. Cyclists should not, on any links on the Grid, have to share space with traffic faster than 20mph or  with more than 2,000 Passenger Car Units a day. This means that on streets where either of these limits is exceeded,  cyclists must have dedicated, physically protected space. On streets where there is insufficient width to create that space, either that space needs to be created by removing lanes of traffic, which may involve the creation of new one-way streets for motor vehicles, or the speed must be lower than 20mph and the flow must be reduced below 2000 PCU per day by traffic-management measures such as mode-filters (closures allowing bikes through), opposing one-way sections for motors, with cycle exception, and no-entry plugs for motors.

2. Westminster
The E–W route across Fitzrovia and Marylebone (the Seven Stations Link) that continues Camden's route westward must be more direct than Westminster currently propose. The dotted lines on the TfL map are better than Westminster's actual proposals, which are represented by the solid lines. The route needs to create a direct link to Paddington Station. Conditions in New Cavendish Street are very poor. This street needs either segregated space for cycling, with parking outside cycle tracks, or complete removal of through motor traffic. The signalling of the junctions needs altering, as there are currently too many delays for this to work as an efficient cycle route. Similar remarks apply to the proposed N–S route via Wimpole Street and New Bond Street (or via Harley Street and Hanover Square). New Bond Street in particular would need radical alteration to make it an acceptable route, either segregation or closure to through-traffic. If just these two main E–W and N–S routes are got right, this would be a major useful contribution to the Grid and to cycling in the West End.

Westminster's proposals for the route N–S through St James are an indirect mess, and little different to what cyclists are allowed to do at the moment. The best solution is two-way cycling on Marlborough Road, St James's Street and Albermarle Street, or via Queens Walk and Berkeley Street.

Hyde Park Corner should not be left as it is. The current crossing arrangements for cyclists, pedestrians and horses are a confused mess. Cycle space should be clearly defined, segregated and spacious enough, and signals must afford sufficient priority and allow for the large flow of cyclists anticipated on the Crossrail route without congestion. Movements of and on to the Crossrail route from other major roads need to be allowed for here, in particular between it and Piccadilly and Grosvenor Place. Significant redesign of the whole junction is required. Currently, there is no safe connection between the Hyde Park paths and Piccadilly or Grosvenor Place.

The current routes N and S through Covent Garden and connecting with Waterloo Bridge are poor because they are overloaded with motor traffic. Bow Street is particularly poor. More filtering and/or one-ways for motors are needed. Proper cycle tracks are needed on Waterloo Bridge, with signals to manage the conflict at the north end.

The routes from the Hyde Park Corner area north-west towards Camden and Brent are too indirect. This is a consequence of the A5 not being dealt with; it forms the only direct route in this direction. In particular, the junction of the A5 and the A501 actually needs tackling. The loop via Old Marylebone Road and Cosway Street is silly, and the route via Norfolk Cresent, W of the A5, needs to connect with Hyde Park. There is a large unsolved gap around Paddington with no crossing of the A40/A501 and canal between Cosway Street and Westbourne Bridge. The canal towpath and connecting paths could, with work, solve this gap.

Westminster's version of the Grid map shows the daftness of the route from Hyde Park (Stanhope Place Gate) towards the NW (in purple). This "avoids the difficult places" (exactly what Andrew Gilligan promised the Quietways would not do), looping round the Edgware Road / Marylebone road junction.

A route is shown via Hamilton Terrace (an existing LCN route), but this is a highly unsatisfactory street for cycling, with significant through-traffic and no space for cycling, because of the parking down both sides and down the centre of this very wide road as well. Either the parking need rearranging, to make space for cycle tracks, or the road needs closing off as a motor through-route. It is not needed as a through-route for cars, as it exactly parallels Maida Vale, which has plenty of space and is under capacity. The fiddly southern extension of the Hamilton Terrace route is again unsatisfactory, Edgware Road should be tackled instead. The route via Carlton Vale (the proposed Bradley Wiggins Way, going into Brent) is welcomed, but this will need segregation. The connection between Little Venice and Maida Vale is much needed. This requires alteration of the one-way system in Blomfield Road and Maida Avenue.

Hamilton Terrace is a massive boulevard devoted to too much parking and through traffic, on which, on a bike, you get passed far too closely, as this cyclist is finding. It's no good as a Quietway as it is.

3. Kensington and Chelsea
A route is obviously needed E–W through Kensington. This should be via Kensington High Street, which needs segregated cycle tracks. Holland Walk should be included in the network, properly connected with the roads. Alternatively, Campden Hill Road could be used, with filtering. But there really must a a route connecting Notting Hill Gate with Kensington High Street. There should also be an E-W cycle path through Holland Park. Ladbroke Grove is an example of a semi-main road that is the only satisfactorily direct connection between many places, and it should be part of the Grid. Semi-segregation in the manner of Camden's Royal College street might be appropriate here, with parking outside the cycle tracks. The current arrangement of advisory cycle lanes outside the parking is no good. Kensington and Chelsea's current proposals for the Grid are particularly bad, the worst of any of the relevant boroughs. The Royal Borough must try far harder to find appropriate routes for cyclists and to create connections.

4. Camden
The grid of cycle routes in Camden is already better than in adjacent boroughs, and Camden should be congratulated on proposing some more useful steps here. I would particularly support the connection from Royal College Street to Gloucester Avenue, via Delancey Street, if done to the same standard as Royal College Street, and the proposed extension of the Royal College Street route southwards via Midland Road. I'd also particularly support development of a Clerkenwell Boulevard via Theobalds Road and Bloomsbury Way, one of the most cycled routes in London, with a good standard of two-way, dedicated provision for cyclists, separated from the buses. Where Camden's proposals particularly fall short are in the treatment of the N-S route on Tottenham Court Road or Gower Street. One of these should be prioritised for cycling, with good-quality, ample dedicated space not shared with buses. Taking the totality of width available on these two roads, this must be possible. The concept of making them both two-way should not be elevated in importance over providing dedicated space for cycling on one of them.

The highest priority in Camden must be the improvement of the Bloomsbury E-W route, or Seven Stations Link. This is now massively over-capacity, and a whole lane of the road needs to be reallocated, with a consequent readjustment of the one-way system. Though-traffic on this axis needs to be forced back to Euston Road, where it belongs. Alternatively, a series of mode-filters or opposing one-ways for motors would exclude through-traffic and allow a continuous cycling boulevard using the whole width of the road.

5. Islington
The network in south Islington is, like that in Camden, already relatively good. However, St John Street needs sorting out. The current cycle lanes do not work, and it needs turning into a cycling boulevard. It does not need through-traffic as it is an exactly parallel alternative to the A1 Goswell Road. The Seven Stations Link route needs clarifying in Islington and bringing up to the same capacity and standard throughout. Priority needs improving and unnecessary stops at traffic signals eliminated.

6. City of London
The northward connection from Southwark Bridge needs improving through to Gresham Street. There is a chain of unsatisfactory shared-space type crossings which engender confusion a with pedestrian flows. The cycle route here should be clearly defined and properly signalised and separated from pedestrians. Cycling should be permitted through Smithfield Market. There needs to be a two-way route between St Pauls, Smithfield and Farringdon via Aldersgate Street, which is very wide, also connecting with Gresham Street. This would achieve a direct connection between Bank and the St Pauls area and the Seven Stations Link route in Islington.

The Superhighway across London Bridge needs connecting northwards. Both Blackfriars and London Bridges need segregated cycle tracks. A route needs to be taken through Bank junction, which needs simplifying and some roads closing off. Cycle tracks are needed on Blackfriars Bridge, with signals to manage the conflicts at the north end.

7. The Royal Parks
The routes through the parks need to be open 24 hours a day for the whole year. They cannot be allowed to be disrupted by arbitrary events such as entertainments in Hyde Park, which regularly cause the closing of the southern end of the Broad Walk. The cycle and pedestrian and horse paths along Rotten Row need to be redesigned, with enough capacity for all traffic. Currently far too little space is allocated to both cycling and walking. The conflicts around the Rotten Row - Broad Walk - South Carriage Drive junction need sorting out rationally. Some of the gates into the parks probably need widening. The current infrastructure in Hyde Park and Green Park will not be able to cope with the flows that the East-West "Crossrail" route will generate. The cycle path along the south side of Green Park needs massively widening. Cycling N–S via Queens Walk needs to be permitted. There needs to be a route diagonally across Hyde Park from the Serpentine Bridge to Albion Street.

The routes through the parks can be no good as elements of a serious cycle grid if the Royal Park Agency can constantly close them for their own commercial / sporting enterprises, as happens at the moment. When this route is closed cyclists must use the motorway of Park Lane, or give up.

In Regents Park, the route N–S needs to continue all the way down the Broadwalk. Most critically, through-traffic needs to be removed from the Outer Circle. This would be a huge benefit to the park as a whole, not just cycling. It would also be consistent with the original purposes of the roads through the park which were laid down in the 1820s for exercise and recreation, not as general traffic routes. Such a step would be an act of restoration for the park routes back to their proper purpose. The Charlbert Street and St Marks Square bridges across the canal should be made cycleable, and should be widened if this is not possible with the existing structures.

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That's enough. I'll leave other people to deal with Hackney, Southwark and Lambeth. The main point is to get your responses in today, welcoming the principle of the Grid, but pointing out some of the flaws and gaps in the current proposals.

All the fun of the fair

This festive season there is a funfair in Hyde Park. I took these photos on the Saturday before last.

The presence of the funfair, and all the other Londoners here for whatever other reason, causes the cycle route at the south-east corner of the park to look like this:

It has become unusable and totally impassable on a bike due to the crowds of pedestrians. It is slow enough on foot. Now of course we all know that the West End does attract crowds at Christmas, and nobody wants to be a killjoy about people enjoying innocent entertainments in the park. But is this sensible? Would the authorities allow the equivalent route for cars, Park Lane, to be rendered impassable to vehicles by crowds of pedestrains? I doubt it.

This kind of situation arising on a major cycle route in London is symptomatic of failure of design and planning. It is a result of cycle facilities, as always, being woven-in around other features of the city as a total afterthought, a squeezed-in compromise between various public authorities all more or less uncomprehending of the actual requirements for proper cycle routes.

There is always a problem with the route at this point. The decent-width of line-segregated cycle and skate path on Broad Walk, parallel to Park Lane, progressively becomes narrowed as it goes round the corner, crosses Serpentine Road (without a clear, sensibly-marked crossing or clear priorities vis-a-vis pedestrians, cyclists and cars) and joins Rotten Row. Here it becomes constrained down to (I guess) a couple of metres width: ludicrous for a heavily-used bi-directional cycle path.

The reason for all this is that when the path was created, which goes back at least 25 years I think (it was part of the Ambassador's Cycle Route put in by the GLC: who remembers that now?), by the gracious goodwill of the Royal Parks authorities, who had never before allowed cycling at all, nothing was actually changed. A line was merely painted bisecting the original pedestrian paths. Since then, cycling in London has greatly expanded, and (wholly inadequate) attempts at implementing dedicated cycle crossings at Hyde Park Corner have been made, other local cycle facilities have been constructed, and these have contributed to an enormous increase in use for both leisure and commuting cycling, this stretch having become a critical part of many cyclists' commute. Yet still nothing has actually been changed.

The southern arm of the cycle path circuit of the park could have been accommodated properly, either by widening the existing path, or, probably better, by moving it completely away from the main pedestrian areas by transferring it to a re-designed South Carriage Drive, where, by reallocating the space on this under-used but fast road, through construction of a proper kerb-segregated bi-directional cycle path, the problems could have been solved, and all pedestrian-cycle conflict eliminated. But these options would have actually involved spending a little bit of money, not on the perennial, pointless "attitude studies" of users so beloved of our parks authorities, but on actually altering things to fit in with how the activities of Londoners have changed over time. The simple fact is that Londoners now want and need to do different things than in the past, and our roads, paths and open spaces do need to change to accommodate these. There needn't be any loss of green space, but there does need to be proper planning for cycling. The space for cycling should, as far as possible, be taken out of roads, not out of paths, and there should be decent, safe, high-capacity designs for the crossing-points between motor and cycle flows.

The tendency in the UK has always been for planners to think of cycling and walking as almost the same thing, to put them into the same "bucket", accommodate them similarly with things like Toucan push-button crossings, and divide between the two modes a pittance of space, leaving the motorised hegemony unchallenged, creating conflict and ill-will between the sustainable transport modes through so doing.

We see this tendency even in recent official publications, such as the Department for Transport's October 2011 policy paper Signing the Way. Although this paper contains some good suggestions, notably the proposal to allow local authorities to put up a sign simple creating an exception to one-way roads for cyclists without any other infrastructure (a practice that has long been normal on the continent), the confusion in thinking over the nature of cycling is apparent in the proposal to allow cycle connections to be established by allowing cycling over zebra crossings. Apparently the CTC has lobbied for this, but it is a foolish idea.

The basic idea of zebra crossings, as places where pedestrians cross the road and all vehicles must stop for them, should not be confused in this way. Instead, cyclists only need proper junctions between proper, clearly demarcated cycle paths and roads, marked with the normal priority markings, or equipped with signals, hence treating cyclists on cycle paths as a proper flow of traffic, as they do in the Netherlands. Cyclists should stop at zebra crossings, they should not ride across them, because they are vehicles. This principle should not become confused. Otherwise, we just get more of the button-and-sheep-pen cycle crossing nonsense (a brand new example of which in Barnet has been videoed by Londonneur).

Cycling is just completely different to driving, and completely different to walking. Though when flows are low and vehicle speeds are kept down, a mixture is sometimes possible, for transport purposes in the centre of a dense, massive city, with heavy flows of all three, the infrastructure should clearly and safely separate the modes and allow none of them to block or render impractical another. This seems to me to be common-sense, and I think it's time our planners caught up with the idea.

Proper treatment of cycle path and road junction: Het Kanaal, Assen, the Netherlands

Foolish confusion of cycle and pedestrian space at a London road junction: Putney Bridge