Guest blog: Bus lane rules and death on Holborn by Andy Waterman

It's bad road planning but it is not safe for cyclists to use Vernon Place as long as there continues to be a right turn for opposing traffic into Southampton Row, as well as not enough room for buses and bikes. You can see in the evening how many cyclists want to pass this way and some provision needs to be made for avoiding holborn on the way in in the morning. But it's not Vernon Place.

I have to admit that I look at the junction of Kingsway and Holborn and think it is prime for a cycling disaster. And so it has befallen.

I don't really take your view point on the traffic routing as it doesn't happen where the flow is at its most dangerous, which is basically from Theobalds Road down to the CycleSurgery. After that Holborn is a regular sort of road (two-way, single lane). You may have a beef with road
lay-out, but it is not why this gentleman died, as he appears to be on the regular section - if it was as you suggest, manoeuvring the multi-lane it would likely have happened on the A40 section or earlier.

What we have at the point of where he was impacted is traffic lights and traffic backed up. I expecting he was trying to move through traffic and got himself into a blind spot, which is what I recall them reporting. I'm not saying I'm a fan of the road traffic layout, but the thing I see all the time on the roads of London is that cyclists are very unaware of what is going on around them. It is often what leads to them going into places which are just dangerous - the urgency to move through traffic is often misplaced.

I wonder whether Alan was going along Holborn as a new route after being stopped by the police a few days' earlier. :-\

Sadly this sort of illogical and uncoordinated thinking by the authorites does not surprise me. They really couldn't find the hole in their arse with a diagram! Unfortunately it take a death or two before these over paid retards ....... you can guess the rest!

It is time to change the name of the "Bus Lane" to "Cycle Lane" or "Shared user lane" or whatever any Saatchi type bod wants to come up with a name for. However, Bus Lane is unacceptable because it gives bus drivers the mistaken idea that they own it.

Paint the bloody lane blue.

Err... Make the buses go on to Holborn as they can't get crushed too easily by a lorry?

I have to say in that instance I'd have risked the fine, put it to the wall and smashed it past the Police as fast as I could.

Most of the cycle routes in the Bloomsbury area are death traps. I often use the cycle lane at Tavistock Place and can't believe that no one has fallen victim yet. Whoever designed that part of the cycle route is an idiot. It consists of a two way cycle lane that runs alongside a two way road, so any car turning off Tavistock Place has to look for a gap in the oncoming traffic and two busy lanes of cyclists. They resort to edging out in the hope that the cyclists give way. Also, when the lane enters Byng Place you're suddenly cycling across a pedestrianised area on an unmarked cycle lane. It's nuts!

who cares if it is contraflow or not. there is a solid white line between bus and oncoming traffic. solid line = do not cross. eg no overtaking. so bus stays behind bike, or more common in my world, bus is too slow and bike stays behind bus.
its only 200m for gods sake, so who cares if its a 60 second delay!?!!?!?!

I've never experienced London commuting cycling but showed more interest after my brother got knocked off by a left turning coach on the Edgware Rd (he's OK now and back on his bike after some lengthy treatment). I'm used to heavy city traffic but it usually doesn't travel much more than 20mph so you can move about in it relatively safely. I was in London recently (in a cab) at 6PM and really noticed the volume of cyclists. One thing that caught my attention was that on main routes they have improved flow by using one-way and not allowing parking. At each set of lights (or turning) it seemed like the cars (with all the cyclists mixed in) all screamed off at break-neck speed only to be stopped at the next set of lights and the whole thing repeating itself. If you're on a bike and trying to move lanes then its 'best of luck to you'.

Any comment from Andrew Gilligan on this yet? Oh, he only works 2 days a week so perhaps not. He's the guy who must explain how such a ludicrous situation can exist and be allowed to endanger lives. It's an opportunity for him to speak out and show himself to be a friend not only of the cyclist, but also of common sense.

Poor road planning in my opinion is also behind the recent death at Aldgate East. Take 3x lanes of traffic and no segregated space for bikes at all. Add in a blue line on the road encouraging even the most inexperienced cyclist to ride there, mix with traffic at a standstill with buses, coaches and HGVs everywhere, and recent tragic events were inevitable. Pity no one at TfL or City Hall seem to care either before or after.

The reason they don't allow cyclists down there is because it's a contraflow. Either road user trying to pass each other (bus vs bike and bike vs bus) would require the overtaking user to pass by going onto the other side of the road. Which is something that is best avoided with a contraflow.

A good solution would be to remove the one way system with 4 lanes in each direction and make all the roads two way, have each one with bus lanes and add traffic calming measures to slow down drivers.

There is enough space to add cycle lanes on these roads and add bollards to keep vehicles out of them but this would mean taking space away from the motorists and TFL is very unlikely to do that.

I would like to think that what they say about adding more roadspace doesn't make traffic move faster it just adds more traffic is something that is reversible. Remove roadspace and it will put people off from driving in london, which really is something we should be striving for.

very good piece Andy, and I agree with every word.

Great challenge to the planners...thank you

Excellent piece, thank you

Great to see this blog getting headline placement here and cross promotion of such a serious issue. I hope Boris is pouring over casulty maps right now to see if cyclists are being diplaced into harms way by bad road layouts.