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news
Cycle Superhighways plans - Victoria embankmentTransport for London opens new Cycle Superhighways consultation tomorrow
Earlier this year Transport for London promised "fast and substantially segregated cycle superhighways providing north-south and east-west routes through central London". Plans for those routes are now ready and will be opened for public consultation tomorrow.
Among the many criticisms of London's cycle superhighways, even the more successful routes such as CS3 dump you on the outskirts of central London with no guidance or protection if you want to get deeper into the city or across the other side.
In response to that criticism, London mayor Boris Johnson last year announced that new superhighways would be built that crossed London from east to west and north to south.
The new substantially-segregated north-south route will run from Elephant and Castle to King’s Cross via Blackfriars Road and Blackfriars Bridge. It is planned to use a combination of full segregation and lower-traffic streets. It will connect at Blackfriars, where the junction will be remodelled, with the new substantially-segregated east-west superhighway from Barking to West London.
The proposed superhighway at Blackfriars
Details of the latter route will be announced tomorrow, but it seems likely it will use some of the existing segregated cycle superhighway 3 from east London to Tower Gateway. That route simply stops at the end of Royal Mint Street with no indication as to how cyclists are supposed to negotiate the tangle of junctions around Tower Hill.
Transport for London has produced artist's impressions of a cycle superhighway along Victoria Embankment. Cycle campaigners will be watching closely to see how well — or badly — Transport for London rises to the challenge of connecting up a useful, safe cycling network.
When the new superhighways were originally announced, Mark Treasure, chair of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, said: “It is essential that designs really are up to scratch, and don’t just give up when the going gets tough, particularly at major junctions. That means that motor traffic capacity can and should be sacrificed, where necessary.
“Most importantly, we need to start seeing action on the ground, not just with the proposed upgrading of the entire Superhighway 2 route and the newly-announced north-south segregated Superhighway, but with a joined-up network across the city - not just single isolated routes that don’t connect with anything else.”
Public consultation opens tomorrow on the new routes via Transport for London's public consultation hub.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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27 comments
From what I've seen so far, I'm encouraged. The early feedback from the LCC also suggests that this is the real deal.
The intentions look good, but the devil is in the detail. I think we need to wait a few days for those best informed to fully digest the designs.
Consultations..
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/northsouth
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/eastwest
Think your self lucky London commuters, no other council outside London even proposes this sort of thing.
I don't mean to sound like a kill joy, but you lot seem to complain whatever is suggested. In Manchester there is NO segregated cycle lane of note, and the drivers are no better either. I dream of the sort of infrastructure you have already, never mind what may exist in future.
Bristol, Cambridge, Brighton?
Sorry about that, it was probably all the deaths, that's known to sometimes make people a bit tetchy.
The only way to win political support is to use your vote, campaign and protest. Rather than dream, have you contacted the Greater Manchester Cycling Campaign, to see if there's anything you can do?
There's one westbound out of deansgate towards Trafford, but it's too short. Good start though.
Alan Turing Way has a not too unreasonable length of segregated bike lane.
It's length is the only positive though really. It disappears at junctions so left hooking is practically encouraged. It gets filled with road debris and leaves that are never, ever, shifted by the council. It doesn't get gritted in the winter which means they get slippy except for the sections nearest city's stadium which are always bizarrely filled with sand.
The real genius though, and I'm sure you'll appreciate this, is that they didn't bother to design in any sort of drainage, so when it rains, they fill like the blocked gutters they are.
Just to repeat: Some genius was paid a wage, and probably a decent one, to design a facility that can't cope with rain.
In Manchester.
Exactly the same problem with the segregated sections of CS2 in London, they failed to build in drainage and it floods in places..
I hope these are just the teething problems of engineers building a new type of infrastructure. At least with the East West route in London, much of it will be built on top of Bazalgette's grand piece of Victorian plumbing, "The Embankment". If they can't build adequate drainage there, they really are clueless.
This is exactly the sort of infrastructure that is for me. I am lucky to average 25kph to work in the morning, just because I can be going at 35kph at spots doesn't mean I should have to stop for turning cars every ten seconds. Fast doesn't mean sprinting at top speed as Bikebot said, it is about consistent effort. Safety is about the same thing, if I don't have to avoid turning cars and junctions I am safer and faster, they aren't mutually exclusive. It all depends how they treat those junctions.
I'm sure i've read this PR before...oh wait...i already have.
When I last used that route for work, huge swathes of the Embankment were reserved for parking for coaches, taxis and all sorts of other vehicles.
The addition of the CS paths (are they still there? My route has changed) on each side was some improvement as it reduced the amount of dual carriageway along the river available for car drivers to race each other to the next set of lights, so it will be interesting to see how much better the above proposals can make it.
Why don't artists ever include skip lorries or tipper trucks in these pictures? Have they never visited London, it's one big construction site.
The same reason that car adverts never show congestion on the roads or in car parks, and that travelling in them is roomy and comfortable.
Its about getting people to part with cash for something they imagine they will get, not what they will actually get. Its an architectural version of TV dinner packaging and contents!
You're not wrong... www.flickr.com/photos/waymol/14858397097
I've emailed TFL about a few junctions, and judging from their responses, they appear to be doing it right this time.
At one of the junctions, they are replacing an entire car lane, with a bike lane, which includes bicycle only traffic lights which will should eliminate left hooks.
Its the first time i've seen space taken away from motor traffic and given to bicycles.
We can only hope. I wonder if there will be forgiving or angled kerbs to enable people on bikes to benefit from the maximum possible width of the tracks. Currently in Howland Street there is a new section of Seven Stations track which looks like it might open soon, if it hasn't already, and it has quite high square edge kerbs.
A segregated cycle lane on the embankment? This is the stuff that dreams are made of! (and subsequently won't happen)
Or a charter for left hookers.
You can see exactly what will happen: in the rendering above, they have a road exit on the left [see here]. Vehicles will just end up doing this: http://youtu.be/z1lp_Jnv3L8
This is exactly why I avoid any cycle lane that is segregated or part of the pavement. They constantly cross drives and turnings that force you to give way to oblivious drivers.
As well as the driver going down the bike lane in the vid there was a woman walking down it too. Bike are for roads. Lanes on roads. Simple.
You only need to do that because the UK constantly gets it wrong on how to provision cycling infrastructure, and doesnt back it will altering the vulnerability/power pyramid.
Are you two looking at the same illustrations that I am?
The exits force the cars to turn 90 degrees, perpendicular to the cycle lanes and giving the driver a very good view of both directions.
Also, the tight turn slows the vehicles right down (except tw*ts driving certain brands...).
This is about as good as it could get without simply closing Embankment for all motorised traffic.
Facilities like this aren't aimed at people like you. They are aimed at people who want a nice relaxed ride where they are going, or those that don't yet cycle, but would if there were 'dutch' style infrastructure in place.
Actually, they are. The intention in London, is that the quietways are there to support users who want a nice relaxed ride, along with the rest of the regular cycle network. If it's part of the cycle superhighway network (which these are), they're intended for all category of cyclists, and that is meant to specifically include fast commuters.
Don't expect to put the hammer down and sprint at 30mph in the centre of London, but inside zone 1 you should still be able to ride at 20mph in this category of infrastructure, not sub 15mph pootling.
So now we wait with interest to see if it achieves that ambition, or it's just a cycle lane that's blue rather than green.
Hopefully we'll see something that's a huge step forward from the current Superhighways - but given the performance to-date then I'm not holding my breath.
CS3 might be more successful (primarily the Cable St part) but it has some nasty spots and involved very little improvement on what was before (with the notable exception of giving priority to the cycle path on Cable St).
P.S. I always love the amount of traffic in these images; can we see the rush-hour illustration next time please
That always amuses me too. And where are all the joggers and dog walkers in the cycle lane?
One Sunday morning last year i rode into the city and decided to try this route back out.
I followed it from the start all the way back to Beckton and was pretty impressed although it did take some unusual routes (the bit where it cuts across some garages must be hell for the garage owners during peak times) it was quite a novelty and i almost felt i was in the Netherlands until...
I got to the junction with the "Queen Elizabeth II Greenway" or as it was known previously "the sewer bank" and decided to follow it to the end and then loop back round and rejoin the CS3.
I came round the bend on the shared use path that joins CS3 ready to cross back onto the blue line, glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was coming out of the tunnel under the A406, looked ahead as i crossed onto the blue line to see a 4ft high bollard beside the path then a 2ft one next to it ahead of me.
Having been lulled into a sense of comfort by this wonderful blue line i thought i'll be able to get through that its on the superhighway!
This was quickly replaced by SHIT! no i won't!
In a panic i swapped hands from the bar ends (flat bar obv) to the brakes caught the front one 1st and slapped my face straight into this blue wonder my head ending up an inch from the bollard.
I hurt all sorts and ended up riding back home one handed with blood pouring out my cheek which was embedded with bits of Boris's blue grit.
About 3 weeks later i finally got back on my bike and went for a ride with my missus we ended up in that area and i said i'll show you that bollard.
She cycled straight through!
They'd moved it about a foot.
I fully expect to appear on CCTV footage on the worlds wackiest police chase fireman falling off bikes or something.
The pictures look good. I hope TfL actually get this right this time.
If TfL will bite the bullet and accept that to put in good cycle infrastructure they need to remove some parking and car lanes we will have some progress.