Ludgate Circus Cycle Superhighway plans increase danger to pedestrians, warns City of London

So what are the numbers? How many people are killed walking across the road here?

I'd quite like informal zebras like Bristol Baldwin Street here, but the proposal with its larger refuges and new crossings where I don't think any exist at present seems good enough to me.

The City doth protest too much, methinks.

It has a poor record in standing up to TfL over pedestrian crossing designs and timings - just look at the furore over the removal of the crossing at Watergate, crossing New Bridge St in front of Blackfriars tube station, forcing pedestrians to make a 270 degree circuit of three roads if they wised to cross the road from the UNliver Building to teh Blackfriar pub. Something like 500 citizens wrote to object to this in the consultations on the Blackfriars Junction redesign, but nary a squeak from the City.

As for the crossing at Ludgate Circus, there are currently no controlled crossing, not even zebras, across the east-west axis of Fleet St and Ludgate Hill, and across the north-south axis, crossing Farringdon St or New Bridge St, are two stage - it may be possible to cross in one stage if you are quick, but green lights for traffic turning left from Fleet St into Farringdon St or from Ludgate Hill into New Bridge St, ensure that most of the time they are two stage.

It is not to say that the City doesn't have a point in some respects. Longer waits for pedestrians are implied in a couple of instances (most are neutral or even an improvement) but the answer to that is simple - take away some of the time allocated to motor traffic, which has been lengthened relentlessly over the last few years and which gets worse still with SCOOT technology.

What people need to understand is that this is purely a personal spat between the Transport Dept at City and Gilligan. They fell out a year ago with the design of the Cycling Grid, and now they engage in this infantile skirmish (putting lives at risk, but these idiots just don't care).

I work in the City and cycle and walk through it every day. I would say things are slowly improving for cyclists and pedestrians. Making many streets two way for cycling and the blanket 20mph speed limit spring to mind.

In this case though I really don't understand why the City objects to two stage crossings as part of a cycle plan, but seem to have nothing against them in every other junction in the city.

I can't find the proposals online, but wouldn't a 'Shibuya-style' diagonal crossing like Oxford Circus work well here for pedestrians?

There's a huge amount of space to work at that intersection and I'm sure there's room for a segregated cycle lane as well adequate road and pavement space.

Er, but surely every road at that junction already has a two-stage crossing in all but name as the timing of the lights makes crossing in one go fairly difficult. Two of them (on Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill) have very narrow central "refuge" islands. The plans above make it look as though the proposals are a significant improvement for pedestrians as there is more space for them to wait in the centre of the road if caught between lights.

If the City were so bothered about this, why didn't they push for the introduction of single-stage crossings or longer light phases before now?

“Pedestrian crossings need to be simple, straightforward and useable. At Ludgate Circus, they need to be single stage crossings. In other locations, they should also ideally be single stage crossings.”

Exactly. I work in the area, and couldn't agree with this simple statement of principle more. (Yes, I also cycle through there.)

Having said all this, the proposals will be at worse neutral for pedestrians, I think.

The city is a horrible place to be a pedestrian. These plans actually improve things for pedestrians far, far more than they make things worse.

Thats probably why they're objecting.