London's Victoria Embankment could be closed to motor traffic for six months - but Cycle Superhighway will remain open

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Heard LBC's political correspondant saying this was becase 'Sadiq is terrified of the cycling lobby'.

This is the same guy (Theo Usherwood) who preoduced his own ludicrous made-up counts of cyclists using the superhighways when the official ones were too high for his liking.

The bias of parts of the media over this is quite amazing.  The truth is that Sadiq is terrified of the motoring lobby, hence his reluctance to ever take anything from them.

To be fair, Sadiq has been handed an annual budget for TfL that's £700 million less than Johnson had, owing to the government cutting the entire £700 million grant to TfL. Plus, Londoners are taking fewer trips*, so fare box income is down too.

Still, cycle infrastructure is the cheapest way to add capacity to London's bursting-at-the-seams transport, so it would be great if he'd just get on with it. Extremely annoying that nimbys in Westminster and elsewhere can capriciously stop infrastructure that's for all Londoners.

*It's thought that this is because of working from home, internet shopping, and people taking Uber rather than public transport.

brooksby wrote:

How short will be the period between it closing to motor traffic and an article appearing here about a car being driven along the superhighway, d’you think?

How short will be the period between it closing to motor traffic and an article appearing in the DM  about the resultant congestion being caused by cyclists, d’you think?

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Agree with the above comments about this being a good opportunity for those who don't cycle to give it serious thought. Particularly interested to read Bamboo's comment. I use the Embankment CS every day and it seems to be getting a bit more dangerous. I've seen more accidents recently. Difficult to say whether it's down to increased tourism levels in the summer months, or people being out and about. I go at a fair pace, and it's generally pretty safe, but I see a bit of risky overtakes particularly at pinch points. Pedestrians are the real issue - just stepping out apropros of nothing or at least walking super close to the CS which puts me on edge. Delighted that the CS will remain open, but I wonder if it will make pedestrians even more incautious about actually looking before they cross the CS.

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

Jem PT wrote:

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

Don't they jump the lights, because so few of them can cross on each cycle of the lights, which isn't helped by the Sh*teway being so narrow?

It might be illustrative if the Danish/Netherlands standards, were used for camparison.

I love my bike wrote:

Jem PT wrote:

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

Don't they jump the lights, because so few of them can cross on each cycle of the lights, which isn't helped by the Sh*teway being so narrow?

It might be illustrative if the Danish/Netherlands standards, were used for camparison.

Possibly. But then cars have to stop at red lights too. Or should we widen the roads for them so they don't have to?

Jem PT wrote:

bamboo wrote:

There is indeed an opportunity here to reconsider the Cycle Superhighway and other traffic flow on the Embankment. The Cycle Superhighway is above capacity resulting in an increased risk of accident to cyclist using it. Changing the traffic flow is a great opportunity to increase capacity for cyclists in line with their modal share and reduce the space used for cars. I would suggest separating the contraflow cycle path into one for eastbound and one for westbound while keeping the width of the path as it is. That would double capacity and allow for better flow in respective directions.

Yes, on a nice day the CS is indeed above capacity, not helped by some of those using it chosing to ignore red lights. I cycle over Westminster Bridge every day and in the evening going from Parliament Square to the Bridge it is often difficult to get across because so many cyclists coming from east to west on the CS are jumping the lights. It almost causes a bit of CS rage at times!

errrr.,,, perhaps you should read through what bamboo is saying about 'increasing capacity for cyclists by widening the lane itself' - or where appropriate having a lane for cyclists on either side of the road (and ideally reducing the car lane to a single one - like the excellent Tavistock Place example).

I suggest you call for this kind of action from those nice people at Westminster council, your local one-stop any scheme that threatens their motoring-at-all-costs reprehensibles

I'm not sure there's any more need for compaints about 'red-light jumpers' at the moment though

I love my bike wrote:

Might be a good opportunity to widen the Superhighway, so a 'girl holding hands with dad' cannot block it in both directions

Also - how bloody dangerous is that?