please empty your brain below
An excellent read! For me, a resident of Wellington Way who uses the Boris Bikes, the overall idea sounds great....but then I noticed they are taking away (well, "relocating", but they can't say where yet...) the Docking Station outside Bow Road tube - which surely somewhat defeats the purpose? I filled out their form yesterday with that feedback so wait and see, I guess....

Beth | 26.09.14 - 7:44 a.m. | #

Time for you to buy a bike DG!

Graham | 26.09.14 - 8:40 a.m. | #

I think there's one thing that has been consistent during Boris's reign - he simply doesn't care about pedestrians. TfL retimed all the lights at a large junction near my house a few years ago - great for the cars. Appalling for the pedestrians. It takes me five different stages to get from one corner to the other. Prior to the re-time you could do three of those stages in one leap. Now you have to wait at each bit. The re-time added about three minutes onto the crossing time.

Still, we're the slowest people using the roads so who cares...

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 26.09.14 - 9:15 a.m. | #

@Graham: Remember there are a sizeable number, perhaps even a majority, who are quite content with life on two feet (as we were provided with) and have no intention of converting to two wheels. Some are not able, or no longer able, to take to a bike. We are all pedestrians sometimes, and the views of pedestrians should be heard !

Paul | 26.09.14 - 10:21 a.m. | #

As a pedestrian and a taxpayer, I say it's time to stop wasting money on these idiot cyclists. They're a huge menace to public safety, and an absolute shower of selfish, antisocial bastards, each and every one of them. They sooner they're off the streets and pavements, however that may happen, the better.

Simon | 26.09.14 - 12:41 p.m. | #

Small correction "...being a single carriageway trunk road.." It's not a trunk road. There are no trunk roads in London. It is part of the Transport for London Route Network.

xmb53 | 26.09.14 - 12:57 p.m. | #

cf consultation and one meeting 24 hours after the meetings were announced - I thought there had to be a defined number of days notice for such things and the results thereof to be valid?

B | 26.09.14 - 1:39 p.m. | #

What are the present cyclist counts-how many bicycles use this route on a typical weekday? If there are few of them-they are greatly less than either the pedestrians and the the cars-then this should be taken into account in planning as well.

Kate | 26.09.14 - 2:03 p.m. | #

i'm a cyclist - I'm really not keen on the segregated lanes as envisaged in the photo -- look at the way it goes behind the bus stop, that seems like a certain recipe for collision between cyclists and people getting on/off bus.
Segregated lanes are not necessarily good news for cyclists
1- they being you too close to pedestrians
2- they are very congested and slow to ride along
3- many people seem to think that once a cycle lane exists its compulsory to use it and the sight of a cyclist cycling perfectly properly on the road drives them to apoplectic abuse.

botogol | 26.09.14 - 2:14 p.m. | #

A classic example of a vociferous middle class pressure group peeing all over pedestrians.
Simon is perhaps over-generalising, but I know what he means....

Chris | 26.09.14 - 2:44 p.m. | #

"I know you're wonderful, cyclists" ... are you sure about this, DG ... personally I find many of them very selfish ... the worst are the summer cyclists who are not very fit and wobble up the hill near me with a long queue of vehicles behind them

Caroline | 26.09.14 - 2:46 p.m. | #

The artists impressions make it look like a main arterial street in Amsterdam. It works very well there, although foreign visitors very often forget that such systems exist and get collided with by Amsterdammer cyclists or even worse the souped up mopeds. One thing, don't allow moped or scooter users on the cycleways. Amsterdam wants them to have compulsory helmets and ban them to the car-using roadway, but the rest of the Netherlands councils will not play ball.

HowardGWR | 26.09.14 - 4:50 p.m. | #

Does everyone stuck in the longer queues on the road next to CS2 need to be in their cars? Get a few of them onto public transport, bikes or foot and the jams would get smaller or perhaps even disappear altogether. A quieter road would be nice for pedestrians too (even if they have a slightly longer walk).

It's fair that cyclists should get their own space even if it is at the expense of others (look at how much space is given to motorised traffic at the moment).

Rob | 26.09.14 - 5:10 p.m. | #

@ botogol
quote 'many people seem to think that once a cycle lane exists its compulsory to use it and the sight of a cyclist cycling perfectly properly on the road drives them to apoplectic abuse'
On a road like West Hill out of Wandsworth, too f**king right. They've given you a lane on the pavement, just for you. Be nice if you'd use it, to save the traffic on the road from having to move out round you (oncoming traffic permitting) to get by.

RogerW | 26.09.14 - 6:50 p.m. | #

As regards the whole piece...
... seems to be "Everything for cyclists, and screw everybody else"
[EVERYBODY else]

RogerW | 26.09.14 - 6:51 p.m. | #

There's a lot of anti-cyclist grumpiness here (thanks a bunch, Simon), but if you take the longer view, London's always been a place where many forms of transport have come and gone, some in the ascendant for a while, others replacing them later.

It may well be that the period (let's say 1955-2015, for the sake of argument) where everything was arranged for the motorist's benefit will be seen as a pointless aberration. London wasn't built for the car, and shoehorning in street furniture for them has definitely ruined a lot of the city for everybody else.

Cyclists, however, have more in common with pedestrians than motorists. If a car hits a pedestrian only one person's going to get hurt. If a cyclist does, it's 90% sure that everybody involved is going to get scrapes, bruises, cuts or worse.

Of course there are nitwits, as in all walks of life, but it's a fairly major form of transport now and is going to get its day in the spotlight. If nobody cycled, public transport in many areas would be impossibly oversubscribed, so it's cheaper to do this than bung TfL another £400m or so.

Initially, it'll be tricky to make sure that doesn't inconvenience anybody else but hopefully we'll get better at it. Reversing Boris's terrible Barclays-blue paint scam is a start, but I'd hope our roads planners will eventually get it more right for everybody.

Thanks for the even-handed coverage, DG.

ChrisM | 26.09.14 - 8:08 p.m. | #

I don't understand why cyclists appear to trump buses in TfL's opinion.
Surely more people use buses - making journeys by bus slower at the expense of cyclists seems difficult to justify.

ChrisMitch | 26.09.14 - 9:26 p.m. | #

If you don't know how many autos,pedestrians and bicycles you are talking about you are seriously handicapped in whatever objections you offer. Rhetoric is not a weapon, numbers are , and you don't know what they are. Some of this proposal seems to really inconvenience pedestrians and bus stop users, many of whom are elderly and have no alternative but the bus."Sure;y more people use buses"-yes, they do. Get the numbers. And yes this is a middle-class pressure group indulging itself-but fanciful metaphors won't help you .

Kate | 26.09.14 - 10:29 p.m. | #

TfL is wrong to say car, bus and pedestrian journeys will take longer if we allocate rosdspace from drivers to cycling. Their models exclude one very important impact: just over half of car journeys in London are under 5 miles. And if it's safe enough, a good proportion of the people making these journeys would switch to cycling. And cycling is much more space - efficient than driving. So you benefit from reduced congestion even if you chose not to cycle, because plenty of other other people will switch to cycling.

Pedestrians benefit too from easier informal crossing. You'll be able to cross the cycle track, wait on the segregated bit, then you'll have fewer lanes of traffic to cross to get to the other side.

We've been here before. Dring the Olympics: TfL dramatically reduced road space for cars and predicted massive delays which simply did not happen.

The icing on the cake? People will stop cycling on the pavement. Why? Because it's safer and more convenient for them to ride on the cycle tracks.

And the argument that cycling excludes people with impaired mobility simply doesn't hold. In fact, it's the other way round: far more people who have impaired mobility can cycle than walk for short and medium-length journeys, especially if you consider the wide variety of adaptations available for bicycles such as hand cycles and tricycles.

Platinum Bird | 27.09.14 - 12:02 a.m. | #

@botogol
"many people seem to think that once a cycle lane exists its compulsory to use it and the sight of a cyclist cycling perfectly properly on the road drives them to apoplectic abuse"
@Roger W
"They've given you a lane on the pavement, just for you. Be nice if you'd use it, to save the traffic on the road from having to move out round you (oncoming traffic permitting) to get by. "
I get people like Roger on my case on Blackfriars Bridge most mornings: the cycle lane goes straight on, but I want to go right. Which is what my hand signal means. The existence of a cycle lane (or bus lane for that matter) does not give car drivers a monopoly on the rest of the road.

And I AM allowed to leave the cycle lane to overtake another cyclist, Mr Impatient on the Portsmouth Road last Sunday: and if you come up behind me whilst I am doing so, you'll have to wait your turn. If there's something slower than you in front, you'll just have to wait for a safe place to overtake - it doesn't matter if it's a milk float, a horse, a steam roller, a marching band, or a bike.

I don't know the Wandsworth cycle lane, but if it's anything like most segregated lanes (and probably the proposed "super" ones after a year or so) it will be full of debris - gravel, broken glass etc - because the road-sweeping lorries can't get into them, badly potholed, and probably with the odd signpost stuck in the middle. As always, there's oodles of money for flashy capital expenditure, and none for boring routine maintenance. And in a year or so it will be neglected as being the previous mayor's pet project.

timbo | 27.09.14 - 12:41 a.m. | #

Clearly plenty of people here who have never even been near CS2, let alone seen the sheer number of cyclists on it in the rush hour...

As someone who lives on Stratford High Street - the bit of CS2 that is segregated - with a perfect view of the bike lane out my living room window, I can say that it's a total success. What people fail to realise, is that it's not the 'lycra louts' that it pleases (some of them very much against segregation, since you can't pelt 25mph down it) but it's the average person that it's designed for (NOT the average current commuter cyclist). Every single morning, I cycle behind a 12 year old trundling along the segregated road to school, and an elderly gentleman rolling at his own pace (there's plenty of space to overtake outside of the bus stops), neither of whom wear helmets, since it's barely needed when there's no conflict with traffice. THESE are the types of people that suddenly take to the roads on two-wheels once segregation is introduced.

Perhaps even DG will be tempted to purchase a bike once he sees how good it is. I await the post 2 years hence that begins... "I have to admit I was wrong..."

Planner | 27.09.14 - 2:12 a.m. | #

DG will not be buying a bike, how ever good one cycle superhighway is.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 27.09.14 - 8:17 a.m. | #

Bring back congestion charges and try to reduce the number of cars in London, or any other city for that matter.

Trouble with putting in cycle lanes is that the roads just weren't designed for all the traffic that clogs them these days.

Bronchitikat | Homepage | 27.09.14 - 12:17 p.m. | #

If only the cyclists of this world would wear their halos over their helmets,then we could all recognise them as the saints they think they are!!! Remember,also,that if a car hits a pedestrian then their insurance helps to pay for injuries etc. but a bike?oh yes they don't have to have insurance. Writing as a lifelong member of the pedestrian club,it would be extremely kind if those knights of the road - cyclists - would obey traffic signals particularly by the crossings!!!!

Jo W | 27.09.14 - 12:34 p.m. | #

Such a shame to see anti-cycling comments. If London one day resembles Copenhagen or Amsterdam this city will generate a lot more happiness!

Simon, I thought your post was excellent satire by the way. For some truth, you should have replaced bikes with cars. I'm guessing you might be a black cab driver worried about an increase in cycling hurting your trade? Good!

BF | 27.09.14 - 12:39 p.m. | #

@planner
"THESE are the types of people that suddenly take to the roads on two-wheels once segregation is introduced."
But unless they live and work directly on the actual superhighway, they still have to brave the traffic on the ordinary streets to get to and from it.

timbo | 27.09.14 - 1:30 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy