please empty your brain below

That's a curious way of looking at it. Because, of course, outside of the peak hours "taking" of the road space has no cost to the traffic.

If you did try during the rush hour, you would discover that the donation of the space makes for much more efficient transport of people compared to those in cars, and therefore an efficient use of a finite resource. I point this out as a cyclist ambivalent towards the superhighway: Personally I prefer the road but I recognise that it will bring more cyclists on the road thereby making it safer for all.
More biased anti-cycling nonsense from DG.
A useful report, but your comments that there doesn't appear to be much demand for cycling don't follow. To summarise:

1. Most of this road is in a state where it is dangerous and inconvenient to cycle;

2. Most people choose not to cycle here.

I suspect there is a link between these two observations. Perhaps it would be better to wait until the road is safer to cycle on before assessing demand for cycling. After all, we don't measure demand for a bridge by counting the number of people swimming across a crocodile-infested river.

Looking forward to your next report!
If you think that's bad, you should see the delays Southbound on Vauxhall Bridge that have been caused by sacrificing the bus lane to an essentially unused cycleway. Madness.
... don't forget the effects on pedestrians and public transport users!
Yesterday lunchtime there was a half mile traffic jam approaching the Bow Roundabout westbound, and a mile long traffic jam in the same direction all the way from Stepney to Whitechapel. Being on a bike would certainly have been a better option than being stuck on a bus.
David's comments about Vauxhall Bridge don't add up either:

1. The new cycle lane is open eastbound, but not westbound, so it's impossible to make a safe return journey on a bicycle.

2. The cycle track doesn't actually go anywhere yet. Until Monday this week, the eastern end dumped cycles right onto the path of cars and trucks before the end ofthe bridge. Even now it goes only 200 metres further, to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.

Maybe when it's actually properly open we can assess whether it's popular? Cycling made up 25% of journeys across the bridge even before the cycle track was built, and this proportion is likely to rise considerably once it's finished.
I think there's some truth in the comment above about the fact that cyclists will be avoiding the CS until it's less dangerous.

I also suspect that once it's all done cyclist numbers will increase, in the same way that road builders find that fast new roads actually attract and increase traffic rather than solve congestion.

However, I also have a strong suspicion that the cycle superhighways are a big bold flashy high-impact project (hi, Boris!) rather than answering a real need.

They treat cyclists like motor vehicles, taking point-to-point journeys of many miles. But many cyclists, particularly female and older ones, act more like enhanced pedestrians than cars. They use side streets, paths and the odd stretch of pavement and trundle slowly between multiple stops to do shopping and run errands.

The CS scheme is little use to them, but there are no front-page headlines to be had in a scheme of intelligent, incremental improvements. The big cycling cities – Amsterdam, Copenhagen – don't have just a few superhighways, but a dense network of local paths instead.

One day the whole CS scheme may be looked at as a bizarre white (sorry, blue) elephant. And don't get me started on the blue. Cyclepaths used to be a far less headache-inducing green before Big Boz and his Barclays shenanigans.

And for the record, I don't think that was anti-cyclist at all. DG's always fair-minded, and I speak as a regular cyclist myself.
@ ChrisM, completely agree. + Those that think DG is 'anti-bike' should take a hike (seeing as you're already on your bikes). This is DG's blog, after all.
"Yesterday lunchtime .......... Being on a bike would certainly have been a better option than being stuck on a bus. "

Yesterday lunchtime it was pouring with rain. So I took the Tube three stops instead of cycling.

Cycling in the rain is not only unpleasant but much more dangerous - the cyclists can't see as well (especially those of us who wear spectacles), the motorists can't see as well (water on the windows), and the pedestrians can't see as well because of umbrellas and hoods. And a manoeuvre which would be very easy in the dry is likely to end up in a skid when it's wet.
Isn't the point of the scheme to make cycling in London more accessible? I give Boris praise for this as creating some thing for a constituency who isn't yet there is one of the most difficult things for a population.

Almost all of your criticisms could be applied to the creation of bus lane's and pedestrianisation schemes by Ken. Yet most are happy about them now- including you I believe.
@ChrisM: “They use side streets, paths and the odd stretch of pavement…”
I can't agree that cyclists, even slowly trundling ones, can be viewed as enhanced pedestrians. I would be thoroughly p****d off if I was knocked down by a passing cyclist as I suddenly emerged from a shop right in front of them.
I also worry they are a white elephant, I feel they are constructing the sort of cycle way that commuting cyclists are loath to use (too slow, dangerously close to pedestrians) and we'll use the road instead. (creating more tension with car drivers who feel that cyclists shouldn't be on the road if there's a cycle path).

Viz Cable Street which has this problem badly - a cycle path that is far, less conventient and more dangerous to cycle on than the road.

The superhighway seems based not on the needs of people who currently cycle, but based on the hypothetical desires of people who might like to start cycling, once they are built.

But will they come?
re cycling in the rain... this site has London's rainy days at approx 1/3 of all days in the years surveyed

http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/United-Kingdom/average-yearly-precipitation.php

... that's a lot of days that it is uncomfortable and unsafe to cycle.

And I totally agree with Great Aunt Annie re cyclists in pedestrian spaces. Only yesterday was I and a few other crossing users banged into by the handlebars of a a 'sorry, sorry, sorry' muttering cyclist riding across a busy pedestrian crossing. I've been DING DING DINGed at on FOOTpaths and I have had to get off said footpaths in the face of on-coming cyclists. Roads may be too dangerous and megahighways too cumbersome, but that does not mean that the recourse is areas that are currently safe for pedestrians! And those island doo-dahs for PT users on megacycleways are downright dangerous!
As a cyclist who uses this route almost daily, there has been a noticeable decrease in the number of cyclists in the morning and evenings now that the nights are drawing in and the temperatures dropping. However, there are still a fair number of us using this route for our daily commutes. As one poster has already mentioned, during off peak hours there is no extra "cost" to drivers, and during peak hours the sections of the route which are open are immeasurably nicer and safer to ride on now!
The "superhighway" is certainly slower than cycling on the road, especially those bus-stop bypass sections, as cyclists need to be more wary of pedestrians, but I would rather take a slightly slower journey with the knowledge that I am away from traffic, than having to mingle with traffic along that road everyday - especially given that a lot of the traffic seems to be a mixture of HGV's and buses along this route.
The analogy cycling bods use for this is "deciding whether to build a bridge based on the number of people currently swimming the river". You should be surprised at the number of swimmers, frankly.

There will still remain the problem of getting off the cycleways to where you actually want to go, and sadly the boroughs control those roads, and especially in Westminster's case, are 100% car-obsessed.
Not sure the families of the four people killed whilst cycling along this "superhighway" before the segregation would agree that is would be "going to waste"! However even at peak times the amount of people who cycle to work in London is lower than 10%, but this is all about attracting more people to cycle and to help relieve the congestion on the roads and buses.

I have cycled along here since the works began and decided I would not do so again until these works were finished as it was just too dangerous. However I look forward to regularly using it once it is completed and may well switch my commute to it.

I agree that we do need a network of cycle tracks, as you find in all cities in the Netherlands (for example) but it took the Dutch a long time to also build these networks so we have to start somewhere. Hopefully the next mayor will extend these superhighway works to other TFL roads and local councils will install them on their main roads over the next few decades so we eventually have a network that anyone can use, safely.

Obviously it does not rain on a third of my commutes to work or home, it rains far less than that. I did cycle to works yesterday in the rain but just put a coat on, as I do when I'm walking in the rain.

Thanks for the update DG.
Now that he's walked the route, I suggest that DG should repeat the exercise, but this time on a Boris bike. There are probably all sorts of things that can only be fully observed and experienced from a cyclist's perspective, so the follow-up blog might be even more interesting than usual. There would doubtless be several unexpected diversions and frustrations which DG would explore and weave into fascinating little cameos...

Incidentally, I'm not particularly pro- or anti-cycling. I really love the way it works so wonderfully naturally in Amsterdam, a magical city where a car is about as useful as a helicopter. Shame they'll never have Boris bikes: only tourists would use them, so they'd never pay their way.

The last time I rediscovered the joys of cycling was on a Boris bike along closed roads (the Embankment and through the City to the Tower) during a Ride London weekend, and before that it was umpteen years earlier whizzing along to collect fresh bread daily from the village baker in the Dordogne. But except for these tantalisingly rare occasions, my wannabe cycling must remain forever latent: I'd never dream of cycling in normal UK traffic.

Sadly, I fear the problem is that cycling intrinsically works in some places but not others, and the stark reality is that you can't really change that.
cyclists and pedestrians really don't mix. In fact they mix worse than cyclists and cars.

The trouble with these segregated cycle lanes is that they bring cyclists and pedestrians closer together. I think we'll see an INCREASE in the number of accidents, but of course a DECREASE in deaths/serius injury. (a collision between a cyclist and a pedestrian is much less likely to be fatal)

For cyclists the dynamic will be very different. On the roads we are vulnerable and come off worst. On the segregated cycleways that's the pedestrians.
Perhaps because of the terrible conditions that have not improved yet as you've pointed out, people aren't cycling yet. Leave the comments when it actually finishes. The same goes for the EWSH where only a small section has been completed.
Antipodean: It may rain during a third of all days in London, but a cycle trip doesn't normally take an entire day, and often the rain is just for a few hours out of the 24 hours in a day.

I'd guess it's more like one 20th of the time that a one hour cycle trip involves getting rained on.
I'm looking forward to doing a similar survey in six months when the whole thing's finished, obviously.
On the rain in London thing. I walk into work every morning (about 35 minutes, in central London, around 7.15 - 8.00). I was struck a while back by how infrequently I had to take the bus because the weather was bad, so I started keeping a record. Of the 994 days I've gone into work since the beginning of 2011, I've not been able to walk in because of the weather on just eight mornings. Granted, the act of observing changes the thing observed, so I may have walked in sometimes on days I wouldn't have before I kept a record, but it does show something. Although it rains quite frequently in London, in my experience it's far more often in late afternoon, possibly because the prevailing winds are from the west. That's my theory, anyway...
What a pity the space wasn't used to build the tramway so desperately needed on this radial route.
Beware of cycling statistics. anonymous at 09.20 says "Cycling made up 25% of journeys across the bridge". Does 1 bicycle equal 1 bus ? there might be 50 people on the bus.
While I largely ignored 1st gen CSs, I am actually looking forward to the new ones, especially the North-South CS (apparently now CS6). But as long as it's under construction, I use alternative routes to steer clear of the roadworks, and I'm pretty sure that's what's happening between Aldgate and Stratford atm.
Take a look at the Kennington Road around the station during the evening peak. It's like the Tour de France on the roads and the London Marathon on the pavements.
Even after the infrastructure is finished, it may be reasonable to expect usage to increase for months and years after, for a few reasons.

Commuters often have well established habits, so when a route improves or becomes available it can take a long time before people start using it who would prefer it to their current route. Apparently tube strikes help with this process of discovering alternate routes & modes. Otherwise I suppose as people change homes and jobs they tend to learn about possible commuting routes.

Most users of CS2 will use other cycling facilities in the same journey, so if and when those improve CS2 will become attractive.

And if the new infrastructure encourages non-cyclists to take up cycling, as intended, there will be a time lag as they observe the infrastructure, make the decision, buy a bike, gain confidence, perhaps get training etc.
So what you're saying Barney is that what we need is for DG to go back not only in 6 months time, but also 12 months and 18 months time to see the changes these upgrades have had.
As ever, there are references to the traffic {cars, buses, vans and lorries, etc}; cyclists; and pedestrians.
There is another group which falls between 'traffic' per se and bicycles, which is at best typically overlooked or at worst treated with antipathy... which is Powered Two Wheel (PTW) users. The reason I set them apart from traffic is because, by logic, they have all the means to slip through 'the traffic' with similar ease to a bicycle. Matter of fact, another factor which has more in common with cyclists, would be a similar level of vulnerability.
Fortunately I'm no longer a regular commuter but my occasional journeys into London, including via Bow, tell me that journeys for bikers are now - mostly due to reduced lane widths - becoming far tougher and hazardous.
I know they don't usually come into your writings (odd exceptions being Rainham Marshes and Margate's Beach Race) but I also know you like to cover subjects objectively, so I'd appreciate it if you could take another look at the "dangers" aspect of the A13, in the ways conditions have changed for PTW users.
@botogol
"cyclists and pedestrians really don't mix. In fact they mix worse than cyclists and cars."
And the three together are worst of all.
I'm beginning to think I have inadvertently donned an invisibility cloak.
This morning, forced off the road by an oncoming taxi overtaking a line of parked cars and was too impatient to let me complete my negotiation of the bottleneck before he entered it, I was then confronted by an oncoming pedestrian who, as if on rails, continued to hug the kerb, seemingly intent on pushing me into the side of the taxi.

The problem with "shared use" areas is that pedestrians don't look out for cyclists as they would if walking on a road open to motor vehicles. Cyclists are of course expected to proceed with caution in such areas but there is a minimum speed below which they become unstable, and for most bikes that is not as slow as window-shopping pace.
Why do the "survey" on foot and not on a bicycle?! Bit like telling us about a bus journey but doing the route by car!
Seen on my "rush hour" walk home this evening, 26 cyclists in 10 minutes. Tidal flow.
If you build it, they will come.
*does not apply to the Orbit, of course.
**and I didn't see you complain about. Quite the opposite: you're one of the few that lives locally and so qualify for a multi-use discounted ticket. So that's alright then.
@ timbo

& L/HGVs & cyclists "don't really mix"
I have never been hit by a Vehicle and I have never been hit by a Cyclist but every week I am bumped into by idiots staring at a phone whilst walking along the pavement, my latest response is to shout BOO very loudly at them just before they walk into me, perhaps we need segregated lanes for idiots on mobile phones, ( just a thought)
"The problem with "shared use" areas is that pedestrians don't look out for cyclists as they would if walking on a road open to motor vehicles. Cyclists are of course expected to proceed with caution in such areas but there is a minimum speed below which they become unstable, and for most bikes that is not as slow as window-shopping pace."

I guess that as someone who likes to walk places, both to get from A to Z and to enjoy the journey on the way I don't see why I should spoil this by having to have a constant vigilance for cyclists, especially in areas that have traditionally been pedestrian only. There are paths like that here, traversing seaside boulevards, or through parks. A relaxing walk becomes an obstacle course as a result.










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