A new twist on an old topic!
Advanced Stop Lines make sense if you are a vehicular cyclist (as I used to be, until I lost my faith and became a segregationist). The problem is that they are sometimes preposterously small and inadequate and frequently flagrantly flouted by flibbertigibbets, not to mention often badly maintained, even being in a decayed condition at the site of a cycling fatality.
And now here’s a new problem, encountered today. On Selborne Road E17, contractors have hooded the lights at the entrance to Walthamstow bus station and installed temporary lights for road traffic (no temporary lights for pedestrians, obviously, because walking just isn’t important to anyone involved in transport planning in London, least of all crap Transport for London). But the placing of the temporary signal cancels the ASL, because if you cycle forwards into it you can’t see the temporary signal.
I dutifully waited at the temporary red light. But then a lorry drew up alongside me. Not just a lorry but one of those dumper trucks, a type of lorry which seems to be involved in quite a few cycling fatalities. Just beyond the entrance to the bus station the road splits into two, and any cyclist turning right needs to get ahead of the traffic to be in the right lane.
The contractors didn’t think of cyclists when they sited their signal. But then nobody involved in roadworks thinks about cyclists, except when they decide to display that timeless classic CYCLISTS DISMOUNT HERE.
Once again I’d ask: is cycling in an outer London borough like Waltham Forest ever going to achieve a significant modal share when cycling is marginalised in a hundred and one different ways and the safety and convenience of cyclists is regarded with indifference?
Footnote
Are the problems which roadworks can create for cyclists going to be addressed in the future?
No, they are not.
Road works and cyclists
Question No: 625 / 2010
Jenny Jones
Following your answer to 27/2010, can you confirm that TfL will withhold permits for any road works that do not reference and adhere to the guidelines ‘providing for cyclists at road works’?
Answer from the Mayor:
It is not possible to withhold permits for non-compliance with any guidelines.
