Transport for London (TfL) has a subsection called London Streets, with a mission statement that reads as follows:
Our job is to make the safest and most appropriate use of London's busiest roads.
There are often competing demands for road space, which include:
• People who want to drive, walk, cycle or use public transport
• Freight and essential service traffic
• Places for Londoners to live, work, shop and sustain local communities
Our role is to carefully balance those competing demands to provide a well-designed, sustainable and accessible road network, sympathetic with the particular characteristics of each street.
And haven’t they done well on High Road Leytonstone? Here you can find British cycle lane design at its finest as well as a sympathetic balance between pedestrians, drivers who want to park on the footway, and people travelling very short distances by car to their local shops.
Yes, High Road Leytonstone is so good it has even had a thumbs-up from SUSTRANS, which described this street as ‘cycling and walking friendly’ in its original ‘Olympic Greenways’ document.
It’s so good, in fact, that it forms part of the London Cycle Network and there are lots of lovely little blue signs attached to lampposts to remind any cyclists who might have foolishly not realised they are enjoying iconic cycling infrastructure at its very best.
And look who is in the traffic jam on High Road Leytonstone! (Well you really can’t expect anyone from TfL to go around on bicycles, can you?)
