Waltham Forest Cycling Strategy 2012-2015

An appendix to this year’s Waltham Forest Cycling Action Plan (see previous post below) is supplied by the new Waltham Forest Cycling Strategy 2012-2015 Scoping Document (which does not appear to be available on-line). A fuller strategy document is promised at a later date; there is little reason to believe it will be substantively different in its basic cycling policy.

As its title indicates, this short version applies a strategy to the Cycling Action Plan. Much of it could have been cut and pasted from almost any local authority plan to encourage and increase cycling – stuff like cycle training and promotion, and vague aspirations such as

work with partners in health, education and the police to bring about a significant increase in cycling. 

To my mind it adds to the existing published Cycling Action Plan in only three significant ways.

Firstly it promises to “Substantially increase funding on cycle infrastructure and initiatives”. No concrete figures are supplied but various possible sources of funding are outlined and it is argued that “spending £10 per head of population per head is required to significantly increase cycling levels”. Encouragingly, “Spending £10 per head achieved a 100% increase in cycling levels in Brighton over 3 years”. This statistic is not sourced or further explicated.

Secondly, the Strategy promises to “increase the number of cycle trips to 2.5% by 2014 and 6% by 2026”. If the current TfL estimate for modal share in Waltham Forest is correct (0.8%) this will require a tripling of cycling journeys in just two years. This strikes me as being astonishingly ambitious.

Thirdly, there is greater clarity regarding infrastructure. The strategy states that action will be required in at least four key areas: infrastructure, training, promotion and enforcement. As far as infrastructure is concerned, the commitment is as follows:

The type of infrastructure will be determined through use of the DfT hierarchy of solutions which recommends that reducing the volume and speed of motor traffic should be considered first as they are potentially the most effective in promoting cycling. Preference will be for on road solutions as opposed to off road full segregation, as these can be achieved more quickly and at lower cost. However, where road speeds exceed 30 mph mandatory cycle lanes and/or segregated provision will be explored. 

By a remarkable sleight-of-hand the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s affiliation to the LCC’s ‘Go Dutch’ programme is thus turned into a conventional vehicular cycling policy.

Leaving aside all the other little difficulties associated with the Hierarchy approach, there is no commitment to a grid of segregated cycle tracks, since the core primary route networks are 30 mph roads and by definition excluded from this strategy. Even on that handful of routes where the speed limit exceeds 30 mph there is no firm commitment to a segregated cycle track.

If cost is going to be an important factor, then painting a continuous white line to create a mandatory cycle lane in the carriageway will clearly be a more attractive option for a cash-strapped local authority. But even this miserable option will only be “explored”. It is perfectly possible that the kind of existing infrastructure to be found on a 40 mph route like Woodford New Road (i.e. a cycle path painted on the existing footway which fizzles out at junctions) will simply be retained.

I can see that the goal of reducing the speed of motor traffic is met by the introduction of a borough-wide 20 mph speed limit in all residential areas. However, there is no empirical evidence to show that this will bring about an increase in cycling with regard either to modal share or among those who live in such zones.

This Strategy fails to indicate how the existing volume of traffic on the borough’s roads will be reduced. Nor does it indicate to what extent this reduction needs to occur to bring about a surge in cycling. This particular goal does not strike me as being remotely credible.

All in all, this does not amount to a cycling strategy. It amounts to a fairly orthodox collection of quack remedies with a very long history of failure. Like earlier targets, these will fail and vanish into the memory hole. Like all previous London Borough of Waltham Forest transport documents this new one sets ambitious goals without ever considering the very substantial previous history of transport goals and targets not met.

The Strategy also recommends links to sources of useful information. These include

WF Cycling Campaign, TfL, LCC and CTC cycling pages. 

There is one campaign group missing from the list, but I suppose this is logical since its strategic advice would be somewhat different.

Finally, this blog really only came back from the dead in reaction to the Waltham Forest Cycling Action Plan and the uncritical praise it received - with the added provocation in this ‘Olympic Borough’ of the Green Olympics cycling legacy.

It’s now time to take another break.

Take it away, guys…

Where ‘Go Dutch’ is going nowhere: the case of Waltham Forest

Part One: this Plan is not Dutch 



Antonio Gramsci famously wrote

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. 

Among these symptoms may be included the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s 2012 Cycling Action Plan, which was greeted with rapture by certain bloggers who should have known better, and which - if you are looking for an example of hyperbole this will do nicely - was reported as bringing Amsterdam-style cycling measures to this particular car-sodden fragment of car-sick Greater London.

Before I proceed to bash this particular manifestation of ‘Go Dutch’ let me first of all say what I believe should be done to reverse cycling’s stagnation in an outer London borough like Waltham Forest.

A genuine Cycling Action Plan should, to my mind, have two basic features. First and foremost it needs to build a network of primary segregated cycle track routes across the borough; secondly it would close all residential areas to rat-running. This is my understanding of how the Dutch reversed their cycling decline, and I am not aware of any other evidence-based model which has been shown to work.

Let me enlarge upon these two core aspects with regard to Waltham Forest. The first thing that needs to be done is to establish basic bike grids across this relatively compact borough, i.e. physically segregated cycle paths on the high traffic volume primary routes. The major north-south route through the borough – its spine, as it were – is the A112, which runs between Chingford and Leyton via Walthamstow. The major east-west routes are the A503 (Forest Road) and the A104 (Lea Bridge Road). Add to that the A106 (Ruckholt Road/Eastway), a commuter route into the City, and High Road Leytonstone.

Here are some scenes from the A112. The Waltham Forest Cycling Action plan offers nothing to change conditions for cycling here. In the first photo, in the Chingford section, cars are parked quite legally in a cycle lane.

Turning these primary routes into safe, convenient, attractive segregated cycling routes (which obviously would require priority over all side roads and dedicated cycling-only green phases at major junctions) provides the beginnings of a network, which can then at a later date be enlarged. You do not then need to waste any money on a promotional budget to ‘encourage cycling’ because the attractions of cycling will be highly visible to anyone travelling in the borough. Such a network needs to be uncompromising in its adherence to the Dutch template. There is no reason in principle why such a network could not be built. On some sections all that is required is the re-arrangement of existing infrastructure, such as here on Chingford Road (A112), where the cycle lane has been placed alongside parking bays.

Instead of expecting cyclists to risk ‘dooring’ you move the cycle lane next to the footway and create a cycle track, and put the parked vehicles alongside the moving vehicles. Local residents don't have to lose their precious parking bays and cyclists gain a safe, segregated cycle path.

There is, of course, always the argument that there ‘isn’t enough space’. But while a section of the cycle campaign community keeps repeating this mantra, Waltham Forest Council has been busy re-allocating footways and cycle lanes for car parking on supposedly ‘narrow’ streets, as shown below.

(Above) The cycle lane and footway on Wood Street E17 (the B 160) being converted into free parking bays in December 2010.

(Below) Palmerston Road E17. A through route to Walthamstow's market and shopping centre. Space has been found here for parking bays along both sides of the road, even though this causes problems for two-way motor traffic.

The primary network then needs to be reinforced with a radical programme of road closures and one-way systems which halt rat-running through all residential areas, making access by car circuitous and access by bike straightforward and direct. Low speed limits and traffic calming obviously need to form another aspect of this support infrastructure.

However, the borough’s record of strategic road closures is very poor; they are few and far between, their implementation is incoherent and unsystematic, and even where a road closure has been introduced since the announcement of the new Cycling Action Plan no attempt has been made to provide cycling access. The council’s purported commitment to permeability could scarcely be more hollow and more contemptuously indifferent than here (below), where Somers Road E17 meets Palmerston Road. This is a permanent structure, not roadworks.

I don’t believe any other programme of action will reverse the stagnation of cycling in this part of Outer London. And the primary network has to come first. Trying to catch up with the Netherlands by shunning the key basics and by instead ‘pepper potting’, i.e. working to improve isolated and disconnected sites in the hope that one day they can all be joined up or that this in itself is sufficient to get more people cycling, who will then magically exert political influence, in my view simply isn’t going to lead anywhere but further failure.

What’s wrong with the new Cycling Action Plan? The problem with Waltham Forest Council’s supposed commitment to ‘Go Dutch’ is that it ignores the need for a primary network of segregated cycle routes, it does nothing whatever to stop rat-running, it in no way makes driving less attractive or less convenient and it does not re-allocate an inch of carriageway from the motor vehicle to the cyclist. Its solutions are wholly vehicular cycling solutions which in no way challenge the hegemony of the car. In short, the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s version of ‘Go Dutch’ is not remotely Dutch in practice.

The Waltham Forest Cycling Action Plan’s commitment to ‘going Dutch’ boils down to ten points, which fail to cohere into any kind of programme that is recognisably akin to the infrastructure to be found in the Netherlands. The full Plan can be read here - and now here is my point-by-point critique:

The first two points require certain commitments to lorry safety. However they apply only to lorries which come under the control of the local authority (most of the lorries on Waltham Forest’s road don’t). There is also the question of how such commitments will be effectively monitored and enforced. Finally, this kind of initiative is basically aimed at making it safer for cyclists and lorries to share the road, whereas Dutch planners prefer to keep cyclists and lorries separate.

The third commitment promises to ‘Identify the borough’s 20 most dangerous junctions and roads and introduce remedial measures to improve cycle safety.’

Apart from the issue of how ‘danger’ is defined and identified (this will doubtless be the conventional approach of using recorded road casualties), the promise of ‘remedial measures’ is lamentably vague but will almost certainly involve conventional ways of supposedly ameliorating the risks faced by vehicular cycling. A larger Advanced Stop Line and dedicated cycling lights which give cyclists a few seconds start ahead of motor traffic at signalled junctions appears to be about as radical as it’s going to get. It probably won’t even add up to that. This is, of course, not remotely Dutch. At the very least, cyclists need a dedicated cyclists-only green phase. But this, of course, would conflict with ‘network assurance’, i.e. smooth traffic flow. All transport planning in Greater London seems to be based on the core principle of accommodating and easing existing motor vehicle flow; there is no commitment to traffic evaporation. 

Scepticism about the efficacy of this plan can only be reinforced by the fourth commitment, which starkly underlines its poverty at a fiscal as well as infrastructural level, promising at some point in the future to spend the risible sum of £100,000 “to support safe cycling and cyclists, on top of the existing £70k spent on cycle training.” A banquet requires more than a saucer containing a scattering of stale crumbs.

The fifth commitment to ‘Carry out an annual cycle count across the borough to accurately assess the full cycling levels in Waltham Forest’ would be more impressive if it didn’t simply reinstate a policy which was terminated two years ago. There is also the very big question of which roads are chosen for counts, and when and how often the counts take place. In the past the Council has preferred to focus on primary commuter routes (which give the best results) and moved the (very inadequate) annual one-day count from the autumn to the summer with an obvious view to getting the best figures possible. Massaging cycling statistics helps no one, unless all you are interested in is PR and self-congratulation.

The sixth commitment promises to ‘Improve consultation arrangements with the Waltham Forest London Cycling Campaign on all matters cycling and carry out a borough wide survey of residents’ views on our approach to cycling. 

The kindest thing I can say about this is that this kind of consultation is unlikely to produce results which will be useful or enlightening. I am afraid there is a vast abyss between how I think a primary route such as Lea Bridge Road should be restructured for cycling and the kind of infrastructure which pleases cycle campaigners, as is starkly illustrated on Page 5 (printed number) of this document.

There is a further commitment to more cycle parking provision and a proposed improvement to the Bike Recycling Centre – worthy but not transformative initiatives and not in any sense uniquely Dutch.

At the end there are the two most ostensibly radical commitments:

Introduce a scheme to allow cyclists to ride in the opposite direction to the traffic flow in our one way streets. This will inform a Waltham Forest permeability strategy (maximum route choice, minimum diversion) 

The problem with this is that the borough’s network of one-way streets exists for the sole purpose of managing traffic flow for the convenience of drivers and to maximise car parking. This is the antithesis of the Dutch approach to one-way networks, which designs out rat-running. The London Borough of Waltham Forest is one massive rat run and cycling can’t and doesn’t and won’t flourish in this environment. Simply allowing cyclists to ride against traffic flow doesn’t by default make cycling subjectively or objectively safe, or attractive.

Finally the Plan promises to Roll out a 20 mph default speed limit across the borough in our residential streets. The problem with that objective is quite simple. Whilst desirable from a casualty-reduction perspective, there is not a scrap of evidence that 20 mph zones generate new numbers of cyclists, for the simple reason that 20 mph zones on the British model do not deliver safe, convenient, attractive cycling. They do not in themselves modify in any significant way the car-centric status quo.

(Below) Conditions for cycling in a Waltham Forest area-wide 20 mph zone.
 

Part Two: things are getting worse for cycling, not better 

 
The Cycling Action Plan does not address the need for safe, convenient primary routes in the borough. Nor does it address the very low modal share for cycling locally, or enquire what its causes might be. Amnesia, as usual, rules.

In reality conditions for cycling have been getting worse for cycling in recent years thanks to ’improvement’ schemes like these which involve putting cyclists alongside parking bays and narrowing the carriageway, putting cyclists closer to lorries etc. Things are about to get a whole lot worse on the borough’s primary north-south route, the A112. The council is about to do three catastrophic things on a section of this primary route connecting Walthamstow town centre with High Road Leyton.

Firstly, it is widening the footway, in the process getting rid of the existing cycle lane, with the result that cyclists will be pushed closer to motor vehicles on a route with high volume traffic including buses and lorries. Secondly it is introducing new central islands, which will create new pinch points and generate conflict between cyclists and large vehicles such as heavy goods vehicles. Cyclists will be squeezed out, which is a classic recipe for a fatality. Thirdly, the widened footway will be used to create parking bays, with the result that cyclists will face the threat of ‘dooring’. The idea that existing non-cyclists can be persuaded to ride their bikes on streets like these seems to me to be completely lunatic. But you would never know the catastrophic implications that this new project has for vehicular cycling from the council planners' smiley-smiley rhetoric:

The Council has been given funding by Transport for London to look at road improvements along Hoe Street between Third Avenue and Boundary Road. The changes will help to make this part of Hoe Street a safer, more attractive and more user-friendly environment for everyone, and will help encourage the use of safer and more sustainable modes of transport.

Hoe Street will be narrowed between Granville Road and Boundary Road as many people cross the road here. Narrowing the road will reduce traffic speed, and reduce the distance people have to cross. We are also proposing a footway loading bay here to improve access for deliveries and reduce traffic congestion. 

New or improved central islands will be provided along Hoe Street to help people cross the road.  

Additional cycle parking will be provided close to shops to make it easier for people to cycle as a mode of everyday transport. 

The plans show all too clearly how space which is available in such ‘improvement schemes’ for a segregated cycle path is instead being used to make car driving and parking even more attractive (see below).

Needless to say when you look at the fine detail of the traffic order you will discover that free footway parking bays for motorists have been slipped in at the very last moment, long after the consultation was over, even though the original plan suggested that such bays would only be for business deliveries. The council planners have played this trick before: the Forest Road Corridor Scheme purported to be about reducing traffic speed, but after the consultation was over, the Traffic Order revealed that a new, hitherto-unmentioned aspect had been included: raising the speed limit from 30 mph to 40 mph on a section where the carriageway had been narrowed.

(Below) A waste of space. Car-centric planning to the detriment of safe cycling.

Part Three: Accessorize with ‘greater mutual respect’ 


As a substitute for meaningful cycle infrastructure we get associated 'Go Dutch' initiatives like this, announced in the council’s propaganda sheet Waltham Forest News, issue 74 (20 August), promoted with the endorsement and active support of the local LCC branch:

Six local driving schools have already signed up to Bikeaware, reducing road danger at source. Getting a driving license is a good thing. Not only opens it up another transport choice. It also gives people a thorough understanding of the Highway Code, which is after all important whichever way you get around. Bikeaware is a simple concept developed by an LCC trustee(www.bikeaware.org.uk). Waltham Forest has embraced this ‘pop up brand’ and six driving schools have already pledged to teach safe driving around cyclists. 

Problems with that, anyone?

Check out the website and you’ll find gems like this:

This simple scheme would change the cycling landscape forever.  

greater mutual respect would inspire less confident cyclists, particularly women, to saddle up. 

Unfortunately, this is not evidence-based campaigning. And once again we witness cycling campaigners not even asking for what needs to be asked for, but instead settling for inferior vehicular cycling strategies with no history of success and which, all too predictably, will fail to increase cycling’s modal share in any significant way.This is, sadly, business as usual.

segregated cycle paths in Ottawa triple bike traffic

Bike traffic on Laurier Avenue has tripled with the installation of segregated lanes for cyclists, says a report from the city’s urban-planning chief John Moser, while about 100 cars have come off the downtown road at rush hours.

Copenhagen cycling collision

A delightfully informal picture of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, as she improves her shooting technique



Crown princess Mary found herself unintentionally turning heads yesterday when she was involved in a collision with a cyclist in the tony Østerbro district. According to eyewitnesses, Mary, driving with two of her children at the time, appeared to be completely taken by surprise

[ Note: only one un-named eyewitness is cited in this report ]

as a female cyclist crashed right into the side of the family's bronze Land Rover as the car made a right-hand turn. 

[ I hate people who drive Land Rovers in cities. Nobody apart from a farmer needs a Land Rover, least of all to transport their kiddies around dense urban areas. Land Rovers also tend to be very badly driven because, as risk compensation theory points out, cars which protect drivers personally from the consequences of reckless behaviour tend to be cars which are driven without consideration for their impact on others. ]

“The cyclist seemed to almost be lost in her own world. It’s like she didn’t even see the car,” a construction worker who saw the accident unfold from the scaffolding nearby told the tabloid BT.

[ No, surely the cyclist had a momentary lapse of attention, the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. And anyway I expect the Land Rover just came out of nowhere. ]

The woman, said to be an “older woman”, was not injured in the collision, but the rear wheel of her bike was reportedly damaged. 

[ The rear wheel. Eh? If the woman collided with the Land Rover why was it only the rear wheel that was damaged? ]

The court has since confirmed that Mary was involved in the incident, and that the crown princess had contacted the cyclist to ask how she was doing. The royal family has also said it would pay for any damages done to the bike. 

[ This might be smart PR (aren’t royal families wonderful and kind and generous and super nice) or it might just be an admission of guilt. ]

The junction where the incident occurred is said to be notorious for its collisions between cars and bicycles. 

[ But surely Copenhagen is paradise and some influential cycling campaigners believe that the Copenhagen model is more realistic for London than the Dutch model. So please don’t mention important differences between Danish and Dutch design or that cycling is under strain in Copenhagen, with numbers evidently in decline. ]

The context and implications of a photograph

The CTC’s recent statement of support for quality segregation was, oddly, illustrated by a negative – the kind of crap off-road cycle path we all hate - but not a positive.

If you wanted to find out about the kind of infrastructure that sets the CTC juices flowing you had to follow the link to its Cycle-friendly design page, which uses this photograph as a sample of best practice.

My own response to this Damascene conversion was to criticise this supposed best practice, while noting

Annoyingly there is no hint of its location, so it’s difficult to scrutinise the wider context. 

But then we’ve been here before. The CTC’s Hierarchy of Provision page is illustrated with a photograph the location of which is not identified.

I stared at it for many months before I suddenly recognised it, probably because my perspective on York has never previously been from the top deck of a Sainsbury’s multi-storey car park. Once I understood the site I was able to establish the context, which as far as I’m concerned is deeply hostile to cycling and shows that the CTC continues to lose the plot. Since the CTC remains unrepentant about its use of this photograph or about its infatuation with the ludicrous and failed Hierarchy of Provision approach to cycling, then I’m afraid some of us will continue to see the CTC as an obstacle and not as an enabler of mass cycling in the UK.

Chris Juden asserts that CTC has never aimed low. If anyone is to blame for crap farcilities it's the diverse local cycle campaigns that sprang up in the 1970s and 80s. These groups initially measured their success in miles of facility, never mind how crap it was. 

Personally I think that in idolising York and its crap cycle lanes the CTC is aiming very low indeed. The CTC’s vehicular cycling heart remains deeply wedded to crap cycle lanes, and the crap cycle lanes it promotes as best practice are just as much farcilities as the notorious joke off-road cycle paths which are dotted with street furniture and end with railings.

 Likewise, the assertion that

painting white lines on the pavement requires little money and even less political will, it is generally worse than useless, and CTC will therefore continue to oppose it. Our position is pretty simple really. 

invites some tweaking. How about this?

painting white lines on the carriageway requires little money and even less political will, it is generally worse than useless, and CTC will therefore continue to present it as desirable and as best practice and the best we can hope for in the circumstances.

The CTC’s bashfulness about every supplying a context for its best practice photographs was spotted recently by the Alternative Department for Transport in a blistering attack on the CTC’s ‘Right to Ride to School’ page:

The CTC thinks that the reason 99% of children in the UK don’t cycle to school is because… 
• they don’t know how 
• their parents would rather drive them 
• they don’t have anywhere to keep their bike 
• their school actively discourages this mode of transport 

and asks if this is not

a perfect example of cycle campaigners ignoring the elephant in the room? Why isn’t “because it looks and feels dangerous” on that list? How about “it’s insane to expect small children to cycle around cars and vans”? Even the photo they have used looks suspicious – why can’t we see where these children are riding their bikes? 

I don’t think anyone from the CTC ever did reveal the location of their heavily cropped photo.

Which brings me back to the CTC’s latest ‘best practice’ pic. The enigmatic location can now be identified. And the first thing to say is that the choice of city is revealing. Just as the Hierarchy of Provision shows a street scene from York, this new one portrays a street in Cambridge. No coincidence. These are cities where cycling’s modal share is higher than normal for the UK, and the reason why the CTC is so keen on these cities is that they can be used to claim that a high modal share is possible with nothing more on offer than vehicular cycling.

The choice of location in fact takes us into the depths of the abyss which continues to exist within the world of UK cycle campaigning. It also raises key questions of vision and strategy. Because this crap cycle lane, dear reader, happens to be located on Gilbert Road in Cambridge. The local cycling group spent years campaigning for this infrastructure. It basically involved widening an existing cycle lane from 1.5 metres to 1.7 metres, colouring it red, and banning on-street car parking by putting down double-yellow lines. This provided a marginal improvement for existing cyclists but, arguably, is not nearly enough to draw in those who find cycling unsafe.

The alternative perspective is put by an unconvinced local blogger:

well done Cambridge Cycling Campaign. Really. You have achieved your goal. I just don’t think it’s the right goal. This is yet another marginal improvement for cyclists; yes, its wider, but it isn’t wide enough. Yes, you’ve got rid of parking there in theory, but you’ve left us with an advisory lane that is free for motorists to enter in to and to be a nuisance in. You’ve given us something that’s a bit better than we had, but which isn’t good enough. 

This is the most cycled city in the UK, yet even on a busy road that serves multiple schools as well as being a major route for cycling in to the city, that has ample space for a fully segregated wide cycle lane without depriving motorists of a single lane, a route that would really encourage people to feel safe, that could demonstrate that cyclists aren’t just welcomed but really valued, even here what we’ve got is a cycle lane that barely does better than the naffest ones specified by the Department of Transport. Is that it? Is that all we get? All that campaigning from organised teams of motivated and determined cyclists? All that time and effort, and we get to this? 

The problem really is very simple. The minimum standard we should require for cycle infrastructure is higher than is obtainable in the best cycling cities in the UK. What we want as a starting point is better than the most useful we can get from local authorities. This IS a victory, but not a tactical one. This sets a standard for the best new facilities we can expect to get into and out of the Cambridge, and while its better than we’ve had, its not good enough. Its not nearly good enough. 

When cooperative campaigning fails, whats left? If we’ve got cycling campaign groups who view this kind of thing as a success, if they’re looking at what can be achieved without upsetting people too much, if they’re always willing to accept such compromises, perhaps we need to consider NOT being cooperative. Maybe we need to consider NOT avoiding upsetting people. Perhaps we need to make a nuisance of ourselves. When the best on offer isn’t up to the minimal standards we should accept, what purpose is compromise? After all these years of such campaigning we now have to accept the simple premis; conventional cycle campaigning bodies have failed. Well done Cambridge Cycling Campaign, I wish you all the best in your future endeavours. I just don’t get why you think you’re really getting somewhere.


Two things have happened since this modification of the old cycle lane. Firstly, cars continue both to be parked and driven in the cycle lane on an intermittent basis.

Photo credits here and Keep Pushing Those Pedals





Secondly, some cyclists continue to cycle on the pavement on Gilbert Road rather than use the cycle lane, resulting in protests from local residents and demands for punishment.

The fact that people still choose to ride on the pavements there (and on the more frightening Arbury Road) is a damning statement about the failure of you, our County Councillors, to get cycle provision right. There is a real, huge demand for top quality cyclist provision across Cambridge 


Cyclists’ did not get what they wanted. They got what Cambridge Cycling Campaign were willing to settle for because they saw such a situation as a pragmatic compromise. Thats right, they compromised on cyclist safety rather than show willing to change the politics of the situation by withdrawing support and opposing this and all such inadequate facilities. The evidence that it is not good enough? simply that many cyclists still choose to use the (bumpy, uneven, cramped) pavement. 

This is an argument about both vision and strategy, because the Cambridge Cycling Campaign never asked for segregation, even though a segregated cycle track is both plainly possible and the only infrastructure that is adequate for a street like this. And this kind of thing is happening all over Britain. The ‘improvements’ to Gilbert Road are really no improvements at all, and for the CTC to present this cycle lane as best practice shows how flimsy its purported commitment to segregation really is, and how what our leading cycle campaign organisations regard as best practice is all too often a farcility which cannot be recognised as such because of vehicular cycling tunnel vision.

Worryingly, the London Cycling Campaign seems just as willing to go down the road of surrender prior to battle, judging by this astonishing statement in connection with the Lambeth Bridge roundabout:

A compromise solution would be to put in place a more simple continental-style roundabout, with narrow lanes and sharper corners to control speed, but without the segregated track. This could be done easily within UK guidelines and rules, and a continental roundabout would cost about the same as the current proposal. 

By ‘a continental roundabout’ the LCC means the kind of useless crap farcility which you can see in York in the form of the so-called ‘magic roundabout’. In this instance the LCC’s commitment to segregation rings as hollow as the CTC’s.

Finally, the name Gilbert Road should ring a bell because David Hembrow was once involved in cycle campaigning on this street, and he has written at length about vision, strategy and practice in relation to this street:

The problem with this scheme is its lack of ambition. The campaign asked for little more than was built. No-one really ever asked for a "more imaginative solution" as discussed 11 years earlier. 

What has been achieved in Gilbert Road is an incremental improvement, but not nearly the best possible outcome. If progress is to be made in cycling then campaigners need to start asking for the best, not watering down their proposals before even approaching the council.

let’s repeat this, shall we?

One of the most ambitious studies of bicycle injuries ever conducted in Canada has reach a conclusion that won’t surprise anyone who rides to work: It is far safer to travel on a physically separated bike lane than on busy city streets. 

 Nah, they’ll never agree with this at the LCC’s Hackney branch…

Safety in Infrastructure

Sadly, I don’t think the CycleNation website will be able to find the space to carry news of these research findings:

Certain types of routes carry much lower risk of injury for cyclists, according to a new University of British Columbia study.

Cycle tracks (physically separated bike lanes) carries the lowest injury risk for cyclists, at about one-tenth the risk. 

Cycle tracks and other bike-specific infrastructure are prevalent in the cycling cities of Northern Europe, but have been slow to catch on in North America,” says Kay Teschke, a professor in UBC’s School of Population and Public Health and lead author of the study. “Adoption of safer route infrastructure would prevent crashes from occurring in the first place

‘Dedicated clear space for cyclists’

In its haste to surrender the segregation option the CTC envisages a situation in which a local authority claims it doesn’t have the money to provide cycle paths (even though finance is never the reason; the problems are political, not economic or technical). Therefore,

if its budget only extends to painting some white lines, CTC believes these would be better placed on the road. 

I am reminded of the way in which the LCC’s ‘Go Dutch’ policy has often been compressed into a single, slippery phrase ‘dedicated clear space for cyclists’. By a marvellous sleight-of-hand the Dutch option can thus be cleverly transformed into… vehicular cycling!

The very finest white lining, of course, is the unbroken white line alongside an on-road cycle lane. Backed up by a double-yellow line ‘no waiting at any time’ restriction this makes it unlawful for any driver either to drive into the cycle lane, or to park there. It's unambiguously dedicated clear space for cyclists.

And if the cycle lane is placed towards the centre of a wider carriageway, continuous and unbroken white lines ensure that no vehicle intrude there.

Where better to look for the success of such inspiring infrastructure than such progressive cycling authorities as Waltham Forest and York?

Here’s the policy in action on two primary routes.

(Above) The southbound A112 in Waltham Forest.

(Below) Bootham Bar, York.

The tight bend means that bus drivers can’t avoid entering the cycle lane. But that’s the Hierarchy of Provision for you…

The CTC embraces segregation (sort of, in a way, sometimes, but not always)

Spot the cyclist, or: A suitable case for treatment. First photo: Where the eastbound Victoria Embankment (A3211) enters the underpass leading to Upper Thames Street. Second photo: Bootham, a primary route into central York.




Hallelujah! Well done!

CTC declares support for quality segregation while still opposing “farcilities”

No, I take that back. The CTC’s newfound enthusiasm for segregation carries all the conviction of a brothel-keeper proclaiming a sudden commitment to the virtues of chastity.

CTC supports high quality facilities - not fiddly pavement conversions. 

Oh really? Number six in the CTC’s beloved Hierarchy of Provision is Conversion of footways/footpaths to shared use cycle tracks for pedestrians and cyclists.

I don't understand why any smart cycle campaign organisation ever signed up to something like that, which transport planners use to stop cyclists inconveniencing motorists and which almost always ends up with “fiddly pavement conversions” which benefit no one. But then the CTC has been dogmatically resisting full-blooded segregation since 1934. The CTC has long been the road lobby's greatest asset as far as cycling is concerned, as have the rest of the vehicular cycling campaign community.

You might think a statement of support for segregation would be accompanied by an iconic example of segregated cycling infrastructure. If the folk from the CTC can’t quite bring themselves to use a Dutch example (the CTC likes Dutch cycling the way vampires like crucifixes) this needn’t be a problem. Examples from British practice might be a bit thin on the ground but there are existing templates which serve to show future possible directions and which, though far from perfect, are far superior to traditional British “farcilities”. I am thinking of Camden and Old Shoreham Road.

Instead, the CTC’s notion of cycle-friendly design is perversely accompanied by a photograph not of a safe, segregated cycle path but an on-road cycle lane.

Best practice? Annoyingly there is no hint of its location, so it’s difficult to scrutinise the wider context. The clues that the photo contains are not encouraging. What looks like a single-decker bus is vanishing into the distance. This raises questions of what kind of route this is and who this street serves. I suspect that wherever it is, it’s a through route. Whatever the speed limit is on this street – I would guess 30 mph – are drivers keeping to it on a long straight stretch like this? Almost certainly some will not be. If this was NOT a through route then of course there would be no need to have cycle lanes at all; strategic road closures or circuitous one-way systems which only serve residential housing are sufficient to prevent short-cuts and rat-running and bring about traffic reduction.

The CTC’s photograph strikes me as very unsatisfactory in two ways. Firstly, conditions for cycling in that cycle lane are subjectively and, arguably, objectively very unsafe. The lay-out of the cycle lane may appear exemplary but note those dashed white lines. This is a cycle lane which drivers can enter quite lawfully. And see the way the blond-haired male is cycling on the very edge of the cycle lane. What happens when a motorist approaching from the rear meets oncoming vehicles? Some drivers may hang back but there are plenty who won’t, and that cyclist will find himself experiencing a large metal object passing at speed, very close. In short, the kind of thing that deters lots of people from taking up cycling, or which makes them decide to give up as it feels too dangerous. (For a recent example of a cyclist giving up in terror read this)

Secondly, it seems strange to have this photo illustrating a statement about good practice in a link from a statement in support of segregation, since it is a classic example of how NOT to create good, desirable cycling infrastructure. There is plainly space to convert that cycle lane into a proper segregated cycle path, simply by reconfiguring the street. The trees should be cut down and the cycle lane relocated to where the grass verge is currently situated, to create a cycle path which is physically separate from both the carriageway and the footway. That done, plant some new trees to reinforce the separation. Easy-peasy.

The CTC claims that its new policy calls for neighbourhoods, town centres and road networks to be “fundamentally redesigned to be ‘people-friendly’ but the photo it uses simply indicates a feeble adaptation of an existing motorised hegemony, and is the exact reverse of a fundamental redesign. It's collaborationist, not innovative. It serves the interests of the road lobby. It does nothing for cyclists at all. It's subjectively and objectively dangerous, it does nothing to persuade non-cyclists to take up cycling, yet the CTC can't see it.

The CTC inventory of wonders seems to me lamentably unfocused and it includes stuff like ‘early advance’ cyclists’ traffic lights. I assume this means providing an ASL and lights which give cyclists a three-second head start over motor vehicles at junctions. If so, this, I’m afraid, is unlikely to get the masses cycling. It's the kind of crap that TfL have come up with at the Bow roundabout, and it does nothing whatever for safe cycling.

The CTC states that its new policy is based upon a review of the relevant research evidence. Oh really? The Dutch template is sadly lacking. Instead we are invited to bow down before two very questionable studies:

In support of these principles, CTC points to evidence from a study by University College London, commissioned by the Department for Transport, which found that traffic reduction is the most important factor for boosting active travel, while a TRL report found that that speed reduction is the most important infrastructure measure for improving cyclists’ safety. 

The UCL study depends heavily on research from the USA, Canada and Australia – countries which have absolutely nothing to tell Britain about cycling. The TRL report likewise arrives at its parochial conclusions by studying English language material based largely on vehicular cycling cultures. It’s utterly absurd to base a policy on material like this. Apart from shunning the example of the most successful cycling nation in both Europe and the world, the CTC chooses to avert its gaze from a wealth of native research material which consistently and repeatedly indicates why the majority of the British population prefers not to cycle.

If you have the stomach for it, the UCL study is worth reading – it contains some interesting statistics – but it purveys the kind of banal claptrap that academics love in their bubble world of research publications:

if there are no destinations within a walkable distance people will be extremely unlikely to walk 

Gosh, that had never occurred to me.

car ownership did not appear to improve systolic blood pressure or waist hip ratio 

That’s a surprise innit.

Because walking and cycling contribute to physical activity, more time spent on either will help to improve health. This means that a longer trip is better than a shorter trip. 

Sheer genius. Obviously you need a PhD to arrive at insights like this.

However, I must admit even my narrowed, scowling eyes lit up joyously at the revelation that in some quarters there is

Concern about the methodology used in evaluating the Cycling Demonstration Towns 

(Yes, never put the monitoring of cycling targets in the control of those supposed to be increasing them - because the bastards will pull every trick in the book to make it seem that cycling is booming when, er, it isn’t.)

I find it hilariously ironic that the CTC is proudly citing a report which calls for

wider pavements (7.1)

a solution which the authors of this UCL report assert is

straightforward 

No it isn’t. It is very far from straightforward. Because the current transport planners fashion for widening pavements has enormous implications for vehicular cycling. Presumably the report's authors haven't spent any time lately cycling in London.

My depressed and battered heart slumps and flattens even further when I read that

Measures which make cycling more attractive include improving and building cycle lanes as well as wider, clearly marked colour-co-ordinated cycling lanes 

 Oh, please…

Moreover it is asserted that:

The bicycle hire scheme in London is generally seen as a success… so similar schemes could be set up in other cities. 

Well, that's a matter of opinion. The problem is not shortage of bikes.

I’m also amazed to see the CTC citing a report which comes out with assumptions like this:

there were many car journeys which could not have easily been done with another form of transport either because it was dark, there was poor weather or there were people or goods that needed to be transported as well. 

You can’t ride a bike in the dark or when it’s raining? Jeez…

I am not persuaded that the authors of the UCL report know anything at all about cycling or have a clue how to bring about a mass cycling culture. The report is full of woolly sociological and psychological material and ends up asserting that

Behaviour change is required to encourage a shift from the car to walking and cycling (p. 102)

No it isn’t. Infrastructure change is.

As for that other study cited by the CTC:

a TRL report found that that speed reduction is the most important infrastructure measure for improving cyclists’ safety. 

Well, speed reduction may well objectively reduce danger to cyclists in terms of death or injury but in itself it isn’t enough to make cycling subjectively safe, let alone convenient and attractive.

The most important infrastructure measure for improving cyclists' safety is SEPARATION FROM MOTOR VEHICLES. It also happens to be the kind of thing that persuades people to cycle. But if you are going to base your research on British examples of off-road cycling infrastructure then obviously you won't ever understand this because British segregation is traditionally a dismal joke and a monstrous travesty of what is possible. And using Stevenage and Milton Keynes as examples is pitiful. But then the vehicular campaign establishment has never been interested in real evidence-based policy. The CTC is actually looking for research which reinforces its vehicular cycling prejudices.

CTC therefore urges that segregated facilities should normally be created from existing road-space rather than pavement space. They should avoid creating conflict, either with pedestrians, or with motor vehicles at junctions – given that 75% of cyclists’ collisions occur at or near junctions – ensuring that cyclists have at least as much priority at junctions as they would if using the road. Conversely, if the authority does not have the will to meet these standards and its budget only extends to painting some white lines, CTC believes these would be better placed on the road.

It’s a rather weird approach to cycle campaigning, to include unconditional surrender among your core principles. But then it’s no coincidence that the CTC’s commitment to segregation simultaneously expresses its, er, commitment to ‘on-road facilities’, even highlighted in a framed box.

The notion that by boosting cyclist numbers you then enlarge the strength of ‘the cyclists’ vote’ locally strikes me as questionable. Is there such a thing as a cycling vote? Plainly Boris Johnson believes there might be, which is why he announced a last minute conversion to ‘Go Dutch’. But I’m not really convinced. You might be able to get more people cycling but that doesn’t mean they have the slightest interest in transport policy. Even campaign groups like the CTC and the LCC struggle to engage the bulk of their membership, even at the level of bothering to cast a vote.

The CTC’s reluctance to let go of vehicular cycling shines through statements like this:

London has seen substantial growth in cycle use since 2000, achieved primarily through measures other than segregation, but in the process has generated the political momentum needed if campaigns for high quality segregation are to succeed. 

Leaving aside TfL’s own research which asserts that claims of a massive growth in London cycling are somewhat exaggerated, modal share remains risible, precisely because ‘measures other than segregation’ are suppressing cycling, not enabling it.

In any case, how powerful is that political momentum? So far, Boris Johnson and TfL have delivered nothing. The design of the Lambeth Bridge roundabout is nothing but the same old crap.

To a large extent the CTC is doing nothing but restating ancient principles. Traffic reduction was always number one on the Hierarchy of Provision, with speed reduction at number two. The CTC still promotes the Hierarchy as a sacred text, even though it shuns all mention of segregation. There is also the enduring problem of praxis. The CTC has been demanding traffic reduction for donkey’s years, with a total lack of success. The recession has had a greater impact on traffic levels than decades of campaigning by the CTC.

The only practical aspect that the CTC concerns itself with is funding. It comes up with an idiosyncratic solution, citing the example of New York. This is weird. New York is not the answer. It’s as if the CTC remains as phobic as ever about using the word ‘Netherlands’:

Road maintenance budgets - which amount to billions of pounds each year - could be a key source of the funding needed to transform our towns, neighbourhoods and road networks to be cycle-friendly and people friendly – as could the planning system. CTC points to the example of New York which delivered significant cycling improvements by this means in recent years, and is now urging councils in Britain to adopt a similar approach. 

The trouble is, the more that councils are urged, the more they encourage cycling.

And now I feel it’s time for a song.

Comprehensively failing cycling: the Northampton Town Transport Strategy

Welcome to cycling- and pedestrian-friendly Northampton town centre... 

Thanks to road.cc I came across thrilling new cycling initiatives in Northamptonshire

It inspired me click on the link to the Northampton Town Transport Strategy.

My heart sank when I read this:

To increase cycling from the existing low levels (mode share less than 3%) training, publicity and encouragement initiatives are needed. 

Yes, the same ignorant, tired old formula that has been suppressing British cycling for years. But of course it has a role to play because it substitutes for infrastructure which might impinge on road space currently devoted to cars and car parking.

It is further stated that

Northampton currently has good levels of existing cycle route infrastructure, however the linkages between areas are fragmented. Penetration in to the town centre is poor, due to complicated crossing arrangements on the Inner Ring Road. 

The Transport Strategy plans some modest amelioration of existing conditions for vehicular cyclists. However, the notion that Northampton has ‘good levels of existing cycle route infrastructure’ is preposterous. Northampton has bog standard crap infrastructure such as narrow cycle lanes which run in the door zone next to parking bays. If Northampton already has good cycling infrastructure, why is its modal share so low? Answer: because the kind of cycling infrastructure applauded by cycle campaign groups and by transport planners is of absolutely no interest to the majority of the population, who time and time and time again insist that they won’t cycle among motor vehicles.

The Northampton Town Transport Strategy suffers from the same searing contradiction found in all British transport planning: at the same time that cyclists are offered ‘encouragement initiatives’ new infrastructure is being built to encourage people to drive into the centre of Northampton.

One example is that

The existing 8,097 town centre parking spaces will be increased by an extra 1,026 spaces.
(Chapter Eight)

The most glaring contradiction of all is found in Chapter Ten: Strategy Implementation and Funding, which shamelessly indicates that there’s a massive budget for roads and driving but only crumbs for cyclists and pedestrians. “Highway Improvements” for motorists are allocated a mind-blowing £139 million (with lots of extras – an extension of the Inner Ring Road will get a further £8 million and town centre car parking will get $1.8 million). Cycling and walking get £9.6 million, although obviously a lot of that will be frittered away on pointless rubbish like promotion and “encouraging cycling”. The goal of increasing cycling is futile if at the same time you are making car use in Northampton even faster and more convenient than it is already. 

Northampton is not short of very wide primary routes which would be perfect for conversion into Dutch bike grids. Unfortunately Northampton, like the rest of Britain, is still living in the dark ages, and is utterly committed to the supremacy of the private car, while understanding nothing whatever about how to get people cycling.

Here are some pictures of such primary routes in central Northampton. The only cyclists you will see are in the last photograph of all, and it’s a very revealing picture.

Wanstead High Street welcomes cyclists

I recently put the boot into SUSTRANS for its fatuous and irrelevant and classically collaborationist involvement in a scheme to ‘encourage’ cyclists to shop on Wanstead High Street.

My critique lacked an illustration, so now here is one.

This is Wanstead High Street, where as you can see the street is far too narrow for a Dutch cycle path. So instead cyclists have to use the road. And for that little extra, there are some lovely NO CYCLING signs.

High Road Leytonstone: ‘more appealing’ than Dutch cycling infrastructure?

David Hembrow has reproduced a photograph used in a recent post of mine with a scene from a Dutch street, commenting: In the Netherlands, this is a technique used to civilize residential streets which are not busy through roads, which do not have a high number of motor vehicles passing through and which have a 30 km/h speed limit. In the UK the same thing is being done on busy through roads with higher speed limits and lots of traffic. 

He shows lots of other Dutch examples here.

This provoked a comment:

I do not see what is wrong with the UK example you give in this post. Dare I say that the smooth tarmac of the UK cycle lane looks more appealing to me than the Dutch cobblestones... In addition, that is not a "parking lane" to the left of the picture, as the double yellow lines are also applicable within that section of road. This must therefore be just a loading bay. P.S. May I just clarify that I cycle a lot in both the UK and mainland Europe and generally feel that UK cycling infrastructure is very poor, often lethal. I just think that this particular photo, showing a well-maintained road and relatively wide cycle lane, doesn't really illustrate your point very well. 

This is a good example of the confusion which can arise from a simple comparison of two apparently similar scenes. However before commenting on that, let me quickly say that the commenter is quite mistaken in asserting that the High Road Leytonstone photograph shows a loading bay. It doesn’t. Anyone can park in these bays and similar bays can be found all along this road, most of them filled with cars (as shown in the photo above). The reason why the bays shown in the photograph used by David Hembrow are empty is probably precisely because they aren’t outside shops.

Mixing with motor traffic on a Dutch street is quite different than it is on a London street. I realise in retrospect that my photo is unintentionally misleading because it makes it appear that High Road Leytonstone is a quiet street with little parking. In fact my photo just happened to be taken when there was a gap in the traffic. Luckily it was one of a sequence which I took while cycling up this street on a weekday and I reproduce the other ones below to put this isolated photo into context.

High Road Leytonstone is a road which links up with major London through routes and it carries huge volumes of motor traffic. One relatively small section is one-way with a contraflow lane for cyclists. This last feature is of course welcome but isolated infrastructure for cyclists is no use at all unless it forms part of a coherent and connected network. This remains the British disease: cycling infrastructure of any sort is always built on car-centric terms: as soon as it conflicts with the greater priority of ‘smooth traffic flow’ it notoriously comes to a sudden end. And, depressingly, Britain continues to go ever-backward. Over in South Gloucestershire they are seizing space from cyclists and pedestrians to benefit drivers.

In the London Borough of Waltham Forest things are no different, with the model used on Wood Street E17 (below) being rolled out across the borough. It is madness to build out the footway forcing cyclists closer to overtaking motor vehicles, especially buses and lorries, while at the same time creating new dangers from ‘dooring’. To do this is to make the conditions of vehicular cycling even worse and more off-putting than they were before. Here on Wood Street cyclists are pushed even closer to overtaking motor vehicles on a dangerous bend.

The recent ‘improvements’ on High Road Leystonstone are designed to encourage car use for short journeys, and they have been introduced with the enthusiastic collaboration of Transport for London. In some sections, including the one shown in the photograph used by David Hembrow, speeding is a problem. The speed limit is nominally 30 mph – far too high for a shopping street with residential housing mixed in – but some drivers are plainly exceeding this to a significant degree when the opportunity arises (such as early in the morning, or in the evening, or when traffic levels are low).

High Road Leytonstone is a major route which runs north-south from the Green Man Interchange (where the A114 and the A11/A1199 and the A113 connect with the A12, which connects the M11 motorway and North Circular Road (A406) with the Blackwall Tunnel) down to Stratford. Its ‘A’ road status was revoked when the A12 was reconfigured and pushed through Wanstead, Leytonstone and Leyton. Just looking at a map can give completely the false impression, since this section of the A12 is basically a motorway (albeit with a 50 mph limit) and cyclists are banned, while High Road Leytonstone, which lacks even the status of a ‘B’ road, carries massive volumes of motor traffic, far in excess of other local roads of equal status.

High Road Leytonstone is precisely the kind of direct, major route with high volume traffic which requires Dutch-style segregated cycle paths and where the space is available. It is a road which was once earmarked for total pedestrianisation – a project which was relentlessly subverted to result in the motor vehicle choked mess of today. Bear in mind that it is in a London borough where cycling’s modal share is, according to the most recent TfL figures, under one per cent. High Road Leytonstone has standard vehicular cycling infrastructure, including the classic template of the cycle lane leading into an Advanced Stop Line cycling reservoir. This cycling infrastructure notoriously lures the unwary cyclist into danger, especially when it concerns a lorry driver’s ‘blind spot’. Here is a recent instance which occurred on High Road Leytonstone, not far from where the photograph used by David Hembrow was taken.

The photographs below show conditions for cycling northward on High Road Leytonstone after the junction with Southwell Grove Road, a distance of less than half a mile. They were taken in a single continuous journey over a period of about three-four minutes. The first one was taken just before the scene shown in the photo used by David Hembrow, and the others show conditions beyond that location.

The reality is that the double yellow line ‘No Waiting At Any Time’ restrictions, designed to deter drivers from parking in the cycle lane, are regularly ignored, and that apart from the danger of ‘dooring’, drivers leaving their parking space rarely bother to consider if a cyclist is coming along, and block the cycle lane as they manoeuvre to slip into the line of traffic backed-up from the signalled junction at Church Lane. The final blurry photograph records what happens when a bus driver moves into the cycle lane in order to deposit passengers before reaching the bus stop.

In short, cycling up High Road Leytonstone is not a relaxing experience, and is fraught with danger and obstruction. The notion that conditions for cycling on this street are superior to those found on Dutch streets is not persuasive.