Journalism

A cyclist who was not wearing a helmet had a lucky escape after colliding with a car in Hackney.

Or did a car driver who was not wearing a helmet collide with a cyclist whose activities represented no danger whatsoever until a third party intervened to make it so?

Apparently several people have been stabbed in the street this year who weren’t wearing stab proof vests.

Boris no friend of bus users

The mayor of London's transport plans came under renewed fire after it emerged 26 million kilometres (16.2 million miles) of bus trips will go.

Boris Johnson's plan will see the bus subsidy slashed by 37%, resulting in the drop in journeys. It comes days after a 12.7% fare rise was announced.

Cycling in the rain

My pics today have a fuzzy soft-focus appearance, because it was raining hard and my camera got wet. My day began at the Bell corner, where the A503 meets the A112. I was interested to note that even when there are two Police Community Support Officers standing on the corner looking out for crime and anti-social behaviour, with a police van nearby, two car drivers still entered the Advanced Stop Line where I was waiting at the red light. The PCSOs strolled across the road and went past without batting an eyelid. Which was when I rode through the light at red, having ascertained it was safe to do so. I am not obeying road traffic law when the police are blatantly choosing not to enforce lawless driving which intimidates and threatens cyclists.

On into central Walthamstow.

There were bitter protests from pedestrians in the local paper about the temporary traffic lights at the junction of Hoe Street and Selborne Road, by Walthamstow Central tube station, which only supplied signals for drivers, putting walkers in peril by forcing them to cross as many as five lanes of traffic. The following week there were bitter protests by drivers about the massive tailbacks which the temporary traffic light phasing was causing. There were no complaints from one other road user group, even though the dedicated crossing lights for cyclists were also switched off. In response to the bad publicity Transport for London has switched on the lights for pedestrians, reinstated the signals for motorists - and left the cycling lights switched off and hooded. Because cyclists are crap and deserve to be treated like crap. Below: the cycle crossing of six lanes of traffic. Still switched off, still hooded.







































(below) You may not have noticed but this is Alcohol Awareness Week. And on Selborne Road in the Alcohol Restriction Zone it's being celebrated in the traditional way!
























(Below) As they get off the bus in Courtenay Place, visitors are greeted by the sign WELCOME TO WALTHAMSTOW - and this.






















(Below) On the far side of the bus terminus in Courtenay Mews E17 you can relax on a leather sofa and see how well the Council is winning the war on 'enviro crime'.























(Below) Why is it in art galleries you never see still lifes entitled 'Cycle stand with mattress and pool of vomit'? Pretoria Avenue E17.



























(Below) And just above the mattress and the vomit is this reminder to lock your bike. And presumably with the stressed-out cyclist in mind, just underneath is a sticker advertising a relaxing massage from 'European girls'.



























Cycling in Waltham Forest is enough to make anyone turn to drink. And, hey, look what's in the Alcohol Restriction Zone, close to the lovely sign! A Becks, yesh, thash just what I need...

More Boris bluster

You can't use fiscal instruments to drive people off the road entirely. You simply can't do that. You've got to look at the reality of peoples' lives in Outer London.

That’s right, Boris, out here on the edge of London it’s virtually impossible to function without a car. All we have locally is the Chingford to Liverpool Street overground line, the Victoria line tube from Walthamstow Central to Brixton via Oxford Street, and the Central Line from Leytonstone through Stratford, Liverpool Street and Oxford Street. Then there’s a vast bus service, not to mention those glorious 40 miles of cycle lanes and quiet routes. The sheer impossibility of travel without four wheels and an engine, not to mention the danger, is why more and more local households are choosing to acquire 4X4 off-road vehicles, and more and more households are acquiring second, third and even fourth vehicles.

Acknowledging this desperate need, Waltham Forest council is about to embark on a major new programme of parking bays, on pavements and alongside cycle lanes.

In Outer London, the car is the dominant mode of transport for trips originating there, accounting for 52 per cent of all trips by residents.

Due to the dispersed nature of trips in Outer London, the role of the car is acknowledged as sometimes necessary, particularly for medium to longer distance trips.

Exactly. You have to drive the kids to school, then drive to work, then pop into Tesco on the way home for a ready meal. Life would be impossible without a car, and heaven knows how people managed it before the 1960s when, can you believe it, most British households didn’t own a car.

So thanks, Boris, for reminding everyone that the reality of life out here in Outer London is that the car is king and cycling and walking are crap. And if you want to cycle from Walthamstow to Hackney you have a choice of this or this:






















(Above) The Coppermill Lane cycle route. A crumbling surface which frequently floods, and to get under the railway bridge on a bike you have to bend over your handlebars and press your nose to your front tyre. A cyclist was raped here a few years ago. As Boris's own transport document released on 12 October acknowledged, “Fears about personal safety are a significant barrier to starting or continuing cycling.”

And if you want to walk from Walthamstow to Tottenham you have to negotiate crap like this.

A cyclist gives up

Jane Gill has given up cycling through Chatteris after being knocked off her bicycle for the second time in six months.

And guess who knocked her off her bike!

Another hit and run driver gets the kid glove treatment

Vauxhall Corsa driver Andrew Bartlett, 20, of Hamer Close, Bovingdon, collided with a bicycle being ridden by George Cooper in Box Lane at about 11.30pm on Saturday, August 8.

Although Bartlett left the scene, police matched debris left behind to Bartlett's damaged car and he was arrested at his home address three days later.

On Friday Hemel Hempstead magistrates banned Bartlett from driving for nine months.

He received a 16-week prison sentence which was suspended for 18 months. A contribution to prosecution costs of £85 was ordered to be paid.

It’s integration!

With-flow and contra-flow cycle lane in High Road Leytonstone – again integrated into the tegular blockwork design of the traffic-calmed town centre.

London Borough of Waltham Forest transport document

And the tegular brickwork patterning is so effective at deterring drivers from entering that generously wide cycle lane, is it not?


























Also note how effective building the M11 Link Road has been in reducing congestion on this street. As New Civil Engineer enthused at the time

The A12 Hackney to M11 link road should soon bring to an end almost a century of traffic jams in the East End.

The M11 Link Road is less than 4 miles long, & yet cost £250 million, destroyed 350 homes & acres of green space.

But then you wouldn't want to waste money on that scale on walking and cycling, would you? Everybody know that the only way to cure congestion is to build more roads.