Wednesday 25 November 2009

A prize-winning cycle route























(Above) This is where the Orient Way off-road cycle lane, which won the London Cycling Campaign Best Cycle Route Award in 2001, joins the on-road cycle lane in Ruckholt Road in Leyton, where cycle counts show an increase in daily cycling from 329 in 1998 to 837 in 2007. In other words, the finest and most successful cycling in the entire London Borough of Waltham Forest. Yesterday.

(Below) This is how it should be, unobstructed. A design which requires cyclists to emerge without either warning or physical protection into the path of high volume, fast-moving traffic, at a location where many drivers are undoubtedly breaking the 30 mph speed limit.

You have to ask if the increase in cycling in London is because of cycling infrastructure like this, or despite it. And is a continuing increase in cycling in the capital likely when this is the sort of environment the novice cyclist has to encounter?








































(Below) Just beyond where the Orient Way cycle lane joins Ruckholt Road, the carriageway cycle lane is regularly obstructed by vehicles servicing the car sales showroom on the corner of Ruckholt Road and Oliver Road E10. (November 3rd.)