Infrastructure update

Spectacular cycle lane in Chingford Road

The above cycle lane demonstrates all that is wrong with Waltham Forest's cycle "infrastructure". Although clearly they think it is fine as they have repeated another cycle lane next to parked cars on the way back as well. 

The road is full of speeding cars, so cycling in this lane invites the cyclist to get doored and then flung in the path of a fast moving car - like some macabre cyclist pin-ball game.

I cycle slightly to the right of the white line, thus clearing the door zone, but inviting motorists to close pass me as punishment for not using the cycle facility kindly provided by their "road tax".

Appalling facilities like the one above are doing more harm than good, and is tokenism of the worst kind (the kind that might get a cyclist killed). Waltham Forest would do better by cyclists if they didn't bother at all in this case. But then I guess if they removed all the "facilities" that were useless or dangerous then they wouldn't be able to claim that they have 23 miles of cycle routes.

Interestingly, I have never seen a Waltham Forest document that details how many miles of these cycle routes are actually helping the cyclist.

The Olympic Threat

London 2012 is aiming for 100% of spectators to get to the Games by public transport, or by walking or cycling.


Which is nice. Presumably this doesn't include the spectators who have "VIP" status and thus can be whisked from their plush west-end hotels to the venue via the VIP lanes. One can sympathise with the VIPs though. They couldn't possibly stay in the East London boroughs hosting the games. Regeneration is all well and good, but it only goes so far.


Anyway, those of us constituting the  great unwashed are being encouraged to walk, cycle etc. to the games. Except now the police have decided the towpath running next to the venue could be used for a bomb attack, so intend closing three miles of it. I am not sure what alternatives may be considered for the hoards of walkers and cyclists - maybe the world-class cycling provision around Eastway could help? Except, silly me, this route may be used by the VIPs to get to their private car parks - like the one proposed on a popular playing fields in Leyton.


Interestingly, the tow path has, according to the Evening Standard report, "received a multi-million pound upgrade for the Games". Either there is another tow path next to the River Lee and the Olympic stadium, or the Standard has got this wrong, or the Olympic Authority hired some very dodgy contractors to do the work, because this is what the tow path looked like about two weeks ago.

Roads are too narrow for cyclists

According to the Evening Standard here,  some believe that roads in London just too narrow to accommodate cyclists. Some of the residents of Narrow Street in Limehouse are objecting to the cycle super-highway using their road. Such is their concern that they are going to court to try to stop it.

This is a section of the road they believe too narrow to squeeze a cyclist through.


View Larger Map

So, it looks like the issue isn't that Narrow Street is too narrow to fit cyclists down it, but that it might be too narrow to fit two lanes of speeding trucks and cars, and a parking lane, and cyclists down it.

It appears that the action may be resulting in TfL looking at the A13 for cyclists. That would be the A13 that looks like this


View Larger Map

One can just imagine novice cyclists and school children happily cycling along this piece of infrastructure.

Ironically, Narrow Street, is where Boris and an entourage of TfL bigwigs narrowly escaped death when a truck passed them at what looked like a reckless speed whilst the rear doors swung open, and caught a parked car. The doors of the truck had been "secured" with a coat hanger. I don't know if the driver was ever prosecuted, and I am fairly certain that none of the residents protesting about the CSH were also protesting about lawless truck drivers endangering lives through utter negligence. The video can be found on the BBC site here.

Latest Round of Applause

I would like to thank some people, without whom my cycling journeys in the last couple of days would have been rendered uneventful - possibly even pleasant.

Firstly, a huge thankyou to the Blue Ford Focus driver yesterday on Hoe Street. Despite me "taking the lane" due to a traffic jam only around 20 metres further along the road and the narrowness of the road you still decided to try to overtake. A very special decision considering that a bus was coming the other way at the time. I was disappointed though to see the lack of perseverance in the face of a double decker and that you eventually stopped head-to-head. I was expecting at least an effort to run me into the railings at the time. I am most impressed by the lack of concentration  - many drivers claim not to have seen cyclists, but to not see a double decker bus travelling towards you takes it to a whole new level. Take a bow.

Next, please put your hands together for the Advance Cars Silver MPV on Hoe Street yesterday that, whilst sitting in traffic, decided to swing violently into the cycle lane for absolutely no reason. I have to say that you could have improved your timing. I was only level with your back wheels so could brake very hard and go around you - had you left it another second or so you could have really got me. No idea if it was intentional or not - for some reason you didn't make eye-contact with the irate cyclist as I went past.

Lastly, I think a special mention is required for the old blue car (Toyota I think) that displayed an innovative interpretation of the highway code by reversing the wrong way up Ruby Road (a one way street) to find a parking space, instead of going around the little "one way system".  It was genius, spoiled only by the fact that a pesky cyclist was in the way (I swerved quickly to allow the manoeuvre to be completed), and for the pedestrians crossing the road who didn't expect a car reversing quickly in the wrong direction. Although completely illegal, it did manage to save you 30 seconds to travel down the next road and back up Ruby Road. So congratulations.

Ferry Lane Cycle Slalom still in action.

I rode down Ferry lane again today. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the seemingly never ending roadworks necessitating road signs and cones to be scattered around the cycle lane is still there.

I have reported to fillthathole. I shall see if this spurs Haringey council into a flurry of activity.

The road to cycling hell is paved with strategy meetings

On Freewheeler's blog, he mentions that there is a cycle conference going on in Edinburgh this weekend.


It would appear that with cycling, one can never have too many strategy meetings.


Later on in the blog one learns that Edinburgh city has signed up to the charter of Brussels which commits to 15% cycle modal share in the city by 2020. Which is ambitious considering the modal share is less than 5% at the moment. I do wonder what may happen if they don't meet this target by 2020. Will transport officials lose their jobs? The city be fined? Or, more likely, will they decide to hold another strategy meeting to arrive at some further targets a suitably long way in the future?


There seems to be no limit to the number of organisations, the number of committees, the volume of strategy documents or marketing initiatives that can be formulated around cycling. 


But increasing cycling modal share has been done before - we aren't in uncharted territory here. These committees could look to what Holland did in the 1970's, or Copenhagen in the 1980's or what is happening in some cities right now, to gain a good understanding of what is required to significantly change cycling modal share. And all these examples point to provision of decent cycle infrastructure, coupled with shifting road priority from cars to cycling.


But this solution involves spending money, and making difficult decisions. So UK cyclists are left with reams of documents with good intentions and crap infrastructure designed only to look like cyclist provision is being put in place, but without actually inconveniencing the motorist. 


Instead we are told to believe that vehicular cycling is the way to go. That mixing it with cars, vans, and HGVs on roads that have little or no consideration for the cyclist's needs is going to somehow get anyone but the most hardy on a bike. Even the most basic shifts in emphasis in law to help protect vulnerable road users - such as presumed liability - is not considered in the UK, even though it is standard in many European countries. In fact we have the opposite happening where judges are reducing sentences given out for motorists convicted of dangerous driving where a cyclist was killed (Jorgensen v. Moore), because the victim wasn't wearing a helmet. This was without the judge hearing any evidence about whether a helmet would have even reduced the injuries, and certainly had no bearing on the actual offence of dangerous driving itself. It defies belief.




I find myself on this blog being cynical and sarcastic. But then I consider the ecofluff rhetoric bandied about by local authorities and contrast it with the useless, dangerous crap  that actually gets implemented. I look at the videos and experiences posted on the web where cyclists are put in danger by negligent and aggressive motorists . I read about the fact that what a victim of dangerous driving is wearing at the time can mitigate the punishment, so killing a cyclist by dangerous driving can result in a suspended sentence and just a 2 year driving ban. Finally, I look at organisations like TfL that will spend money making funky cycling videos, but when required to make more difficult choices revert to the status-quo whilst spouting platitudes. The fact that the Tfl operated cycle lights in Hoe Street are switched off indefinitely because of a "clash" with the motorist phase tells us all we need to know about the true priority cycling has in organisations such as these. When I consider all of this I realise we shouldn't be cynical.




We should be very angry.

Keeping Waltham Forest Roads Safe

Whilst cycling around Walthamstow today, I was encouraged to see two vehicles on the streets making sure that Walthamstow's streets are purged of anti-social driving.


At around 3:30pm I saw a Waltham Forest enforcement tow truck going down Hoe Street. I tried to make eye contact with the driver to thank him for his sterling efforts in the war against motorists, but he was too busy chatting into the mobile phone glued to his ear.


Later on around 4:30pm I saw a Waltham Forest Enforcement Smart Car at the Higham Hill Road junction with Forest Road. He was doing great work making sure that other cars didn't encroach on the ASL by driving his car into fully into it whilst the lights were at red.


With dedicated staff battling the war against anti-social and dangerous motoring,  I am sure we will create a road network anyone could feel safe cycling on.