NHS and the cycling revolution

The NHS website gushes enthusiastically about the many and varied benefits of cycling.


"Cycling is one of the easiest ways to fit exercise into your daily routine because it's also a form of transport. That means it saves you money, gets you fit and contributes to a cleaner environment."


it says here.


So when I had occasion recently to go to St James Health Centre in Walthamstow, I could be forgiven for imagining that there might be some cycle parking provision to encourage everyone on this form of transport?

How many cycle parking stands did I find?










That's right. 


None. 
.
.
.
Nothing. Zero. Zilch. 
.
.
.
Diddly Squat.




As can be seen in the picture, it is hardly as if they don't have the room to put in a couple of sheffield stands. In fact, around the corner they have a railing for padlocking prams and buggies, but it is too high for cycles. Putting in a group of sheffield stands in the area would allow both pram users and cyclists to use them securely.


In the picture one can just make out one cycle tied to the staircase - I had to secure my bicycle outside the front door where there was a support pillar to the porch.


According to the NHS website, cycling can help reduce stress. Well, not if you spend ages trying to find somewhere to secure your cycle, and then the entire doctor's appointment worrying about your cycle security.


This website page is cycling eco-fluff which is so at odds with reality one wonders if the authors have ever ridden a cycle, or indeed stepped outside their front door.

Cycling Vindicated

Today was one of those days that I remember why I dusted off my old cycle several years ago. Traffic around Central Walthamstow was horrid with jams in pretty much every direction.


I cycled around the shops and back home several times today, completing all my shopping tasks in a fraction of the time required if I had driven. Although one may need an assertive disposition with the filtering at times, the drivers today were models of careful driving with not one close pass (barely any overtakes with the state of the traffic) and some making room for me to pass.So I thank them for their courtesy.


It is days like this that makes me remember the frustration of driving in the local area. Sometimes it will take over 30 minutes to go a couple of miles, and then half an hour later you can return in the opposite direction to see the traffic has cleared and the same journey would now take 5 minutes. There seems little reason for these sudden snarl-ups, apart from the fact that the roads are so narrow that it only takes one blocked junction or badly parked vehicle for everything to be affected.


Sometimes when I go past these jams, I want to talk to the drivers and say "I was in your situation a few years ago, and I hated it. Do yourself a favour and hop on a bicycle and regain your Saturday". But I doubt it would be well received, and it sounds a bit too evangelical for me. I imagine becoming the cycling equivalent of the Jehovahs Witnesses - earnestly pressing the latest copy of the London Cycling Campaign newsletter into reluctant hands. Besides if everyone started cycling, then there would be no stationary traffic to vindicate my decision to use a cycle....

Racer Rosa

Local Walthamstow firm, Racer Rosa, has been getting some publicity recently - probably the most high profile being in The Guardian.

Local blogger, Archipelago of Truth,  is not so convinced of the green credentials and motivation of the company, and gave the company quite a brutal write-up, followed up by spirited comments by the author of the The Guardian piece, Simon Munk.

I have to say that I am never totally convinced of the "ethical argument", and normally want to shoot down eco-fluff at 50 paces. 

For sure Rosa's website contains more than a smattering of both, enough to raise my hackles somewhat. And the cycles themselves appear to be trendy fixies for the ultra-cool. Even if I got one of these bicycles, I doubt I would be their average customer, and probably wouldn't make it onto their promotional material - the receding hairline, paunch and panniers full of shopping topped off by economy pack of pampers wouldn't fit with their image.

In essence, Rosa is either taking old steel frames, or frames hand built in Italy, and creating a fixie cycle with some cool retro equipment and a trendy stripped down look. And the "cool" factor is reflected in the prices - with some around £1000.

But I find it hard to be too cynical of this business. For a start they are actually making something  in my local area, something which should always be encouraged. They are making bicycles which may be saving some nice frames and putting them to good use, and the end result, judging from the photos, look good quality.

So, even if the ethical and eco angle is a bit over-egged for my sensibilities, I still think a local business putting together a nice product should be encouraged.

As for me, my bicycle is a full retro mountain bicycle nearing its 20th birthday, in large part still retaining its original equipment. And when anything goes wrong I will tend to fix and cobble together rather than throw away and buy new. I thought all this was because I was cheap and skint, but now, thanks to the Racer Rosa website,  I realise it is because I am ethical and eco-aware. 

Roll Call of (Dis)Honour

I would like to take time out to thank those drivers today who made my journeys by cycle just that little bit less enjoyable than it might have been.

Firstly, I would like to thank the owner of the old black Audi TT that helpfully sounded his horn a couple of times as he sped past. Since the road was wide, and there was loads of room to overtake, I assume this wasn't done in frustration, but as a helpful notification that I was about the be passed by an idiot driving way above the 30mph speed limit in a cast-off hairdressers car. Still, the driver could remain anonymous as he had fitted illegal privacy glass - it must take a certain special narcissism to believe everyone might want to look at him.

Secondly, I would like to mention the owner of the silver mini-car / shopping cart thing that pulled out directly into my path near Bakers Arms. Clearly not a multi-tasker, as he didn't seem able to hold a conversation with a mobile clamped to his ear and look for traffic at the same time.

But lastly, a very special mention should be given to the owner of some old red family hatch crap-wagon that undertook a line of traffic on Eastway, and pretty much ran me off the road in the process. Just to end up 100M down the road stuck at the traffic lights. It takes a special kind of stupidity to be this careless and thoughtless. If there was any justice in the world, you would have your license taken away and be allowed no possession more dangerous than a plastic spoon.

I thank you all.

Waltham Forest's Cycle Superhighways

Boris' superhighways haven't got to Waltham Forest yet. But despair not, we don't need them.


No, the council has provided us with 23 miles of  cycle lanes for us to enjoy.

Like this one - leading up to the junction between Hoe Street and Selbourne road. You know, the junction which has had non-operational cycle lights for over a year.


On the Waltham Forest website, it boasts that generally the cycle lanes are 1.2M - 1.5M in width. Obviously this piece of road is one of the few exceptions, seeing as this cycle lane isn't 1M at its widest, and narrows at the top of the picture to virtually nothing. But, I understand, they couldn't fit in a decent sized cycle lane, three lanes for traffic, and an advertising hoarding into the space could they? Something clearly has to give.


Although, to be fair, the council has tried to protect the cyclist by making it for the sole use of cyclists - as indicated by the unbroken white line. Or, the line would be unbroken had it not been worn away by all the vehicles straying into it....

Or take this example - just one part of the 23 miles of cycle lanes the council has bestowed upon us. This time in Forest Road. Just before the lamp-post that features in my previous blog - the one that just can't stop attracting cars.


The council has provided us cyclists with a test of nerve just in case we were getting bored just simply cycling safely. Yes, we need to try to use the cycle lane, whilst not being doored by cars that can legally use the parking bays at any time. Whilst also trying to avoid speeding motorists squeezing between us cyclists and the pedestrian refuge. One false move and you could be bouncing between parked and speeding cars like some kind of macabre pinball game.


The parking spaces are outside the Five Star Fish Bar. It is a very popular fish and chip takeaway - and rightly so, the fish and chips are excellent. But couldn't those picking up their dinner by car be inconvenienced ever so slightly by only providing parking away from the corner? It would appear the council thinks not.


Boris can stuff his cycle superhighways. We already have 'em in Waltham Forest.

Boris Bikes and Super Highways

I am not grumpy all the time. Not all cycling initiatives in London are misguided or unworkable.


The Cycle Hire Scheme, proposed by Ken and implemented by Boris, is something that looks like being greater than the sum of its parts.


Already generating more column inches about cycling in London than anything else I have ever seen,  60,000 people have signed up and 250,000 journeys made since it started at the end of July.


This is whilst the scheme requires you to sign up on the website and purchase a key. When the "casual hire" capability is introduced, I would think that more tourists and day visitors to central London would be tempted to use the facility instead of bus or tube.


Of course, it hasn't gone completely smoothly. But glitches should be expected, and considering the scheme was rolled out quite quickly, I think the problems have actually been less than one might have feared.


There are also criticisms of the concept of the scheme. Sure, it won't suddenly change model share overnight.  But this to miss the point somewhat. Of those 250,000 journeys, there will be people who have swapped taxis, tube or bus for a bicycle. Having done it once they will probably do it again. There will be more people for whom a cycle trip becomes just another option - it normalises cycling as a mode of transport. 


Time will tell with this. I hope it is a success. In these economic times, £140M sounds a lot of money for anything (even though it would barely get a rail, underground or road project started), so failure means further cycle projects would probably be more difficult to fund. 


Of course, I cannot be optimistic for long. If the Hire Scheme could become greater than the sum of its parts, it looks like the Cycle Super Highways are going to be considerably less.


I haven't tried them out myself, but the videos of Gaz545 on Youtube have featured in blogs and online newspapers enough for us to get a general idea of them. Such as this video which shows the "superhighway" as a thin strip of blue paint in a bus lane, pretty much completely blocked by ...errr... a bus.


I struggle to understand who the cycle superhighways are aimed at. Hardened cycle commuters were already using these roads, and will probably eschew any type of ill-conceived cycle-lane. Novices will hardly be reassured by the fact that they are being cut up whilst on blue tarmac as opposed to red. People who have never cycled before are unlikely to be swayed by these types of cycle lanes - it is hardly likely that concerns about the safety of cycling are going to be addressed by a strip of blue tarmac which is full of cars, motorbikes and buses.


There appears to have been some improvements to some junctions and the fitting of trixi mirrors  seems a good idea. But, at £22M, the scheme should be more than this.


I think the cycle-superhighways are somewhat doomed. At the moment the funding and will to make proper infrastructure that makes a difference is simply not there. So, from grand plans one actually gets the same cycle infrastructure crap, but just a different colour. Hardly progress.

Calculating Cycling Success in Waltham Forest

Unless Waltham Forest Borough are just trying to wind me up, judging from their website they believe they are doing sterling work in promoting cycling.

After all, they have won awards. Although the exact nature of these awards is unspecified, I would hazard a guess that this says more about the quality of the opposition than the winner. Or someone in the council headquarters knocked up some awards from a subbuteo FA Cup and a piece of wood with "best cycle lane" written in crayon, and then proceeded to award it to themselves.

Anyhow, the website is also telling in the criteria by which they measure their success.

Here they describe their "facilities" on the road. The key metric being the number of miles of them. I am not sure that the number of miles that someone has gone around the borough painting a white line at the edge of the road completely measures the quality of the provision.

They also mention that generally the cycle lanes are between 1.2m to 1.5m. The word generally is probably most telling. I can think off the top of my head a whole number of places in the borough, many cases on busy roads, where even this miserly 1.2m width simply isn't true.

And no mention of the general quality of the provision. So we have cycle lanes running right next to parked cars, inviting the cyclist to be doored, we have lanes just terminating in locations which leave the cyclist vulnerable and worse off than if it wasn't there, we have lanes so narrow that you can barely fit a cycle in it.

I don't know who designs some of the cycle lanes in the borough, but I want to force them to use them every-day until they come to their senses and realise that the ability to paint white lines is not the same as creating decent cycle provision.