This Westminster crap: I saw it coming

It’s not that I’m some kind of mystical psychic – anyone who heard Councillor Edward Argar speak at the Living Streets event in March must have known that Westminster council’s plan for cycling would be dire.

Other bloggers have covered the plans already – As Easy As Riding A Bike, Cyclists In The City, and Rachel Aldred – so I will let you read their scrutiny of the document (key phrase: “where feasible”). I had already half-written this post after the Living Streets event, and now seems like a good time to finish it.

Cllr Argar is the cabinet member for transport at Westminster Council. For those of you unfamiliar with local London politics, just know that the capital is a disjointed mess of territorial factions.

As Westminster lies physically at the centre of London, Cllr Argar is in a position of influence and power, and the decisions he makes will affect not only those who live and work in his patch of London, but also the huge number of people who have no option but to pass through the exhaust-choked hell hole.

I’m sure Cllr Argar will go far, a seat in the Commons isn’t out of the question. To me, he seemed like the stereotypical smooth-talking career politician who smiles as he tells you what you want to hear, while really meaning the opposite. He reminded me of Tony Blair.

Many things he said were pure motor-centrism, lightly dressed in eco-friendly terms. He even trotted out the bullshit “narrow streets” excuse as if it bore any relation to reality. (See this and this on As Easy As Riding A Bike if you think Cllr Argar is correct.)

Another annoying phrase of his was “we need to maintain the traffic balance”. This suggests that Cllr Argar thinks Westminster already has some kind of “traffic balance” rather than the total motor dominance which they have been planning and engineering for decades. This is clearly just a way of saying ‘Westminster ♥ Cars’ while sounding like he wants to embrace cycling.

“The balance of traffic” as seen by Westminster council. They could have this on their wall for all I know.

This belief that the current system is normal and natural (and that any change is an unfair aberration which mustn’t affect the human right of rich people to drive absolutely everywhere) is one of the fundamental stumbling blocks which campaigners for better streets frequently face.

It’s clearly nonsense. The current road system was created by men and women in thrall to the motor car, to encourage more driving. It intentionally marginalises anybody using any non-motorised method of travel. For Cllr Argar to suggest that Westminster’s streets are designed with any sort of balance is preposterous, and I expect he knows it is.

London’s left ventricle is blocked but the hospital won’t operate

When the topic of parking in Soho came up, Cllr Argar spoke of residents parking cars outside their homes as if that’s a reasonable thing to do. IN SOHO! For those of you who haven’t visited London’s famous Soho, it’s an area of narrow streets full of cafés, bars and sex shops. It’s packed with tourists on foot, yet the council thinks it’s some kind of fundamental right for the few (no doubt wealthy) people who live there and own some huge 4×4 to park it on the street outside.

Who the hell needs a car in Soho? This is a neighbourhood slap bang in the centre of one of the world’s great cities, pretty much everything you could want is within walking distance 24 hours a day, anything else is just a short bus or tube ride away (Soho is surrounded by bus routes and London Underground stations in all directions) and there’s no shortage of taxis around there either. In short it’s the type of location which most people can only dream of, and with fantastic transport links too – and yet it’s seen as acceptable to own and keep a car there. Why is this?

Westminster’s streets are too narrow for cycling, apparently, but they’re wide enough for huge fucking Jeeps. (Photo: Google Maps)

If you are able-bodied, live in Soho and keep a car there, you are a selfish bastard and I hate you. If you want to keep a car outside you should have moved somewhere else instead. There’s plenty of houses with driveways in Doncaster.

But I must reserve most of my ire for Cllr Argar and his fume-loving cronies. Why do they encourage keeping cars in the very centre of London? (Though to be fair to Westminster, even usually cycling-friendly Camden is pandering to central London car owners, too.)

Surely the vast majority of Soho residents don’t keep a car on the street, and almost all visitors will arrive on foot. So why give such prime land to a lazy over-privileged minority, when the bulk of residents, visitors and business owners would benefit from reclaiming the streets for humans?

I was Dick Whittington’s cat

When I moved from the suburbs of the Motorway City of the 1970s (aka Leeds) to central London, I was pleased to be selling my car. It was a burden lifted from my shoulders. No more MOT, no more insurance, no more VED, no more parking charges, no more servicing, no more wondering if the mechanic is a cowboy, no more worrying about car thieves. I was moving somewhere which has buses running all day and night, somewhere with fast trains to the furthest reaches of the city and beyond, somewhere a car would be more hassle and cost than benefit. And then some workmen came and installed two dozen blue bikes over the road – heaven! Who would want to own a car here?

The councils could help more people feel this way. I can’t imagine that many people who live in Soho stay there for decades. Why couldn’t Westminster council say “no new parking permits will be issued”? That way, anybody moving to the area knows that they can’t keep a car on the street there, and must either pay to keep it on private property or live without a car (the horror!).

The council could even say to existing residents “all parking permits will be invalid in three years’ time” – that would give people plenty of time to sell their car, or move elsewhere if owning a car is that important to them.

I can’t see landlords losing out, as flats in Soho must so incredibly in demand that there would be plenty of people willing to live there car-free.

So why does Cllr Argar talk of these Soho car owners’ right to park as if it’s inalienable?

So let me say this now: Pedestrianise Soho!

While I’m on the subject…

I might as well mention that Westminster seems to have more than its fair share of junctions without any pedestrian light phase – so there are always cars coming from somewhere, and people on foot are expected to run across the road with their fingers crossed.

Who designed this? Why is this acceptable in 2013? How on earth do people who can’t run tackle these streets? This is motor-centric design in a nutshell, the physical manifestation of the 1950s vehicular wet dream.

Is this the “balance of traffic” which Cllr Argar is so keen to retain?

I’ve no idea how people with impaired mobility cross here. Also, nice stopping, dickwad! (Photo: Google Maps)

Westminster aren’t the only highways authority who do this, but for a council which is in charge of an area packed with tourists wandering on foot, this type of design feels criminal, death and injury waiting to happen.

As children we’re all taught to wait for the green man, but if we put this into practice here we’d be waiting forever.

(Also, look how wide that street is!)

 

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P.S. I hope nobody minds, but I just read this comment on Cyclists in the City’s post about Westminster’s plans for cycling and I think it’s relevant and so well-put that it’s worth repeating here:

Jim 6 May 2013 15:24

I don’t see it as all that contradictory, as there’s a certain crazed consistency to Westminster’s approach here. The target of 5% mode share is laughably low, but the only way to ensure cycling remains so unpopular in a place where its speed and low cost give it such an advantage over other modes of road transport is to have strongly anti-cycling street design and overall transport policies – which pretty much describes the strategy as a whole. If you understand that they’re planning to fail, then it starts to make lots of sense.

Having said that, they’re obviously hoping that TfL will come up with something high-quality enough on a couple of main roads to fool some people into thinking that Westminster really is a ‘national leader in cycling provision’, without Westminster itself having to do anything to earn it. And if that happens, cycling numbers will continue to grow in Westminster while the streets they control remain as dangerous as ever. Which means that casualties will continue to rise.

I hope Andrew Gilligan and TfL don’t fall for it: Westminster have to change, or the Mayor’s cycling vision won’t succeed.

TfL starting from scratch: “How many corners should a wheel have?”

I got an email today from London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon. It wasn’t personal, it was sent out to what I assume is her cycling email list.

Now, as far as I can tell, Caroline is one of the good guys when it comes to cycling. She’s chair of the Transport Committee which was behind the London Assembly’s report into cycling last year, and – while nearly everybody was saying how wonderful Boris’ cycling daydream Vision was – she was calling on the Mayor to increase funding for cycling projects, while the cycling hero Boris and his Conservative comrades were preventing an additional increase to the cycling budget.

I don’t want this post to turn into a party political broadcast for whatever party Ms Pidgeon is a member of, I merely mention these things because she seems to have been batting consistently for cycling while Boris has been making excuses over the past five years. Please let me know in the comments if I’m wrong!

Anyway, this email contained the following:

“Peter Hendy, the Commissioner at Transport for London … stated that TfL and the Boroughs lacked sufficient expertise… Their approach will be to focus on a handful of projects and learn as they go. …TfL hopes they will be able to test what interventions work…”

TfL are admitting that they lack sufficient expertise, and yet they’re planning to spend millions of pounds inventing their own cycling infrastructure?

I know I made this point before, but why hasn’t anybody from TfL been sent on David Hembrow’s study tour? Apparently they considered it but decided not to (probably because that would mean they’d have to actually do it right which might mean upsetting the motor-centric Network Assurance goons). As they’re planning to spend hundreds of millions of pounds in the next few years, I reckon a few grand and a week in Assen would be an incredibly good investment at a bargain price, all things considered.

But instead TfL would rather figure it all out for themselves from scratch. This is madness – all the research is available from the Netherlands, which went through the learning process 35 years ago (and is still improving its cycling facilities). They made the mistakes so we don’t have to.

Yet TfL will “test what interventions work”? We already know what interventions work! They’re going to play around with our money, making it up as they go along because they can’t be arsed to go see what makes roads in the Netherlands work so well.

Attempting to massively increase cycling without looking to the world’s number one cycling nation is a waste of money. TfL will inevitably spend millions of pounds experimenting with the same things that the Dutch tried in the 1970s and 1980s, before finding that they’re not good enough. Meanwhile, people will continue to die because our roads are badly and incompetently designed.

Do we want more experiments such as the untried-and-untested Cycle Superhighways which  failed so miserably – native, home-grown TfL engineering at its best? Or do we want to learn from global best practice – i.e. the Netherlands?

Why are TfL refusing to learn from the experts? Why are they seemingly so keen on reinventing the wheel and starting from scratch?

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Addendum: Caroline is asking for cycling and road safety issues or questions that people would like her to put to the Mayor. You can email her at Caroline (dot) Pidgeon (at) london.gov.uk (obviously, type it out properly, I’ve mangled it here to prevent auto-junkmail software reading it).

Andrew Gilligan versus TfL’s love for motor vehicles

You know what? This Andrew Gilligan chap might not be half bad. I went to a talk last week at which he was the main event, and I went in full cynical miserable sod mode as usual, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Now, all the excitement about the Mayor’s cycling “Vision” has died down and is giving way to more sober scrutiny, although I wonder why we cycling campaigners weren’t cheering for Caroline Pidgeon rather than Boris all those weeks ago. (We have a voice in the London Assembly who has seen the Vision and is calling for more! Surely we should be behind that 100%?)

Having said that, I do like a lot of the language in the “Mayor’s Vision” document, which was written by Gilligan. There’s lots of bold statements about doing things right and about treating cycling as a proper mode of transport, all of which is very pleasing to the cycle campaigner’s eye. At the talk he told us that he accepts that installing cycle paths will sometimes increase journey times for motor vehicles – something which was heresy at TfL a couple of years ago, and probably remains so in certain quarters.

He was also very blunt about some of the crap cycle infrastructure which has been installed in recent years (yes, he used the word “crap”), openly admitting that much of what’s been done, and what continues to be done, simply isn’t anywhere near good enough.

But there’s also some rather less bold statements, about shared bus-and-bike lanes for example (Will motorbikes and taxis still be allowed in them? Is it fair that 50 bus passengers have to wait behind me as I ride at a casual 8mph?), and a strange faith in the power of mandatory cycle lanes (“which motor vehicles cannot enter” – ha!), but still, things seem to be pointing in the right general direction at least.

I was rather disappointed by Gilligan’s target of 5% cycling modal share by 2020, which I consider to be rather unambitious, but at least he did explain his reasoning behind this, which is that it’s a larger increase than anywhere else has managed, so a higher target is very unlikely. (Though I wonder if he’s taken the awfulness of rush-hour public transport into consideration – surely Londoners would flock to a safe, free alternative to the Central line?). I may disagree with the figure, but at least he put some thought into it unlike Edinburgh city council which picked a number out of thin air before deciding not to bother.

So even though I don’t agree with everything he says, I do like the way in which Gilligan comes across (though I suspect that’s one reason why he got the job in the first place). I think this might be because he’s a journalist and therefore skilled at communication, but also because he’s not a politician. He didn’t have to make any promises to a braying public in order to get the job, and he’s not chasing any votes in the future, so he doesn’t have to sugar coat bad news or slither his way around tricky questions. I found his honesty and candour to be quite refreshing, and I was impressed to see that he didn’t rush off immediately afterwards but instead stayed behind discussing things with attendees without even a hint of wanting to be somewhere else.

So I want this post to be read in the spirit of constructive criticism, rather than just whinging. I’m also aware that I covered this topic in my last post, but I’m going to talk about cycle paths along main roads again anyway.

Quietways should be secondary routes

At the talk on Monday there was much discussion of the Quietways and the obstacles which will need to be overcome. One big problem is that the local borough councils control most of the roads, and therefore TfL will need their co-operation (and the co-operation of residents) to implement the Quietways.

When Gilligan was giving hypothetical of the new routes which will roughly follow tube lines, he said something like “for example, you could take the Bakerloo superhighway to Baker Street then get on the Circle Quietway to Kings Cross” as he waved his hand to the south, rather than out of the north-facing window towards the wide, thundering, TfL-controlled clearway of Marylebone Road which lay right outside the building we were in.

I understand that was just an example and that he wasn’t giving us any hints about a probable route for this part of the network – he was very careful to not make any announcements like that yet – but I got out my map anyway and looked for a possible route from Baker Street to Kings Cross which didn’t involve riding along the terrifying but conveniently direct urban motorway which is the A501 (AKA Marylebone Road and Euston Road).

The Mayor’s Vision document says that “unlike the old London Cycle Network, Quietways will be direct” but it’s just not possible here. The best I could find was the red line shown below:

Dangerous but direct route (in blue), or safe but slow Quietway (in red)? The dual network awaits your selection!

In his introduction to the Vision document, Boris Johnson says: “Cycling will be treated not as niche, marginal, or an afterthought, but as what it is: an integral part of the transport network, with the capital spending, road space and traffic planners’ attention befitting that role.”

Sounds great, but that red line doesn’t look like an “integral part of the transport network” to me.

The Vision’s promise of direct Quietways simply isn’t physically possible here. I strongly suspect that if the only option was a back-street Quietway, most of those hardened commuter cyclists who already cycle from Baker Street to Kings Cross will simply continue to do so along the A501. So who is the Quietway for? Surely we’re not talking about the ridiculous “dual network” again?!

Why would TfL continue to prioritise motor traffic while keeping cycling hidden on the back streets?

Perhaps it’s because of London’s narrow medieval road system – after all, the A501 only has seven lanes for motor vehicles here and a central divider (how quaintly 10th-century!) so I guess the bike users will have to slum it where they don’t get in the way of all that very important burning of fossil fuel:

“London doesn’t have wide roads like New York City” (Pic: Google Maps)

If Boris is telling the truth, then the only option is to take space from Marylebone Road/Euston Road and turn it into cycle path. Otherwise we’re just prioritising motor vehicles yet again (“Driving from A to B? Take the straight, direct road! Cycling from A to B? Turn right, then second left, then a dog-leg at the next lights, then left, then third right…”).

The nice thing about this is that it would join up with the much-lauded Westway bike paths and – if you’ll permit me a moment of fantasy – from Kings Cross they could easily tackle Farringdon Road, Blackfriars Bridge and Road… Sort Park Lane out too, and we have a central London circular cycle route!

This is a problem which the Quietways will come up against time and time again – very often, the only direct routes between popular locations are the big, busy roads. It’s a problem which will become particularly acute anywhere near the Thames, as nearly all the bridges are heavily used by motor traffic. Unless Gilligan has a big enough budget for two-dozen new bridges along the Thames then bikes will have to be accommodated on the existing bridges, and this can only be done by taking space from motor vehicles (or the footways – this isn’t an anti-car thing – on the western side of Blackfriars Bridge where the footway is extremely wide, for example).

It’s not an insurmountable problem, but creating safe, clear space for cycling will require the cojones to take space away from motor vehicles, which I hope Andrew Gilligan has.

A focus on Quietways means the LCC’s “Go Dutch” campaign failed

Without being prepared to put bike paths on main roads such as the A501, the Mayor’s Vision is not what we wanted. David Arditti’s Go Dutch option won the LCC’s campaign vote by a huge majority, and subsequent events have shown how popular the Dutch concept is. Even after LCC’s yellow-bellied mangling of the wording, there’s only one thing that “Go Dutch: clear space for cycling on main roads in every borough” could possibly mean – Dutch-style cycle paths along main roads. (They weren’t suggesting we all speak Dutch while being tailgated by a bus, were they?)

But that’s not what the Quietways concept is.

Don’t get me wrong – the Quietways are a hugely important addition to a proper segregated network of cycle paths, but on their own they’re not the cycling revolution we’ve been promised. They shouldn’t be the primary cycling routes.

Maybe I’m being impatient here, but I worry that the Quietways is yet another attempt at providing cycling routes without adversely affecting motor traffic in any way, and which will therefore ultimately doomed to die an obscure death on the back streets.

And maybe I’m getting ahead of myself too – Gilligan didn’t give any details about the route, perhaps even the phrase “Circle Quietway from Baker Street to Kings Cross” was just a throw-away example. Perhaps they really are cooking up something exciting for the A501. I really hope so.

I really don’t want to sound down on Gilligan, as I think he gets cycling in a way that nobody of influence at TfL has done before. But by going after this seemingly easy option of the wiggly back-street routes he runs the very real danger of repeating the mistakes of the LCN and LCN+, despite aims and promises to the contrary.

Does Gilligan have the power and influence to change decades of motor-centric culture at TfL, or is he there to use his journalistic skills to put a positive spin on lacklustre efforts?

Perhaps the real battle isn’t the one which Gilligan is prepared to enter with the boroughs, but the fight with a much bigger foe, which is long overdue. I speak of every liveable London and safer streets campaigner’s worst nemesis: TfL’s Network Assurance department.

Bike paths along main roads are key

I’ve discovered a great new tool on Google Maps which shows the required cycle network in any city, town or village across the country!

Here’s how to use it:

1. Open Google Maps
2. Search for your location in the box at the top
3. Et voilà! Your cycling network map is displayed clearly.

Here’s a bike network map for central London (I’ve removed the labels so you can see the roads more clearly):

It’s the vehicular cycling network of today, and the all-citizen cycling network of tomorrow!

Here’s how it works:

• The green and orange roads are main routes which need good quality separated (aka segregated) cycle tracks. These roads are too busy to mix bikes with motor vehicles, especially the green ones.
• Most of the yellow roads require separated cycle tracks, but some of them can be made one-way or be blocked from being used as a through-route by motor traffic, in order to reduce the usefulness of them and therefore reduce the amount of motor vehicles on them.
• The thin dark lines (or white roads if you zoom in) will all be either one-way streets or filtered to make them useless as through-routes and therefore vastly reduce the amount of motor vehicles on them, and the speed limit will be 20mph or lower, so cycle paths won’t usually be required on them.

Simple, eh? How great of Google to provide us with such a tool!

I’m joking, of course, but the point I’m making is a serious one. There are many advocates for alternative routes for cycling, but the important routes are already there: they’re the main roads, the big ones which go directly from one place to another, which people are already familiar with.

So I’m not entirely convinced about the “quietways” aspect of the Mayor of London’s “Vision”  (I’m not the only one) and nor am I convinced that Hackney has cracked it for cycling.

Of course, I genuinely applaud Hackney council for the filtered-permeability measures, 20mph zones, parking restrictions and removal, and the few cycle paths which they have installed (though I doubt I’d be heard above the sound of Hackney applauding themselves) but their main roads still leave much to be desired and are generally horrible.

While 20mph zones and low-traffic streets are good in themselves (indeed, they’re an important component of a “liveable” city), on their own these measures will not enable mass cycling.

With these cheap and easy options, Hackney is going after the “low-hanging fruit” (i.e. the people who are already eager to use a bike) who will put up with inconveniences such as back-street routes. To grow the cycling rate (and demographic range) will be much more difficult – do they want children riding bikes to school, or pensioners riding bikes to the shops? Do they want people with disabilities – such as wheelchair or motorised scooter users – to be included in this transport revolution?

The problem with the “quietways-only” method favoured by Hackney is that you can’t ride very far without coming up against a large, busy road.

Let’s imagine that every single minor road and street in London had been properly traffic-calmed to a level where everybody felt safe riding a bike on them, but the busy main roads were still places full of heavy traffic where bicycles and motor vehicles were expected to mix. The “safe cycling” map of London might look like this (black lines only):

Hmm, these quietways are rather restrictive and disjointed. (Note that the black lines include walking-only routes, so it would be even worse than this. If only Hyde Park was that cycle-friendly!)

Not much use, is it? All the useful, direct routes with the places you want to go are out of reach. The streets which are inviting for cycling don’t go anywhere useful, and each neighbourhood is disconnected from the next by a main road. Even if the main roads could be crossed without actually cycling along them, it’s not a good transport system because the small streets are difficult to navigate.

This is what cycling through Hackney feels like to me. There are some fine streets, but you’ll frequently come up against horrible motor vehicle-dominated thoroughfares. It’s not a network, it’s a patchwork.

Main roads are the main roads for many reasons: They are the direct routes from A to B. They have the shops, the pubs, the dentists, etc., which people want to visit. They offer social safety, in that they’re well-lit, visible and busy.

Similarly, the back streets are quiet for a reason. They’re not direct routes to anywhere. They’re mainly residential, with few locations people wish to visit. Late at night they can be largely deserted, which leads to people fearing to use them.

“This quietway might be a little too quiet…” (Photo: Sereno Casastorta)

Why should people be relegated to fiddly routes through small streets just because they’ve chosen to ride a bike, while people driving cars have the most convenient, easy and direct routes?

Furthermore, if we really are planning for huge increases in cycling, why should these quiet residential streets be over-run with people on bikes? Can they really become a safe place for children to play if they’re also rat-runs for thousands of bike users who have no more connection with the area than a taxi cutting through from one station to another?

As far as I can see, cycle paths along main roads is the headline. Filtered permeability and 20mph zones are great, but they’re just the support act. Without dedicated bike paths on the main roads these streets are nice but disjointed fragments which will do little to encourage more cycling.

Most of the major roads in London could easily support decent cycle paths, and I suspect that’s true for much of the UK also. (Certainly, it is the case in Leeds.) It may be a politically difficult step to take, but it’s a necessary one if cycling is to become a serious transport choice for everyone.

 

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If you’re wondering how I made the custom maps, I used this.

Proof that I am completely out of touch

I’m living among lunatics – and they’re in charge! Don’t tell them, or they’ll think it’s me that’s crazy.

I have weird, deviant beliefs, you see.

Such as this: Residential streets should be for the use of residents and their visitors, not for use as rat-runs for people passing through.

I know this makes sense to you, dear reader, as you and I can see I’m making sense. But to most people out there, the idea that residential streets are for the people who live there is a strange, crazy notion which must be resisted at all costs.

I refer you to my main exhibit, a clipping from London’s main newspaper, the Evening Standard:

Am I insane, or is everyone else?

So here we have a hypothetical punter who wants to go from the tube station at Oxford Circus to the tube station at Archway, and decides that the best way to get there is by taxi.

But fair enough – maybe they have lots of luggage, or are a wheelchair user. But because the Evening Standard’s “Clever Cabbie” knows that the direct route through Camden will be congested, they can use a route which avoids the traffic jams and instead cuts through quiet residential streets.* (Well they would be quiet streets if it wasn’t for all the rat-running traffic.)

Do you live near Holmes Road or Spring Place? The Evening Standard thinks there should be more transient cars passing through here! (Photo: Google Maps)

The offensive thing is that vehicles using routes like this provide nothing of benefit to the neighbourhood, but they bring noise, fumes and danger.

Why do we allow our residential streets to be used this way? Why are routes like this even possible – shouldn’t all through-traffic be on main roads? Do councils, despite their fine talk about ‘better neighbourhoods’ and so on, secretly like these rat-runs because they reduce congestion elsewhere?

But again, this proves how out of touch I am with the general consensus. That London’s main newspaper can even consider printing such a piece (and it seems to be a regular one) shows how rat-running is considered normal, acceptable, even something to be encouraged, whereas safe and pleasant streets are the dreams of mad people like you and I.

 

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I haven’t done The Knowledge of course, but I wonder what our Clever Cabbie’s route would be if residential streets were unavailable for rat-running (as they are in any sensible country). Would they head East along Euston Road/Pentonville Road joining the A1 at Angel? Or would Caledonian Road be pressed into service?

An open letter to Aaron Rosser and TfL

I wrote this a few days ago, but I thought it might become irrelevant after the big announcement on Thursday.

But I see now that this message is actually more relevant than it was before.

To Aaron Rosser, TfL Cycle Superhighways project manager, and all at TfL who are involved with designing facilities for cycling:

Hello Aaron (and others at TfL),

We don’t know each other, but in my life as a transport campaigner I meet many people with whom I discuss transport issues. (Some of them even know my secret identity as the writer of this blog!)

Not too long ago at a road safety event I met someone who told me they’d had a good conversation with you about the Cycle Superhighways project. Don’t worry, my source was quite complimentary about you!

I’m told that you were very happy to discuss any aspect of the new CS designs, and that you’re genuinely enthusiastic about your work, which is great to hear. Of course, you have to work within restrictions beyond your control, from both inside TfL and out, which can limit your options. I was also told that you’re mildly embarrassed by the grandiose name for the project — it certainly gives you a lot to live up to!

Apparently, if you were given a blank cheque you’d go nuts with great cycling infrastructure all over London. I’m very pleased to hear this, if it’s true. You sound like a great person for the job.

But then one little morsel of information shocked and disappointed me: You haven’t been to study the infrastructure in the Netherlands?!

Please say it ain’t so! I really don’t see how anybody can be considered a suitable person to design cycling infrastructure if they haven’t studied the Netherlands, any more than someone could be considered an expert on Elvis Presley without ever having listened to his records.

Apparently, you’re planning a trip to Paris to see what’s going on there. This is good – Paris is a large city which has already begun responding to calls for better cycling infrastructure. But this, to stick with my Elvis analogy, is a bit like our supposed expert listening to the Pet Shop Boys’ version of You Were Always On My Mind without having heard Elvis’ recording.*

I’m sure TfL would like a trip to New York too – why not! As a London tax-payer, I endorse it. Please do visit New York, to see how they have transformed Times Square from a motorway into a pleasant space by removing motor traffic — then come home and do the same to Parliament Square and Piccadilly Circus. But visiting New York to study bike facilities is like listening to Gareth Gates’ version of Suspicious Minds instead of the definitive rendition.*

What I’m getting at is this: If you want the real deal, you’ve got to go to Graceland to see The King – by which I mean go to the Netherlands and see David Hembrow. I can’t recommend this guy highly enough. He’s had an enormous influence on the thinking of many UK cycle campaigners, many of them undergoing an epiphany which changed them from committed Vehicular Cyclists into dedicated Infrastructuralists (that is a word now!).

He’s had this effect in two ways. The first is his blog, A View From The Cycle Path, in which he calmly and clearly explains why Dutch infrastructure works so well. He deals with many of the myths and rumours about the Netherlands and shows why the country’s success can be replicated elsewhere. The blog has been hugely influential.

The cycling infrastructure movement in the UK would be nowhere near as strong as it is today — and I sincerely doubt that the Mayor would have been making any announcements about cycle paths — had it not been for David’s work.

Many dedicated people have been campaigning along these lines for years, some since the 1990s, but David’s blog showed thousands of us what good cycling infrastructure looks like, and how great it can be to live somewhere where cycling is a normal, every-day transport option for everyone.

The second way in which David has influenced many people is his Dutch cycling infrastructure study tours of Assen and Groningen, explaining how it all works and why it works — something which is difficult to fully understand unless you can see it in action, and see how everything joins up. Reading the blog is great, but the study tour gives you the real detail you’ll need if London’s investment in cycling infrastructure is to be spent wisely.

He is the right person to go to, because he was an active cycling campaigner in Cambridge for many years until he had his own ‘road to Damascus’ moment and emigrated to the Netherlands about five years ago. As a British cycling expert living in the world’s top cycling nation, he has a uniquely clear viewpoint which you are unlikely to find elsewhere. Like many cycle campaigners and urban planners, I have been on the tour and I can honestly say that it is time and money well-spent.**

I returned to London with a fresh set of eyes — I can see how the decades of poor design continue to harm the city, and how it could be massively improved. It would be a wise investment for TfL to send a team on a study tour with David.

Now, my source says that you’ve been provided with details of the study tour, but I’ve asked David and he says that nobody from TfL has been in touch. I have to ask: why? Is it too expensive for TfL to afford? Is the Netherlands not as glamorous as Paris?

You might think that a town such as Assen and a small city like Groningen have few lessons for London, but that would be a short-sighted view. Assen in the 1970s was just like many UK towns still are today, with streets full of parked and queued cars and “no space for cycling”, and yet it has been transformed into pleasant, safe, liveable place. With the London plans including the excellent concept of specific areas designed as “mini-Hollands” the lessons of Assen and Groningen are very relevant to London.

If you do want a big city experience with a wide river and skyscrapers, spend a day or two in Rotterdam. The conurbation stretches the equivalent of Ealing to Greenwich, and Holloway to Tooting. But this is merely a suggestion for further research, it is not a substitute for David’s thorough and information-packed three day tour.

If you’re going to do your best work then you really need to arrange a study tour with David. It’s a scandal that you hold this position and yet have never studied Dutch cycling infrastructure. That your bosses gave you the job with such a gaping hole in your CV, and haven’t even sent you to see the Netherlands, shows their lack of knowledge of what’s required in London over the next few years.

I’m not trying to be horrible to you here, I’m really not. I’m just trying to underline how much you’re missing out on. I think your own personal career, and London’s future, can benefit greatly from a few days with David in Assen and Groningen – so do it for yourself, but most of all, do it for Britain!

You can get from London to Rotterdam in under 4 hours with Eurostar via Brussels, or it’s a relaxed 9 hours or so by train then ferry, through the day or overnight, and there are flights too, of course. The Netherlands, which is #1 for cycling however you measure it, is right next door! There’s no excuse for not going to see it.

And if TfL’s really that skint, we’ll have a whip-round.

All the best,

S.C.

 

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*Okay, so Elvis wasn’t the first to sing these songs, but you know what I mean. One thing I’ve learned while writing this article is how many of Elvis’ songs were cover versions!

**I hope David Hembrow isn’t embarrassed by the flattery here, but I’m telling it like I see it. I have no financial interest in selling study tours! My only goal is to improve Britain’s streets and roads.

Give the people what they want (i.e. a path)

I’m going to go a bit off-topic here and rant about something which isn’t cycling. Anyway, walking is transport too, and it’s my blog so there! There’s also a bit about ramps.

I’m sure you all know what a desire line is – it’s the path between two points that people want to take. This often manifests itself in bare lines of earth in a field of grass, where many people have walked across it in the same place.

Sensible authorities will legitimise these paths by making them permanent. After all, people just want to walk from A to B, so why make them go the long way round for no good reason? Aren’t we meant to be encouraging more walking?

With that in mind, I present to you Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, more commonly known as the green area which surrounds the Imperial War Museum in London. There’s a clear desire line running across a large area of grass from one gate to another, and what’s the park’s solution?

That’ll stop ‘em!

A small fence.

How dare this woman take a direct route home? Hooligan!

That’s right, they’ve decided to punish people who choose to walk across the corner of the park by installing a low fence. Maybe the fence isn’t for that reason. It’s a fairly useless fence anyway as you can see, this woman has no problem stepping over it.

Update: After reading PaulM’s comment below (and having had a good night’s sleep) I see now that while the low fence presents no difficulties for most people, it’s an impenetrable barrier to those with mobility difficulties. This is pure discrimination. Some people can walk but find it hard to lift their legs much off the ground – why are they prevented from using the grass? This is unacceptable. (It’s not some 1970s relic either – the fence was added in late 2012.)

But why spend money discouraging people from walking that way? Just put a footpath in, it can’t cost much more than that fence! There’s plenty of grass, it’s hardly going to ruin the ambience of the park – the constant motor traffic on Kennington Road does that just fine.

I ain’t jubilant

Elsewhere in the capital, beside the London Eye, lies the bafflingly expensive Jubilee Gardens. (Strangely, for what is really just a small area of footpaths, grass and flowers, it even has its own website.)

The designers chose a path which ignores entirely the desire line of people walking.

The orange line is the desired walking line. The brown area is the rapidly-expanding flower-beds. (Photo: Bing Maps)

Lots of people cross the Thames using the footbridge, and then want to head south-east across Jubilee Gardens, but they’re not meant to do that.

First, there was a small flower-bed with a gap in it. Then the flower-bed was enlarged and the gap was closed. Then four benches were installed in the way. Then the flower-beds were enlarged again. And now…

Yeah, real classy.

They’re going to ridiculous levels to stop people walking in a straight line. (They’ve even tried shouting!) There’s about five pairs of these stripy-tape barriers in place, and of course they achieve nothing. There are already new bare patches at the side where the flowers have been walked on.

INSTALL A PATH! Even some stepping-stones! Or a grass area! Anything but this annoying “you can’t walk that way because we messed up with the design” rubbish. Just because whoever designed the park failed to take into account the concept of people passing through it, shouldn’t mean that everyone will forever meander around the long, looping footpaths.

They’re fighting a losing battle, like King Canute holding back the tide. Just install a footpath and be done with it. (It’ll only cost another couple of mil, surely?)

It’s not all bad

Anyway, lest it be thought that I hate everything and only ever complain, here’s something which I like very much, and it seems to me that it’s kind of the opposite of the “you shan’t walk here” mentality.

So good you don’t even notice it

I don’t use a wheelchair, and I don’t know anybody who does (so if you do and this bit’s all wrong then please let me know), but in my life as a transport geek I’m always looking out for how life is made difficult or easy for those who need to use wheels to get about. So often there’s a clunky lift (often used as a janitors’ closet) or a narrow ramp. But it looks to me that whoever designed the steps at the Southbank Centre really did a wonderful job.

To access the lower level of the Southbank Centre, where there’s shops and restaurants, you have to walk down the stairs. Except there’s also a ramp, but it’s not some patronising afterthought like many accessibility features I see.

It looks almost accidental

It requires no special skill to use, or even any thought at all. It’s just there, permanent, reliable and where it’s needed. It doesn’t ask wheelchair users to go around the back and press a button and wait, or round the side and down an afterthought of a ramp.

The ramp isn’t even noticeable to someone who doesn’t need to use it, it’s built into the steps so gracefully. The design recognises that people need to get from up here to down there (or vice-versa) and that while most people can use stairs, some might not be able to, and it caters for everyone beautifully. It’s also useful to parents with push-chairs, or tourists with wheeled luggage, of course. And it does all this without any fuss at all. Great infrastructure.

And finally…

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Normal subject will be resumed shortly. (I have something good brewing about cycle paths.)