A quick, easy and cheap way to reduce the likelihood of bike theft

You can lock your frame and both wheels to Sheffield Stands but only the wheel to 'wheel-bender' stands. Why has the management of the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre left these theft-inviting racks in place, given there are now a large number of conveniently located and more secure Sheffield Stands? I think the shopping centre management are almost as responsible for the theft as the person who took advantage of their slackness to steal most of the bike. When will they remove them?

I would also like to know why the police and PCSOs who patrol the area haven't demanded the shopping centre's management remove them.

Obstructing safe streets

I have been meaning to write to Lambeth Council concerning parking at the mouth of the junction of Renfrew Road and Dugard Way. Most evenings and weekends the junction is blocked by cars, restricting pedestrian, wheelchair and push chair movement and creating a sight-line hazard for people on bikes. 

There need to be double yellow lines here - especially as this is the only non A-road link between two cells of quiet roads. It should be made safe for children to cycle around.

There is, normally, less of a problem Monday to Friday 8.30am to 6.30pm when the single yellow line explicitly prohibits parking and, crucially, wardens enforce it. However this morning the drivers of the two vans pictured had ignored the yellow lines and dropped kerbs. They were still there at lunchtime. Both had blue folders in the windows, the sign of a police vehicle. The drivers are presumably in the police section house on the road - hardly an emergency meriting such anti-social and hazardous parking.

Here's a reminder of Highway Code 243 (Apart from parking on the yellow line, wardens in London can issue a Penalty Charge Notice for blocking a lowered kerb).

DO NOT stop or park:
near a school entrance
anywhere you would prevent access for Emergency Services
at or near a bus or tram stop or taxi rank
on the approach to a level crossing/tramway crossing
opposite or within 10 metres (32 feet) of a junction, except in an authorised parking space
near the brow of a hill or hump bridge
opposite a traffic island or (if this would cause an obstruction) another parked vehicle
where you would force other traffic to enter a tram lane
where the kerb has been lowered to help wheelchair users and powered mobility vehicles

The police locally have form on ignoring parking rules for their own convenience.

Kate Hoey MP will attend Vauxhall Cross discussion on 9th December

Please be advised that the next public meeting of the Kennington, Oval, Vauxhall (KOV) Forum will take place on the 9th December 2014 at 7pm at the Carmelita Centre (Registration from 6:30pm).

The main item on the Agenda will be the 'Vauxhall Cross' latest developments and associated consultation (more information on http://www.kovforum.org.uk).

Kate Hoey MP will be attending this public meeting.

A full detail Agenda will be issued soon. In the meantime keep checking the KOV Forum website, Facebook and twitter for the latest updates.

Road Safety messengers have to change their spots

It was the easiest thing in the world for a Road Safety Officer to blag a pile of high viz landfill from a company that realised spending 3s 6d on tat is cheaper than spending proper money sorting out their drivers and vehicles, and it fulfilled their role as a cheap sop to politicians who couldn't care less for people walking and cycling.

But those days need to be put behind us. In London, at least, the active traveller  should absolutely not need to kowtow to the motorist.

Let's remind ourselves for the umpteenth time why:
1) 60% of London car journeys only have the driver in the car, squandering the capacity of valuable road space. It's a dumb way to move lots of people around, especially when half of all car journeys in London are under 3kms - a distance so easy to cycle or walk for the vast majority.

2) A third of men aged 35 to 65 are too fat to be able to see their penis. They need to build exercise into their daily routine, easiest done by travelling. (Apart from not being to see their best friend, they're more likely to develop diabetes, heart disease and cancer).

3) 6 out of 10 London households don't have a car, and getting on for half of outer London households don't either.

4) Cars pump out CO2 and exhaust emissions. It's bad for the planet and bad for us - there'll be 50,000 premature deaths due to poor air quality this year and each year we continue.

5) motor vehicles have a shudderingly high amount of kinetic energy compared to the pedestrian or cyclist, and a driver therefore has a hugely disproportionate likelihood to cause serious injury or death.

Okay, enough already. It's blindingly obvious that promoting walking and cycling is the way to go for urban trips, and we're not going to achieve that if we take every opportunity to portray cycling as an incredibly dangerous activity.

I mean, look at this recent image of training for riding on local streets, published in the Western Gazette - does it encourage parents to let their children cycle around their neighbourhood?


By all means take sensible measures to have cyclists use lights as nights. For example, like the Germans historically, you ensure lights are built into bicycles, with dynamo lighting, so they're always present, in the right place, and reliable.

Control the speeds and access of motor vehicles. Adopt the Dutch method of sustainable safety, based on the proven principal that a 21 year old male is a nutter for reasons well beyond their own control.

And focus your road safety attention on the vehicles with the greater kinetic energy.

And if you watch this you'll see why I went on this rant this evening. A really good beginning for change would be for the BBC and other media to agree a code of conduct that ensures road safety messages are not at the expense of promoting active travel.

If you want to read more I suggest you start with the Road Danger Reduction Forum

A very short blog on cycle proofing

The Cycling Delivery Plan published last week for consultation by the Department for Transport contains 13 mentions of ‘cycle proofing’

proof

pruːf/

adjective

1. 1.

   able to withstand something damaging; resistant.

Water proof - designed to hold off water

Cycle proof - designed to enable cyclists to get through.

Gibberish.

Calling Lambeth and beyond - your photos wanted

Cllr. Jenny Brathwaite, Lambeth's Cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainability, gave a powerful speech at yesterday's Cyclenation conference in our Town Hall.

She told the room full of cycling campaigners that she is not a cyclist and outlined a few of the reasons. They included
1. The images of cycling in the media are of sporty cycling or portray it as dangerous. There is no suggestion that cycling is an 'everyman, everyday' activity

.Photo from today's 'Health and Families' section of the Independent

Photo from yesterday's Western Gazette press article yesterday about training children to cycle on their local roads

2. The overwhelming message is 'You come onto the roads at your peril'.

Jenny reflected that, "like walking, cycling we learnt to do as children, but we give up on cycling" and was clear that, "We need to make cycling an everyday, mundane and safe activity. Lambeth has a major role to play in normalising cycling. Pedestrians and cyclists must be at the very heart of our borough".

She was clear also about the scale of the challenge, stating that "she had been taken aback by the number of residents who are so very attached to their cars."

A little later on Brian Deegan from TfL outlined the new London Cycling Design Standards. Like the Netherlands, segregation will be on roads with high volumes/speeds of motor traffic, but back streets will be shared by motor vehicles and bicycles.

On Saturday 29th November there will be a ‘Made in Lambeth’ event where a disparate bunch of people come together to design a website about cycling in Lambeth. There is no point in having the website stuffed full of photos like those above if Lambeth is to follow its cycling strategy to make:

Lambeth the most cycle-friendly borough in London where 1- 100 year olds feel safe enough to cycle.

Equally there's no point in stuffing a Lambeth website full of photos like the one below (from a recent Swindon Advertiser) when the reality is that the children cycling to school on their bikes are expected to mix with traffic.

So I'm on the search for photos of ordinary people in Lambeth - children, hand-cyclists, the elderly. The kinds of images I am looking for can be seen scrolling down here except that I am looking for the equivalent on motor-trafficked inner London streets.

I want photos of
-       People (especially children) making cycle trips on their own or with friends in inner London traffic with private cars and commercial vehicles such as taxis and delivery/trades vans.
-       Utility rather than leisure trips (Morning cycle to school time, shopping, commuting).
-       Different seasons and also at dusk/night and day, rain and sun.
-       The cyclists and drivers looking relaxed and the cyclist(s) generally in primary position (approx. centre of lane).
-       These cyclists in moving and queuing traffic.

 If you've got photos you can provide (ideally with permission to use as website content) please email them to team@lambeth.coop or tweet to @kenningtonpob

I've had a rummage through some of my photos and come up with these as indicative of the kind of cycling we should be representing on the website. What do you think?

Acid test time for Vauxhall, the Elephant and Castle, Superhighways and Quietways

"Lambeth will be the most cycle-friendly borough in London where 1- 100 year olds feel safe enough to cycle", Southwark wants "Stress free cycling for everyone" ....; and in 2012 Boris answered:

There are more road changes in this area being consulted on, or imminent, than you can shake a stick at.  Just look at this map: cycle superhighways in blue, Quietways in Green, Junction redesigns in black, the Vauxhall gyratory, and I'm sure there's more.

Alongside this, Southwark should have a 20mph limit on its roads within six months, while Lambeth is also on target to become a 20mph borough.

The acid test of these measures is whether they're done well enough for parents to encourage their children to cycle around this area - to school, to see their friends, to the South Bank, to Vauxhall City Farm, to the new swimming pool at Elephant and Castle; to Tate Britain and the Imperial War Museum, over the bridges to Westminster.

Some of the designs I've seen are, I think, good enough in parts to think that it will happen. And some frankly aren't yet. We know that one weak link in a route or a grid is likely to mean people won't let their children use it.

So it's absolutely crucial to respond to consultations demanding schemes that are so good that the designers will happily let their ten (or 100) year olds ride on them; and we've got to remind politicians of their policies and make sure they hold firm by them.

Here's a list of consultations I know of. Please get involved, with positive suggestions for improvements where you can, but at least take the time to simply demand that the final design is child as well as commuter friendly.

The consultation on changes to CS7 at the Kennington Road and Oval junctions has ended;
The consultation has ended for a Cycling Superhighway running north from the E&C over Blackfriars Bridge; The plans for the Elephant and Castle northern roundabout are out for a (maybe) final consultation;
Southwark have consulted on their section of the new Quietway from Waterloo to Greenwich;
Lambeth will (presumably) be consulting on their bit of the Quietway;
Funding has been secured via S106 money to improve the County Hall bit of Belvedere Road;
The Vauxhall CS5 (maybe) final consultation from Oval across Vauxhall Bridge has opened;
A consultation is just starting on the future of Westminster Bridge Road ;
The Westminster Bridge South and Lambeth Bridge South junctions are scheduled for redoing in 2016
Looking towards 2018, there'll be the redoing of Vauxhall Cross (a consultation on the principles for the abolition of the Vauxhall Gyratory has just opened) and the Waterloo Imax Roundabout.
Some of this forms part of the Inner London Grid, but there may be more.