Yes, Yes, Yes - Come on Lambeth, Lead the Charge!

On July 8th Lambeth's Cabinet vote on a potentially momentous document  - their Lambeth Cycling Strategy (PDF). The more you do to tell your local Ward Councillors that you'd like them to back it, and tell the Cabinet members that you'd like to back it, the more likely it is to go through. This is the time to email or tweet them - and feel free to contact our Cabinet too if you live outside Lambeth and want a benchmark to be set for your council to emulate.

For once a cycling strategy is proposed by a local borough that is not some mealy-mouthed back-burner type of document. This is one that inspires change, a future where citizens of all ages, genders and backgrounds in Lambeth can move around streets without fear of being knocked down by motor vehicles weighing ten, twenty or more times what a person weighs. This strategy responds to a truly egalitarian vision that recognises the value to residents of making Lambeth a fantastic place for all to cycle around.

The vision is that "Lambeth will be the most cycle-friendly borough in London, where 8 – 80 year olds feel safe enough to cycle."

One great thing about the strategy is that there is some real understanding of what that means. Like, for example:
Aim 7: Increase the number of children cycling and make cycling to school the norm.

Because if streets are really cycling friendly what primary school child would rather take the bus? And which secondary school child wouldn't love to cycle along the road chatting with their mates as they cycle side by side.

This is what happens in the Netherlands, and it needs to happen here.

Lambeth would appear, in the form of Council Leader Lib Peck and Cabinet Members Pete Robbins and Imogen Walker, supported by other Councillors such as Nigel Haselden, to have the desire to make real change happen.

And they are likely to do this fully aware that big changes to our road culture and layout will be needed.
Aim 4: Reduce through traffic on residential streets where appropriate

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for the day when the children from Archbishop Sumnner, Walnut Tree Walk, Johanna, Vauxhall, London Nautical, Lilian Baylis and all the other local schools are cycling around without fear of motor vehicles, along with their mums and grannies, grandads and dads, brothers and sisters.

Bring it on, Lambeth!

Today's road signage observations

Cycling in Erith today I was delighted by the abundance of signage and the clarity of the message .

These four signs are really clear 

(even if the last one is an unofficial adaptation of the sign in the Highway Code)

The following signs send a very clear message too:

The council have provided a cycle path you can use

here's a splendid off road cycle path.

You can't cycle here

and this is how how you get your bike into the cycle rack

 

Enterprising scrap metal merchant with portable angle grinder sought

I've been meaning to write this post for months, since I started using the almost splendid off-road link that Camden built, following lots of persuasion by Camden Cyclists, between Agar Grove and Camley Street:

Wide cycle paths each way, separate pedestrian path, no motor vehicles. Splendid, but at each end you're faced with these almost impassable chicanes. Surely a couple of bollards would have sufficed? In the meantime could someone please take an angle grinder to at least a couple of fencing sections at each end.

Another example of wanton obstruction of an otherwise great cycle route can be found near Dartford where there's an almost splendid off road link to Crayford Station - but which you can't use without having to dismount and try to battle your bike through

I can't see the Dutch doing this and wonder why the local planners or highway engineers countenanced such a stupid thing here. Angle grinder please.

I was reminded of the gate above today when I used the segregated cycle path that runs alongside the unforgiving A1055 Watermead Way towards the Tottenham Hale gyratory, but first I negotiated this obstacle that needs the attention of an angle grinder

Anyway, I reached the end of the segregated track and faced this obstacle:

 and discovered that my handlebars were too high to fit through the cycle bit. I tried every which way to get out and in the end had to call out to a passer by and ask her if she'd take the bicycle off me as I passed it over the ironwork and lower it to the ground. I won't be using that bit of segregated route again until someone with an angle grinder has visited

A couple of days I came across this dangerous looking cycle farcility entering Lynton Road in Haringey and decided to take a photo of it

 Then a bloke on a bike came past and I decided to take a photo of him weaving through the chicane, but he crashed into it, so that's off my route until someone's used an angle grinder

And, finally, good advice to 'lock the frame and both wheels to the stand' at Wood Green Shopping Centre

only with two D-locks you can't on these particular stands, so let's get these cut down too

Postscript
Just after I posted this Anders Swanson tweeted the following photo he'd taken of a presentation by Ida Sabelis at this year's Velo-City conference. Wouldn't it be great if cycle facility engineers were required to use the images in the bottom half of the photo as the bike logos painted on the ground. That should stop them from installing such barking mad barriers as the examples above.

Progress?

In 1978 you may have received the following postcard having passed your cycling proficiency

  This is how cyclists were represented in 1950

Here's an early 'Streets are for People' Road Danger Reduction promotion

This stamp was issued in Austria in 1971 making it clear that the drivers need to watch out for children

and this iss the image our Department for Transport recently used in a publication 

showing how they think people should dress to be safe cycling on the roads today. Oh dear.

Child friendly cycle routes before construction lorries

I was horrified to read one of the reasons that both the British Film Institute and Southbank Centre have cited in their objections to a planning application (no 13/01797/FUL) being made for a further Barclays Hire Docking Station under Waterloo Bridge.

While both organisations state they are happy having bikes in the area, the BFI states,

6. There are already local stakeholder concerns about the increase in vehicle traffic by the major developments along Belvedere Road / Upper Ground over the next 5 years and that the TfL desire to increase docking stations on "quiet" roads is not suitable for this location as it will become very busy with construction traffic which poses a higher risk to cyclists.

and the Southbank Centre states,

10. Finally the general issue of locations of future docking stations/ expansions should be looked at firstly through the Spine route project for this area. Belvedere road will be a main construction road for the next few years so the rational that they want to increase availability in "quiet" streets really does not apply.

This is Sustrans National Cycle Network Route 4 that we're talking about. It should be a fantastic route running alongside the river away from the pedestrian throng of the river frontage. There are major A roads with no or dire cycle facilities the next road back (York Road / Stamford Street) so it's the only sensible option.

It surely cannot be accepted that, at a time when the importance of active travel is so clear and the support for cycling so strong within the council, this National Cycle Network route can be treated in such a cavalier way.

I hope there's a sensible plan to allow safe cycling for 8-80 year olds in the South Bank area and that the means of construction works within these parameters. The Dutch can do it, so I'm sure we can too.

Watch this space.

Please pop an e-postcard to Lambeth

Lambeth is asking people to fill out this e-postcard to help them spend substantial amounts of money by next Spring to improve our streets. It's very quick and easy to do.

My suggestions on things to check for on your street, and suggestions you can make, are:

Rat-running traffic

Suggest filtered road closure so that residential traffic and visitors can access their homes/businesses but other drivers cannot use your street as a cut through to another area. Pedestrians and cyclists will continue to be able to make their way through.

Good examples of this in SE11 include
i, The filtered closure at the Kennington Park Road end of Cleaver Square
ii. the filtered closure at the top end of Sullivan Road at the junction with Brook Drive, making the enclave of streets around Walcot Square and St Mary's Gardens tranquil and pleasant with little traffic and low speeds, while allowing children, for example, to cycle through the barrier to the local primary thus avoiding having to use an A road.

Speed of Traffic
Ask for 20mph speed limit. Several boroughs are setting 20mph, rather than 30mph, as the default speed limit, raised only on certain streets where it is deemed reasonable. Lambeth hasn't moved to that yet, so the more people who ask for their streets to become 20mph streets the better.

If you live on a major road you can ask for cycle lanes to be put in, allowing children to make their way around by bike (tweaked photo of Baylis Road from this fab blog)

Cycle Parking

Fed up with visitors having to drag their bikes into your hall, or having to keep your own bike indoors? Is it easier to park a car than a bicycle? Ask for cycle stands or residential cycle parking to be installed. You should emphasise if there's nowhere you can even informally park your bike:

Alley that would mean you needn't have to use a busy road or a long route

 Ask for it to become shared use, with signage emphasising pedestrian priority, but considerate cycling permitted. Also ask for a dropped kerb to be installed, such as the new one in Wincott Street:

Barriers that are inconvenient and futile

Ask for these to be removed with Pedestrian Priority signs in their place and, if needed, rumble strips that deter cyclists from maintaining too high a speed.

Banned entry or turns for cyclists

Lambeth is making many streets two-way for cyclists that are one-way for motorists. A simple 'except cycles' sign can be added to banned turns such as that shown above.

Misleading or lacking signage

A chance to flag up signs or road markings that need fixing, removing, or are needed.

Inappropriate parking or loading

Ask for No Parking and/or No Loading lines and signs

Lack of greenery
The focus of road engineering and design for the past fifty years has been on getting as much motor traffic using them as possible. This is changing and allows our streets to be reclaimed as pleasant spaces while still permitting necessary motor traffic

. There's no way the budget will stretch to doing an Isabel Street to Van Gogh Walk transformation for every street but planting trees in existing tree pits or establishing some other form of greenery should be feasible.

Making soft flesh and heavy metal mix on a race-track

This was the scene an hour or so after a bus and a cyclist collided on Kennington Park Road, Cycling Superhighway 7 towards Clapham/Brixton, at the bottom of Kennington Road this morning

 and this was how the bike shed looked at the nearby Lilian Baylis Technology (secondary) School on a sunny school day last week

 and here is the Lambeth Cycle Conference held on Saturday with lots of cyclists, three Lambeth Cabinet Members and a fourth Councillor, and staff from Lambeth and one from TfL but no head teachers, public health officials, police officers, town centre managers, or commercial driver representatives, discussing 'How to make Lambeth a place where 8-80 year olds choose to cycle.'

and here is the poster that was put on a bus stop by Made in Lambeth, who spent the weekend asking how we go about 'Creating the street of the future', for people to write on

and here is what a bus driver wrote

and this is what a person tweeted this morning
Just had to try to lift the 333 off a cyclist they'd hit on Kennington Road. Blood running cold.

and this is what a person asked on a forum
What colour bike Ed? I cannot get the Mrs to answer her phone.

and this is what they do in the Netherlands at a T-junction, like the one where the cyclist was in a collision today, so cyclists aged 8-80 aren't in the same place as buses or lorries or cars

and yes, there is enough space here to do as the Dutch do

and I hope both the cyclist and the driver, and the people who helped, recover from the collision soon, but above all, I hope that our politicians and engineers will look at what the Dutch have achieved and ask ourselves why we are not doing here what works so well there - and that TfL make changes bloody soon because EVERYONE WHO CYCLES HERE KNOWS JUST HOW SHIT THIS URBAN RACE-WAY SECTION OF ROAD IS AND HAVE BEEN SAYING SO FOR YEARS.

(and in the meantime, I'd like to know whether all 333 bus drivers have undertaken Transport for London's Safe Urban Driving Course that includes on-road cycle training, and if not, why not.)