dumbass LCC bike lane on Stratford High Street

[gavintc]

I think the bike lane on Southsea seafront is pretty stupid (narrow, risk of dooring and sucidal peds along the whole length, and I never use it going eastbound as you end up having to cross the road to rejoin the traffic anyway), but that one makes it look almost like a good idea.

I agree, the problem is that motorist expect you to be using it. I have had the odd toot from a following car.

 

[david k]

or waiting behind the bus?

Cities are founded on people walking. The LCC simply doesn't get that.

does it have to be one or the other? could we have both cycle lanes and pavements?

 

[dellzeqq]

does it have to be one or the other? could we have both cycle lanes and pavements?

who knows? All I see is crazy conflicts at junctions (there's another TfL video telling you how to turn right), a less human city and two and a half million quid down the Swanee. A bus lane, with a proper give way arrangement where the slip joins the High Street would have cost under a hundred grand.

Happily expenditure on this nonsense is capped at just under a billion!

 

[StuAff]

I have had the odd toot from a following car.

I've had more than a few. Plenty of them clearly haven't read the relevant sections of the Highway Code. Or are plain thick if they think a cyclist doing 25 mph in that lane is a good idea when there's a perfectly good road....

 

[stowie]

Can I say that, from what I have seen (tend to travel on it 3-4 times a week) that :

I quite like the idea?

The bus bypass thing looks a bit stupid and I am sure there are better ways to do it, but the rest of the cycle way actually crosses very few side roads which aren't light controlled.

I get the point about the environment for pedestrians. But LCC didn't fluck this up, the urban vandals planners did this when they decided to put a impassable junction at one end, a massive gyratory at the other and linked the two by destroying the high street for a three lane urban motorway. In an ideal world the whole lot of this would be ripped out to be replaced by a location that people want to linger, after all the multi-lane road is no longer necessary since the M11/A12 link road was built. But in an ideal world Mayor Robin Wells would not be left in charge of anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon and someone might have thought a bit harder about Olympic legacy than plonking a huge shopping centre next to a smaller, slightly shabbier shopping centre.

The cycle way is taking a lane from the road, and the pedestrian area is pretty wide. Unfortunately no-one seems to want to link either side of the road and I think the central mounds of brick and forlorn vegetation are there to stay.

I am prepared to keep an open mind as to whether the facility works until it is actually open for business. I have cycled through some of it when the cones were knocked over and it seemed much better than the old days of mixing it with speeding traffic.

 

[dellzeqq]

but Stowie..........you're a reasonable sort of chap. Consider this - they could have put a bus lane in for a twentieth of the price. All the really big (in terms of numbers) bike routes are along bus lanes - think London to Greenwich andLondon to Morden. They could even have done as Adrian suggests and put recessed bus stops in to allow cyclists to ride on by. And, while I think that several opportunities (given the horrendous amount of money spent so far) have been missed - there does, as you say need to be some connection between the north and south sides and it looks as if Newham have no intention have making that connection - this further separation of north from south actually makes that worse.

You're right about the Bow Roundabout, but I think that's a separate thing. The two-stage red lights, something along the lines of a super-ASL may make a difference, although I suspect that you and I would both welcome a (costly) reversion to some kind of crossroads.

Here's the killer. That part of the High Street is probably going to fall apart commercially when the new leases run out in (I'm guessing) five years time. We'll be left with the occasional convenience store and some coffee shops serving the people who live directly above - that's not a bad thing in itself, but, as you suggest, Westfield and a resurgent town centre are too much of a draw. Nothing interesting will survive on the north side and the south side will be deserted. The bike lane is going to contribute to that falling apart, and, in an odd kind of way, the LCC (it is their design) will have what they want when the pedestrians go.

I agree on the gyratory. It's beyond understanding. I wonder if there is a town in the UK that has thrived despite having a gyratory system (Kingston-upon-Thames comes to mind, but the town centre just upped and moved to the river).

Robin Wales? Is he the man who's kicking out the residents from Carpenters?

 

[Davidc]

It's mad.

More than half of cycling infrastructure being built in Britain is mad.

Sane ways of doing it do exist.

Will someone please buy all UK traffic designers and planners a ticket on the Harwich to Hook of Holland ferry and a couple of nights hotel room, to go and look at Rotterdam and The Hague? It'd cost less than £2.5M and be money much better spent.

 

[Frood42]

I used to cycle through here 4 times a day, but now due to the roadworks I have reduced that to 2 times a day.
I would wonder who thought it was a good idea to have three lanes on this road in the first place... a much worse decision than these bus stops.
It is such a pity that the rest of the CS2 is such a stinker, I do think this is somewhat an improvement, albeit with some concessions.

It is good to see that a lane has been taken away from motor vehicles in creating this cycle way, while I do not wholly agree with segregation, if this can help to slow the traffic just a little I am in favour, and there will be those who are less confident about going around a bus into an outside lane with fast moving traffic, so they can keep their momentum going. The only issue I foresee is ignorance from either pedestrians or cyclists as to who should give way.

At the times of day that I go through Stratford I cannot imagine this causing me too much of an issue, and with the footfall I see along this route I don't see that it will be too much of a problem for most.

I don't mind them, but I want to see these in action before I say nay or yay, and if it is wrong hopefully they will learn from it.

There are videos on YouTube showing this is how the Dutch do it, and there are quite a few people who like the idea of Dutch style infrastructure, so why not these?

 

[mike-LCC]

First, this new cycle track wasn't built by the London Cycling Campaign to our design, although we did successfully propose segregated tracks on this route instead of insisting anyone who cycles this way has to mix it with the thousands of fast-moving cars and lorries on Stratford High Street.

If it had been built to our design, the tracks would be wider with sloping kerbs to allow easier overtaking and give cyclists more use of the width; there would be more-direct and less-confusing right turns rather than those that Transport for London has designed (see video earlier in this thread); there'd be a safe route for cycling through Bow roundabout (minus the flyover), which would also benefit pedestrians, instead of the flawed 'early start' traffic lights there now; and there would be a safe, convenient and direct cycle route from Stratford (minus the one-way system) all the way into the City and on to the West End, giving hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in East London the choice to cycle to the city centre.

No, this new route isn't perfect, but we entirely support the principle of removing motor traffic lanes to provide protected space for cycling, separated from motor vehicles on major streets like Stratford High Street. This is necessary because 95% of Londoners wouldn't dream of cycling in this kind of motor traffic. And this is how we prevent avoidable deaths like those of Svitlana Tereschenko, Philippine de Gerin-Ricard and Brian Dorling - all of whom have lost their lives mixing it with motor traffic on Cycle Superhighway 2.

On the matter of the bus stop bypass, it's bizarre reading so many criticisms when this design (or something very close) is used in by the thousand all over the Netherlands with no complaints from or conflicts with pedestrians or bus users. Maybe you should try it first?

@dellzeqq says "cities are founded on people walking". This sounds very grand but it doesn't at all match the reality of Greater London, where we use a mix of walking, buses, tubes, trains, cycling and driving to get around. What's clear from the evidence is that those cities that encourage mass cycling (not just a few super-fit ultra-assertive road warriors) enjoy highly desirable health and economic benefits. LCC believes these benefits should be available to everyone, including children, less-confident cyclists, disabled people on adapted bikes, the elderly, *as well as* fast commuters - just as they are in Denmark and the Netherlands.

We believe that policies that encourage mass cycling are also likely to create greater levels of walking, as well as relieving congestion on roads and public transport. It's a gross misrepresentation to suggest LCC somehow wants this area to be devoid of walkers. On the contrary, evidence from cities like New York shows that encouraging cycle journeys is likely to generate wealth for adjacent businesses because so many more people are likely to stop and shop.

It's a shame to read negative comments here, especially since this route is even open yet. What is certain is that LCC has a mandate from a majority of our members to campaign for tried-and-tested Dutch-style cycling measures, as well as having the support of tens of thousands of Londoners who've signed our petitions and joined our protest rides calling for Dutch-style cycling measures on our streets.

 

[stowie]

but Stowie..........you're a reasonable sort of chap. Consider this - they could have put a bus lane in for a twentieth of the price. All the really big (in terms of numbers) bike routes are along bus lanes - think London to Greenwich andLondon to Morden. They could even have done as Adrian suggests and put recessed bus stops in to allow cyclists to ride on by. And, while I think that several opportunities (given the horrendous amount of money spent so far) have been missed - there does, as you say need to be some connection between the north and south sides and it looks as if Newham have no intention have making that connection - this further separation of north from south actually makes that worse.

You're right about the Bow Roundabout, but I think that's a separate thing. The two-stage red lights, something along the lines of a super-ASL may make a difference, although I suspect that you and I would both welcome a (costly) reversion to some kind of crossroads.

Here's the killer. That part of the High Street is probably going to fall apart commercially when the new leases run out in (I'm guessing) five years time. We'll be left with the occasional convenience store and some coffee shops serving the people who live directly above - that's not a bad thing in itself, but, as you suggest, Westfield and a resurgent town centre are too much of a draw. Nothing interesting will survive on the north side and the south side will be deserted. The bike lane is going to contribute to that falling apart, and, in an odd kind of way, the LCC (it is their design) will have what they want when the pedestrians go.

I agree on the gyratory. It's beyond understanding. I wonder if there is a town in the UK that has thrived despite having a gyratory system (Kingston-upon-Thames comes to mind, but the town centre just upped and moved to the river).

Robin Wales? Is he the man who's kicking out the residents from Carpenters?

I am pragmatic about these things. If Newham and TfL want to have a a streetscape that doesn't work at a human level and divide it with a no mans land of straggling plants and concrete, then no-one is likely to change their mind. What I do know is that the A11 is horrible to cycle on and, again if TfL et al. are not prepared to restrict motor vehicles then a separated space is good for me.

The bus lane thing is strange. It would seem to be a natural solution. Maybe it would have needed more than one lane to implement properly and it was deemed unfeasible because of this? The lanes on the road are somewhat narrow.

The sad thing about the high street is that the Olympics are such a missed opportunity to really change Stratford. Granted, with the huge increase in footfall it is more welcoming than in the bad old days when it was one of those few places in London where I felt unsafe, but it could have been so much more. The high street now has no human level. I have no issue with high rise buildings, but look at those on this road and there are many which have no frontage at ground level aside from fancy coloured wood slats over breeze block to hide the internal car parks. I fear you are right with the commercial space - the whole street is disjointed and unwelcoming and no-one is going to bother walking from the centre. I wonder if cycling may be its only hope - clearly drivers won't stop there on the way to the ample parking at Westfield, and walking is a bit too far, but if the connection to Bow area opens up then the journey is ideal cycling distance. Maybe the cycle path will help save the area? I am ever the optimist...

Oh, I misspelled Sir Robin Wales. And yes, he is the chap who, along with UCL, seemed very keen to shuffle along the residents of the carpenters estate to build some new student accommodation. I assume that the high rise Carpenters isn't in keeping with the brave new world imaginings of Newham council. He also had a huge scrap with the Queens road traders when he wanted to demolish the market to build "multi use retail and residential" (read flats and tescos) and a smaller covered market. The traders actually won in 2009 with Boris refusing permission. He also locked the Newham "woodcraft folk" out of a council meeting when they came to ask questions about walking and cycling provision in the borough. When you end up locking out the "woodcraft folk" I think you should start taking a good look at the way the council is run. Finally he was Mayor when Newham council moved to a huge glass building perched at the end of the docks (where transport by anything other than car is challenging) where they spent over £18M on refurbishment - a sum which was around 2/3 the total spent by every other London council on HQ refurbisment in three years.
He got his knighthood for services to local government.

 

[dellzeqq]

First, this new cycle track wasn't built by the London Cycling Campaign to our design, although we did successfully propose segregated tracks on this route instead of insisting anyone who cycles this way has to mix it with the thousands of fast-moving cars and lorries on Stratford High Street.

If it had been built to our design, the tracks would be wider with sloping kerbs to allow easier overtaking and give cyclists more use of the width; there would be more-direct and less-confusing right turns rather than those that Transport for London has designed (see video earlier in this thread); there'd be a safe route for cycling through Bow roundabout (minus the flyover), which would also benefit pedestrians, instead of the flawed 'early start' traffic lights there now; and there would be a safe, convenient and direct cycle route from Stratford (minus the one-way system) all the way into the City and on to the West End, giving hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in East London the choice to cycle to the city centre.

No, this new route isn't perfect, but we entirely support the principle of removing motor traffic lanes to provide protected space for cycling, separated from motor vehicles on major streets like Stratford High Street. This is necessary because 95% of Londoners wouldn't dream of cycling in this kind of motor traffic. And this is how we prevent avoidable deaths like those of Svitlana Tereschenko, Philippine de Gerin-Ricard and Brian Dorling - all of whom have lost their lives mixing it with motor traffic on Cycle Superhighway 2.

On the matter of the bus stop bypass, it's bizarre reading so many criticisms when this design (or something very close) is used in by the thousand all over the Netherlands with no complaints from or conflicts with pedestrians or bus users. Maybe you should try it first?

@dellzeqq says "cities are founded on people walking". This sounds very grand but it doesn't at all match the reality of Greater London, where we use a mix of walking, buses, tubes, trains, cycling and driving to get around. What's clear from the evidence is that those cities that encourage mass cycling (not just a few super-fit ultra-assertive road warriors) enjoy highly desirable health and economic benefits. LCC believes these benefits should be available to everyone, including children, less-confident cyclists, disabled people on adapted bikes, the elderly, *as well as* fast commuters - just as they are in Denmark and the Netherlands.

We believe that policies that encourage mass cycling are also likely to create greater levels of walking, as well as relieving congestion on roads and public transport. It's a gross misrepresentation to suggest LCC somehow wants this area to be devoid of walkers. On the contrary, evidence from cities like New York shows that encouraging cycle journeys is likely to generate wealth for adjacent businesses because so many more people are likely to stop and shop.

It's a shame to read negative comments here, especially since this route is even open yet. What is certain is that LCC has a mandate from a majority of our members to campaign for tried-and-tested Dutch-style cycling measures, as well as having the support of tens of thousands of Londoners who've signed our petitions and joined our protest rides calling for Dutch-style cycling measures on our streets.

the shroud waving is tasteless. You should give it up. You've consistently failed to assess the risk to cyclists in London, and you've consistently advocated supposed remedies that are measured by expenditure, and, conveniently, put the LCC at the fulcrum of that expenditure. You have become, in short, just another interest group making your way in the world.

As for the petitions - 45,000 is not such a big deal in a city where there are getting on for three quarters of a million regular cyclists. Indeed - you might as well have stencilled the words 'not very important' across the collective foreheads of London's cyclists. No mayoral candidate is going to quake before a paltry 1500 votes per borough, and there's bound to be at least one who will calculate the electoral benefit in promising to reduce expenditure on Andrew Gilligan's crazy dream. And, who knows, somebody might put two and two together and ask for a refund on the two hundred million quid that was blown on (entirely forgotten) LCN+

The snide comment about 'super-fit road warriors' is as foolish as it is predictable. The Cycling Superhighways and bus lanes are full of cyclists who one could not reasonably describe as 'super-fit' or 'any-kind-of-fit'.

That's the small stuff. The big stuff is probably not going to sink in, but I'll give it a go. London's strength is that people mix. They mix when they walk on the footpath. They mix when they take the bus and the tube. It's fair to say that cycling is much more convivial than driving a car, but slicing up public space, introducing another barrier to that mixing, assigning this bit or that bit to this or that little group isn't convivial - it's uncivilised. That's the bit you don't and won't get.

Now.... I entirely agree that three lanes each way is nuts, but the remedy suggested upstream, to, in effect, replicate Tooting and Clapham High Streets was to reduce the width and make a bus lane - a bus lane nine metres wide if need be. You could have a bit of parking, there's be space for cyclists to go round buses, there's be a footpath that wasn't quite so beset. It would have been the usual overlapping mish-mash that makes up cities rather than the 'drawn from twentythousand feet' coloured diagram so beloved of those that would tell us what to do. That, of course, doesn't tick the LCC's rhetorical box.

The one saving grace is that the money will run out pretty soon. Oh happy day!

 

[downfader]

They seem to cope in the Netherlands with it:
http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/n...and-bus-stops-a-response-to-transport-for-all

(although it slightly wider and less stop-start)

 

[Howard]

(although it slightly wider and less stop-start)

And it's in the Netherlands, not Stratford.

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

So for the sake of keeping a bus in the main stream of traffic, so it's got a better chance of moving off, cyclists have to sit around and wait for everyone, and get a purpose built pedestrian combat zone to boot.
Charming!

 

[downfader]

And it's in the Netherlands, not Stratford.

what would you all like in Stratford then? I'm sure some of you have access to pencil and paper and can sketch it out. Trouble is I often read a lot of moaning in this section of the forum with little in the way of solutions being proposed.