dumbass LCC bike lane on Stratford High Street

[Flying Dodo]

The problem here is that little is being done to remove the motoring bullies from the road, and little will be done while such a large number still use their motor car.

In everything, that seems to be the key thing. And that's been totally overlooked/ignored/not considered by the planners. Spend umpteen millions of pounds forcing cyclists off the roads rather than address the real problem of driver education, and roads fit for all.

 

[Frood42]

It's the first bit to be done to this standard, so right now it's fair to say it's not a network.

TBH that whole area of town is such a building-site at the moment, hard to say what'll be there in a few years.

Why would you go around the roundabout to get to the Lee Valley Way from the East? As things currently stand I'd get on to the pavement at the SE corner of the roundabout & go south along the side of the sliproad for about 50m to the access gate. (Don't think you're allowed to cycle on the slip roads anyway? Damned if you do & damned if you don't).

The consultations they did at the beginning of this year suggested some sort of contraflow at the Stratford gyratory for cyclists headed W<=>E (not much use for getting in and out of Westfield, admittedly), has that gone in yet?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview?hl=en#!q=bow flyover&data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-0.013437!3d51.529804!2m2!1f227.2!2f71.66!4f75!2m7!1e1!2m2!1szsvOUKrxigtBH-ab1PjfHQ!2e0!5m2!1szsvOUKrxigtBH-ab1PjfHQ!2e0!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x48761d4461a4130b:0x9e6c744e033a23ec!3m8!1m3!1d399559!2d-0.0881897!3d51.4893095!3m2!1i1920!2i965!4f13.1!4m2!3d51.529686!4d-0.014828&fid=5

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview?hl=en#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-0.013906!3d51.529483!2m2!1f309.19!2f75.85!4f75!2m7!1e1!2m2!1sFO7a5Dpw8yRT3TjxeQKdwg!2e0!5m2!1sFO7a5Dpw8yRT3TjxeQKdwg!2e0!4m41!3m23!1m7!1sHome!3m2!3d51.5940064!4d0.0302048!4sHome!5e1!6e3!1m5!1sMcDonald's 4 Payne Rd!2s0x48761d4461a4130b:0x9e6c744e033a23ec!3m2!3d51.529686!4d-0.014828!3m8!1m3!1d390!2d-0.013698!3d51.529554!3m2!1i1920!2i965!4f13.1!5m16!2m15!1m14!1s0x48761d4461a4130b:0x9e6c744e033a23ec!2sbow flyover!3m8!1m3!1d399559!2d-0.0881897!3d51.4893095!3m2!1i1920!2i965!4f13.1!4m2!3d51.529686!4d-0.014828&fid=0i5

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview?hl=en#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-0.014428!3d51.529697!2m2!1f2.9!2f77.25!4f75!2m7!1e1!2m2!1sfHYwXarYn8jYTJilkCo3Yg!2e0!5m2!1sfHYwXarYn8jYTJilkCo3Yg!2e0!4m41!3m23!1m7!1sHome!3m2!3d51.5940064!4d0.0302048!4sHome!5e1!6e3!1m5!1sMcDonald's 4 Payne Rd!2s0x48761d4461a4130b:0x9e6c744e033a23ec!3m2!3d51.529686!4d-0.014828!3m8!1m3!1d390!2d-0.013698!3d51.529554!3m2!1i1920!2i965!4f13.1!5m16!2m15!1m14!1s0x48761d4461a4130b:0x9e6c744e033a23ec!2sbow flyover!3m8!1m3!1d399559!2d-0.0881897!3d51.4893095!3m2!1i1920!2i965!4f13.1!4m2!3d51.529686!4d-0.014828&fid=0i5

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview?hl=en#!q=bow flyover&data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-0.014382!3d51.530002!2m2!1f25.82!2f75.16!4f75!2m7!1e1!2m2!1ss7pq2kLRG1zDP4XrxIzWRg!2e0!5m2!1ss7pq2kLRG1zDP4XrxIzWRg!2e0!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x48761d4461a4130b:0x9e6c744e033a23ec!3m8!1m3!1d399559!2d-0.0881897!3d51.4893095!3m2!1i1920!2i965!4f13.1!4m2!3d51.529686!4d-0.014828&fid=5

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview?hl=en#!q=bow flyover&data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-0.013775!3d51.529969!2m2!1f275.63!2f85.06!4f15!2m7!1e1!2m2!1s8zGrQcQ4qAHzGBdf8vElfQ!2e0!5m2!1s8zGrQcQ4qAHzGBdf8vElfQ!2e0!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x48761d4461a4130b:0x9e6c744e033a23ec!3m8!1m3!1d399559!2d-0.0881897!3d51.4893095!3m2!1i1920!2i965!4f13.1!4m2!3d51.529686!4d-0.014828&fid=5


That is the way I know, and no issues before now, but now I have concerns, hopefully unfounded, and as far as I know it is all shared space...

 

[Frood42]

not aware of any contraflow, as you say, still a mess around there...

 

[Flying Dodo]

And here's some video, courtesy of the LCC. So now, thanks to them, you can't cycle in a straight line any more, you're expected to slow down, swerve left, avoid people steeping across to get to the bus, and then swerve right again. And hope someone else isn't trying to overtake you. On the plus side, it should hone your skills for any budding skiers amongst us.

The most telling bit about the video is right at the start, when he's dropping off the flyover. In the past you could go straight on, confident that the traffic merging from the left would (normally) give way, as you had right of way. Now, you have to halt on the edge, waiting for a gap, so that you can scoot across into the access point for the blue lane, which is then covered by a kerb for quite a long stretch until another gap.

Marvellous.

 

[glenn forger]

blimey, that's dangerous.

 

[stowie]

And here's some video, courtesy of the LCC. So now, thanks to them, you can't cycle in a straight line any more, you're expected to slow down, swerve left, avoid people steeping across to get to the bus, and then swerve right again. And hope someone else isn't trying to overtake you. On the plus side, it should hone your skills for any budding skiers amongst us.

The most telling bit about the video is right at the start, when he's dropping off the flyover. In the past you could go straight on, confident that the traffic merging from the left would (normally) give way, as you had right of way. Now, you have to halt on the edge, waiting for a gap, so that you can scoot across into the access point for the blue lane, which is then covered by a kerb for quite a long stretch until another gap.

Marvellous.

I cycled this today. I must admit I used the bow roundabout so was on the CS2 already. I actual fact I had some problems because the Bow roundabout was so stacked with traffic that the entrance eastbound was blocked by queuing cars and I had to go around the outside for the raised section.

I am probably going to get annoyed posts for this, but I thought the new lane is not bad at all. There are some interesting difference between the video posted above and my experience in that the traffic was queuing all the way back to the slip road and so cyclists coming over the flyover could easily move left onto the CS2 withotu having to wait for fast moving slip road traffic. What the cyclist did in the video seems a bit stupid frankly. The last place I would want to wait is there, better to carry on down the road and there is a very large gap at the first junction. But I do think a enlarging the gap just past the slip road would be a better idea.

I cycled all the way down the A11, and because of the queuing traffic it was far faster than filtering on the road. The path was wide enough to easily overtake (and in my case, be overtaken) which was surprising as initially I thought it was too narrow. The bus lane bypass does narrow and jink sideways but actually cycling it, it felt fine to me. The narrowing is, I suspect to slow down cyclists to single file, and it worked. The cyclist in front of me had a pedestrian who crossed without looking and the speeds were slow enough for the cyclist to stop in plenty of time. We filter through traffic where pedestrians are crossing and our sight lines are compromised all the time and this isn't as difficult.

Bad points was that there was a pedestrian crossing which was confusing enough for me to accidently jump the light (cycle lights at head height are used in Europe, but why not here?) and the facility has done nothing to slow down traffic once it got free of the queue. Also the right turn into Rick Roberts way looks a bit of a dogs dinner - however it seems from the signs that general traffic cannot turn right here now so it might be an advantage to have the odd left then left again system.

I can see that left turning conflict could be an issue. When I rode the old road I kept a strong primary but got cut up on occasion anyway and saw many cyclists who didn't take such a strong line get cut up horribly regularly. I hope that the separation will make drivers think about cycles before turning left.

All this said, I understand Dell's points about the system. In an ideal world this road would be a proper high street with high pedestrian connectivity either side, 20mph car speeds with single lanes each way and nice bus lanes which would facilitate buses and cyclists. But this seems a vision too far for anyone in charge of these things, and from a selfish cyclist point of view I like the segregation from the A11 if they are going to insist on keeping it a miserable urban motorway.

Now we need to have Bow junction changed to a proper cross roads with pedestrian and cycle priority on all legs....

 

[Dan B]

Nice to see they've thought about surface drainage, though

 

[mustang1]

There was a thread about this a while ago. Despite the stupidity I was quite cynical at the time and believed that people were daft enough to actually build it. How long till the first li'l ol' lady with her shopping steps off bus straight into the path of a cyclist moving at fair speed.

There was a thread about this a while ago. Despite the stupidity I was quite cynical at the time and believed that people were daft enough to actually build it. How long till the first li'l ol' lady with her shopping steps off bus straight into the path of a cyclist moving at fair speed.

We may agree or disagree with the bypass but it looks like it's here to stay. So on that point, better to slow down around the bypass area. I ride daily on a bike path/footpath and whenever I see a bus about to pull up, or already pulled up, I slow right down. There are also works-entrances where, again, I slow down. Not at crawling pace, but I ease off the pedals and dab the brakes.

Having this bypass has the advantage that you can either ride slowish on the bike path, or faster on the road. I think this bike path is aimed somewhat at Boris Bikes (the slowest thing I've ever ridden).

 

[martint235]

We may agree or disagree with the bypass but it looks like it's here to stay. So on that point, better to slow down around the bypass area. I ride daily on a bike path/footpath and whenever I see a bus about to pull up, or already pulled up, I slow right down. There are also works-entrances where, again, I slow down. Not at crawling pace, but I ease off the pedals and dab the brakes.

Having this bypass has the advantage that you can either ride slowish on the bike path, or faster on the road. I think this bike path is aimed somewhat at Boris Bikes (the slowest thing I've ever ridden).

I'd like to think I'm fairly experienced at this cycling lark and if I was forced to use the bypass I'd be at crawling pace as there are few things more unpredictable than a pedestrian. However given the choice I'll still be out in the traffic at speed.

My worry still stands and particularly as you mention it, around Boris bikes. Usually ridden, albeit not particularly quickly, by someone trying to get somewhere (meeting perhaps, mind elsewhere preparing comments or speech). Plus they weigh a fair bit. Pedestrian stepping in front of one isn't going to end well.

 

[Frood42]

I rode this the other night west to east.
While it was nice to have a bit of road to myself, yet again I am having to battle pedestrians (guy with a suitcase walking in it, and not even on a shared path bit), and am being slowed down by the bus bypasses. Let alone trying to get into the damn thing from the flyover.

Did they do any research, at all?
Do they not know that alot of cyclists go over the Flyover?
I go over the flyover as it is alot easier than trying to ride through a car park, which is all the CS2 is around that area (as shown by the Addison Lee numpty).

Looking at the video it is also harder to go over the Flyover East to West, and they have not even shown the terrible head start traffic lights on the roundabout.

The bus bypasses aren't bad, but yet again we are having to go around obstacles and we are not being given the direct route.

Another attempt to get people on bikes off the road... it seems motor vehicles have priority...

Sorry, but I really don't see how this one small section will really increase numbers all that much... and where I can I will be avoiding the bus bypasses...

I really hope people prove me wrong and we do see an increase, but as far as I can see, it starts nowhere and goes nowhere of interest to those who are local, and the infrastructure for cycles at the only destination, Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, is frankly crap.

 

[dellzeqq]

I wouldn't commute on the Wandle Path for sure, nevertheless I don't see the £1.3m on it as a waste. I wouldn't go for a sunday ramble with the family on Garratt Lane either .

well, let's just think this thing through

1. prior to 2008 the Wandle Path is semi-overgrown in places and has poor signage. The bridges are ok. My friend Graham commutes on it (outward in the morning and inward in the evening and doesn't see anybody coming the other way. Some leisure use on the weekends
2. The TfL Greenways Committee supports a £1.3M revamp. The path is widened and totally silly (as in treacherous when wet) metal mesh bridges are put in to encourage pondweed growth under the bridges.
3. No change in traffic.

Now I call that a complete and total waste of money. Next!

 

[dellzeqq]

That's something TfL & LCC have been looking at as part of the junction review process - and some of them are indeed being fixed. Vauxhall, Elephant, Old Street, Aldgate all likely to get somewhat better over the next few years (jury still very much out as to how much, mind you), .

one can admire the intention - but the LCC campaigned for the cycle paths around and through the Vauxhall Gyratory that nobody uses.

The basic problem is this. These are busy junctions in or near the city centre. If one were to eliminate all cars from them tomorrow they'd still be busy junctions. Indeed, it's impossible to conceive of a city without busy junctions. So, yes, they need work, but that work should be about pacifying traffic and rescuing some kind of sense of place. That's not impossible - Shoreditch would be a decent model, and that, if you recall, is about simplification rather than complication.

 

[dellzeqq]

Stowie - I'm sure that the lane is comfortable for the occasional cyclist wandering along in splendid isolation, but consider this....

If the intention is 'mass cycling' then the lane is even more dumbass than I took it for. It will never, ever carry the same number of bicycles as CS7. Cyclists swan down the A3 (one of the principal roads leaving London for the south) in such numbers that we have, unbelievably, congestion across a wide bus lane. Put the same number of bikes in the Stratford High Street 'drain' and they'd all come to a complete stop.

Worse - if, by some miracle, the LCC devised a lane that carried CS7 stylee volumes of cyclists, then any bus stop on the road side of the lane would be, well, horrible. Imagine a bus stop in the middle of Clapham High Road, with pedestrians dashing across the bike lane to avoid falling under the wheels of the two-wheeled hordes. Imagine the mash-up that would attend every bus disgorging twenty passengers at a stop. Imagine the pushchair pile-ups. Put yourself in the position of a wheelchair user.

This lane is not a serious attempt to provide for 'mass cycling'. It's a symbol, a rhetorical advice, a means of saying 'we're spending a fortune on cycling, aren't we the bees knees?' It is, to repeat, a little rus in urbe fantasy, for the perfect LCC member to wander lonely as a cloud, unworried by the material considerations that attend and enliven city life.

We're always being told to 'go to the Continent and see how wonderful it is'. Assorted FNRttCers took themselves off to Belgium this year and rode along the cycle path that runs between parked cars, bus stops and the footpath along the A9. It was pants. Ten miles of this nonsense made your head hurt. And that was at two in the morning.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

My DD is cancelled.

from whom will you be purchasing your 3rd party insurance in future?

 

[SW19cam]

If the intention is 'mass cycling' then the lane is even more dumbass than I took it for. It will never, ever carry the same number of bicycles as CS7. Cyclists swan down the A3 (one of the principal roads leaving London for the south) in such numbers that we have, unbelievably, congestion across a wide bus lane. Put the same number of bikes in the Stratford High Street 'drain' and they'd all come to a complete stop.

< This.

Except, let’s not pretend it’s a future problem. There are already a good number of us travelling down Stratford Highstreet twice a day. 6 months ago we had a large lane, which we shared with the occasional bus. We could overtake each other safely.

Now we have a constrained segregated path, which I’ve seen people boast is 2.3m wide. Even at 2.3m you’re pushing a safe overtake (Unless it’s your mate in front), and it gets much less wide – 2m? (And then of course c.1m at the bus bypasses).

Segregation is only good when it improves the quality of the cycle, and so far it’s bringing about as many downsides as it does upsides. I dread to think how it’s going to be to cycle it next summer – i.e. when the fair weather cyclists return. As for the future....

...Let’s wait and see (after all, we have no choice now it has been built).